EU agrees limited funds for stem cell research

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - European Union ministers agreed on Monday to permit limited use of EU funds for research involving human embryonic stem cells provided it does not entail destroying embryos.

The compromise came just days after President George W. Bush vetoed an expansion of such work in the United States in a move that won praise from churches and anti-abortion campaigners.

Germany had led a coalition of eight countries that sought to bar any European public funding for human stem-cell research.


The deal paved the way for the adoption of the 25-nation bloc's 55.6-billion-euro ($70.16 billion) seven-year science programme aimed at narrowing the research gap with the United States and spurring economic growth.

EU president Finland said the compromise would ban allocating EU cash for research that involves destroying human embryos, including for the procurement of stem cells.

Extracting the human embryonic stem cells entails destroying the embryo, a step churches and some ethics campaigners say is tantamount to murder.
http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/news...archived=False

I just don't get it.........the range of good that this could do.:cool:

I dont have enough info on the subject..... My gut tells me it should be fine. and why not.

It could help more then it can hurt.... my2

Good 2 cents! It could help immensely, Bong.

I'm glad the EU at least approved some funding and just broken-hearted that Bush ran this through his moral filter and vetoed it here. I said this in a post last week and will say it again, I'm sure. This ought to be something that people can vote on because it's important to so many--and polls show that the majority of the American people approve of funding embryonic stem cell research.

Stem cell research and treatments offer perhaps the best hope of treatments for not only spinal cord injuries but also diabetes, Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, strokes, heart diseases, cancers, burns, and arthiritis. This research stands to benefit millions of people. You may not like this part of it, Bong, because I know you're Catholic. But Bush vetoed the funding for research on stem cells from already fertilized embryos that are sitting in tens of thousands of fertility clinic storage tanks around the country. They're the embryos that are no longer going to be used for implantation in people, and so they're medical waste. Yet he vetoed that bill. And guess what's going to happen to those embryos? They're simply going to be disposed of as medical waste. Trashed. This is a true fact and one recognized by everyone on both sides of the political aisle.

It seems far more immoral to me not to let those embryos be used for some beneficial life-affirming purpose like disease treatment.

This doesn't mean there can't be private funding for such embryonic stem cell research. There will be, but it won't be enough to do as much good as if the private and federal funding were both available.

There you go. Stem cells 101. You heard it here first!