Stem cell bill may be stalled in US Senate

Action on the bill to increase funding for embryonic stem cell research and to expand the number of embryonic stem cell lines available seemed to have stalled with only days left before the US Senate began its August vacation. The House of Representatives passed the bill in May challenging George Bush, who has limited federal funding to the 22 stem cell lines in existence on 9 August 2001. Scientists say that few of these lines remain and that all may be contaminated (BMJ 2005;330:214).

The bill, passed by the House of Representatives and awaiting a Senate vote before, normally, being signed into law by the president, would fund research on thousands of frozen embryos left over after fertility treatment and voluntarily donated by the couples (BMJ 2005;330:1285).

President Bush has said that he would veto the bill, something he has never done before. Vetoing the bill would offend many scientists, prominent lay people, and most US citizens, who believe that stem cell research offers opportunities to treat or cure Parkinson's disease, diabetes, and spinal cord injury and have spoken in favour of the bill. The American Academy of Neurology supports the bill.

A presidential veto can be over-ridden by a two thirds vote in both houses, but there may not be enough votes to do so in the Senate.

The Senate majority leader, Republican Bill Frist, has not yet brought the bill to the Senate floor for a vote. Six other stem cell bills are waiting for a Senate vote, many of which suggest approaches to creating embryonic stem cells that would not destroy early human embryos. They would fund research on extracting stem cells from embryos that have stopped developing, reprogramming adult stem cells to behave like embryonic stem cells, and using embryos whose genes have been scrambled so that they cannot grow into a human being.

Paediatric researcher George Daley of Children's Hospital, Boston, said, in Senate hearings, “These are not true alternatives, only speculative ideas,” according to the national newspaper USA Today (www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2005-07-12-senate-stem_x.htm).

In an opinion piece, Dr Daley and two other eminent stem cell researchers wrote, “We urge Congress to deal with this matter on its scientific merits without raising a laundry list of other speculative scientific approaches that serve only to confuse the issue.” (Washington Post 2005 July 19, p A21).

Larry Soler, vice president for government relations at the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, which strongly supports stem cell research, told the BMJ that Dr Frist was negotiating to get all 100 senators to agree on how the bills would be debated and to agree that a stem cell bill must be passed by 60 votes, rather than the usual simple majority.

The New York Times reported that opponents of the bill passed by the House of Representatives want to spare Mr Bush from having to veto a bill that has broad public support. By proposing alternatives they are “peeling off support from the original bill,” the New York Times said. “It is death by 1000 cuts,” said Representative Michael Castle (Republican, Delaware), who was a leading sponsor of the bill (New York Times 2005 July 23, A8).

If the bill passed by the House of Representives favouring stem cell research is passed by the Senate, as now seems less likely, Mr Bush could veto it or just not sign it, which would allow the bill to expire while the Senate is in recess.

However, Arlen Specter, a Republican senator for Pennsylvania, who is a main backer of the bill, has said that if the bill is not voted on he will attach it to a “must pass” bill funding the Department of Health and Human Services and the National Institutes of Health.

Also included in the bill is doubling the amount spent for an embryo adoption awareness program, in which couples “adopt” leftover embryos from other couples who have completed fertility treatment. The bill would also exclude federal funding for services that provide advice or referrals about abortion, even if they do not provide abortion.