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Dear Listfriends, I was not on-line for several days, and now I'm catching up on what happened. Oy! I am disappointed that the stem cell bill was postponed, because I read a report that Senator Specter thought that there were enough votes in the Senate to pass it. But at this time, with the Senate being late on 11 of the 13 major appropriations bills to fund all next year's US government operations starting October 1 (yesterday), it was not logistically possible to deal with it. Linda Herman, who does a great job at keeping up on the issues and putting matters clearly, asked 1. Is the NIH still able to fund stem cell research under the current guidelines? 2. In what way could these guidelines be changed - is it possible for the next President or Congress impose a new ban on NIH funding? 3. How will the postponment of S. 2015 affect current NIH funding? 4. What can those supporting stem cell research do at this point? For what it's worth, here's how I see it: 1. NIH funding of stem cell research has a tenuous go-ahead. The appropriations bills have for several years contained a clause prohibiting funding of research in which human embryos are created or destroyed. According to legal analysis by the Health and Human Services, parent organization to NIH, it's OK to fund research on embryonic stem cells if someone else does the extraction. This is seen by opponents as a loophole. S2015 removes the loophole issue by allowing federal funding of the extraction from left-over embryos from in vitro fertilization. 2. Bush, who opposes federally funded embryonic stem cell research, if elected could stop it by executive order, as did his father and Ronald Reagan. What's worse, if enough opponents of this research gain control of Congress, they could pass laws to stop all embryonic stem cell research, both public and private. 3. The funding level of NIH will remain the same. It's interesting to note that both Bush and Gore support doubling of NIH funding within a few years. 4. Better educate ourselves to clarify our views on the issues and understand the views of opponents, so as to be able to make a clear and convincing case; become advocates for the Michael J. Fox Foundation; educate the public by letters to newpapers; work to unseat opponents in Congress who are up for re-election this year (Kyl, Ashcroft, Grams, Burns, DeWine, Santorum) ... There are a lot of tough issues involved. As Senator Specter noted, it's not simply a pro-life vs. pro-choice issue. As contradictory as it may seem, there are pro-life members of Congress who support embryonic stem cell research. Phil Tompkins Amherst, Mass. age 62/dx 1990