Scientists attack court ruling against Obama's stem cell policy

[IndianaGreen]

An activist rightwint judge will cause a brain drain of scientists leaving America to freer countries where they can do their research.

Scientists attack court ruling against Obama's stem cell policy

Federal judge blocks embryo research funding in surprise blow for President

By David Usborne, US Editor

Wednesday, 25 August 2010

A judge has overturned a decision by Barack Obama to relax rules on funding US government research using human embryonic stem cells which promises to revolutionise medical science in the 21st Century.

Scientists yesterday described the judge's ruling as "an astounding blow to American biomedical research" that threw into immediate doubt tens of millions of dollars in federal funding to support research that holds out the promise of new treatments for ailments ranging from heart disease to paralysis. President Obama last year eased the limits on research placed by his predecessor, George W Bush. The judge's ruling overturning the decision appalled many leaders of the scientific community but cheered right-to-life conservatives.

"It will be incredibly disruptive," said Sean Tipton of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine yesterday. But Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council welcomed it as a "stinging rebuke to the Obama administration and its attempt to circumvent sound science and federal law".

The surprise intervention is a reminder of the still unresolved tug-of-war in the US between a medical community that is anxious to push the frontiers of stem cell research and conservative activists who have moral and religious objections to any work that tampers with "human life". As such it is only barely removed from the more familiar and equally emotionally charged debate about abortion.

District Judge Royce Lamberth, who was appointed by President Ronald Reagan, based his ruling on a 1996 law passed by Congress that explicitly banned the use of federal dollars for research involving the destruction of human embryos. In 2001, Mr Bush set his own course, making funding available only to 21 colonies of embryonic stem cells already in existence.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/scientists-attack-court-ruling-against-obamas-stem-cell-policy-2061176.html

[seattleblue]

1. Too bad these scientists did absolutely nothing to try and get the law changed.

Whoever wrote this article does not know anything about the case. The judge ruled against the plaintiffs in this case originally. He said the doctors suing had no right to. They then appealed to the Court of Appeals and they overturned the judge's ruling saying the plaintiffs had a right to sue. The judge then had to apply the law which is on the books and grant the injunction. He had no choice or the Court of Appeals would have overturned him again.

This "activist right wing judge" as the OP calls him stood up to the Bush administration and their attempts to wiretap Americans using the FISA court. The judge was then head of the FISA court and John Ashcroft got him thrown off of it because he stood up to the Bush bull shit. The OP was not calling him a right wing activist then. I wonder why?

The Court of Appeals tossed this judge off of suits that Native Americans were bring against Interior Department policies because the judge called the actions of the Interior department racist. This was in 2006. The OP was not calling that right wing activism then. I wonder why?