Washington D.C., Apr 30, 2011 / 16:02 pm
A U.S. court of appeals panel has said the U.S. government can use federal funding for embryonic stem cell research. The decision reverses a judge’s injunction last year, but does not end the original legal challenge.
In a 2-1 decision, the court said that opponents of taxpayer funding for the research are not likely to succeed in a lawsuit to stop it and so funding may continue. However, the original lawsuit can still proceed before U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth.
The ruling reverses Judge Lamberth’s August 2010 decision which said the research likely violates the 1996 Dickey-Wicker Amendment that bans funding the destruction of human embryos.
Private money has been used to destroy the embryos, whose cells can reproduce in lab dishes indefinitely, Fox News reports. The Obama administration has issued rules permitting taxpayer dollars to work on these cell lines.