Stem Cell Funding Roadblock
Dickey Amendment Is an Antiquated Obstacle that Impedes Valuable Research
Bernard Siegel, J.D.
When President Bush assumed office in 2000, the human embryonic stem cell 
revolution was primed to launch. The outgoing Clinton administration 
directed the NIH to prepare comprehensive rules to govern the nascent field 
of discovery, with funding to follow. Eight years later, we have no 
comprehensive federal guidelines. Each funding authority has its own set of 
rules and funding has been relatively minimal, especially when compared to 
the annual $28 billion NIH budget.
President Bush ordered a hold on the NIH guidelines and purportedly studied 
the situation. On August 9, 2001, in a surprise Crawford announcement, 
President Bush actually narrowed the Clinton plan, permitting federal 
funding only to those stem cell lines created on or before that arbitrary 
date (August 9, 2001) and time (9:00 PM). Rather than making the 
pronouncement of this important public health policy by formal order, it was 
delivered by television address and a media advisory.
Twisting logic like a pretzel, President Bush premised his views that in 
vitro blastocysts were "human life" and to continue funding on stem cell 
lines created after his August 9 pronouncement would somehow induce 
derivation of new lines, thereby making the federal government complicit in 
the destruction of embryos. In the case of the few existing lines available 
for funding, by Bushian logic, the terrible deed had already been done and 
limited funding could proceed on those lines only.
Before considering President Obama's plans, it serves us well to examine the 
legislative foundation that produced such an unsatisfactory policy. The 
actual rate-limiting statute is the Dickey Amendment, a largely overlooked 
legislative funding roadblock that is a perennial appropriations rider to 
the NIH budget. It is what Harvard philosopher Louis Guenin aptly describes 
as the "elephant in the room."
Named after its sponsor, former Arkansas Congressman Jay Dickey, the Dickey 
Amendment was enacted in 1995. It precludes using federal money for the 
creation, destruction, or endangerment of human embryos for research 
purposes. It is a blockade for funding research on embryos discarded from in 
vitro fertilization procedures to derive new cell lines or somatic cell 
nuclear transfer. It essentially codifies the viewpoint that embryo research 
is a moral transgression.
Each time the Dickey rider comes before Congress, it is enacted without 
debate. It was the law before the discovery of human embryonic stem cells in 
1998 and is a throwback to the roiling abortion debate in America. In the 
Bush years, there was no appetite to directly challenge Dickey.
If the Dickey Amendment prohibits NIH funding endangering embryos, how can 
NIH fund any of this research? By literal reading of the Dickey Amendment, 
there is a loophole that would allow funding in narrow circumstances. Where 
the actual derivation of a stem cell line is accomplished without NIH 
monies, the resulting cell line could be eligible for federal funding. To 
date, every policy-maker seemingly worships at the Dickey altar and every 
funding scheme is designed to thread this narrow hole in the needle.
The absurdity of the rule is evidenced in the frustrations of research 
institutions to comply with current federal policy, or risk losing all of 
their NIH grants. Those institutions deriving new cell lines or undertaking 
research on "nonpresidential" lines are compelled to construct separate 
laboratories and manage complex bookkeeping systems to keep the NIH grant 
money separate. It's a real mess.
President Obama will most certainly deliver the long-promised executive 
order lifting the Bush restrictions and Congress will subsequently deliver a 
bill making the new funding permanent. The likely statutory vehicle will be 
the bipartisan-supported Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act, also called the 
Castle-DeGette bill, a piece of legislation twice vetoed by President Bush, 
which would allow NIH funding on more recently derived stem cell lines.
However, that bill, as presently drawn, does not repeal Dickey, which 
seemingly remains sacrosanct. It will take courage and farsightedness by 
Congressional stem cell proponents to do away with this pernicious 
restriction on potentially lifesaving research.

Bernard Siegel, J.D. ( ), is the founder and executive director of the 
Genetics Policy Institute, which presents the annual â?oWorld Stem Cail

Bush's well funded GOP Base-The Religious Rights are hoping the Dickey 
Amendment will derail the Obama Stem Cell


Rayilyn Brown
Director AZNPF
Arizona Chapter National Parkinson Foundation
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