Battle For Research Funding Emerges In Stem Cell Debate

A campaign to secure state money for stem cell research has started in Missouri, as well with a battle raging over the Stowers Institute for Medical Research, which has built a $300 million laboratory and stocked it with sophisticated machines for nearly 200 scientists recruited from as far afield as China and Argentina.

Yet social conservatives in the Missouri Legislature are effectively blocking some of the most ambitious research envisioned by the Stowers staff, saying that research with embryonic stem cells is so immoral it should be a crime.

"I believe that a human embryo is worthy of legal protection[...] Western medicine has been founded on a principle: First, do no harm." said state Senator Matt Bartle, Republican of Missouri, who vows to press the fight.

Repeated legislative efforts by Bartle and his colleagues forced the Stowers Institute to curtail recruiting and stop planning for a second 600,000-square-foot facility. At the same time, those efforts have spurred creation of an impromptu statewide alliance of business leaders, science advocates, and antiabortion Republicans who favor the research for reasons of healthcare and job growth.

Advocates in Missouri and beyond expect the outcome to have broad implications for politics and science as states struggle to define the limits of medical inquiry. This is true whether the research money comes from private pockets, as in Kansas City, or the public treasury, as in California, where $3 billion approved by voters has been blocked by lawsuits and legislative maneuvers.

Just last month, Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich, a Democrat, announced that he had helped hide $10 million in the state budget that will now be used for embryonic stem cell research. Several leading Republicans criticized him for the move, and the Catholic Conference of Illinois said he ''betrayed his own office, both morally and politically."

South Dakota forbids research on all embryos, yet New Jersey is bankrolling an embryonic stem cell program. In New York City, a private foundation recently gave $50 million to three medical institutions for early stem cell work to sustain the city's research credentials.[...]


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