Are cures being prevented by President Bushs policy?
President Bush decided on August 9, 2001 to fund ESCR for the first time in history. Under President Bushs policy, 78 EScells are eligible for federal funds, and 22 EScell lines are now receiving federal dollars for research. Last year, approximately $25 million were spent on ESCR alone. There are no restrictions on private sector ESCR. Indeed, rather than using left-over IVF embryos, in March 2004 it was reported that ESCRer Douglas Melton created human embryos through IVF and destroyed them in order to establish 17 new EScell lines at Harvard. Harvard has proposed raising $100 million for this research, and California and New Jersey are moving to support this research with state funds. Furthermore, over $170 million was spent by the National Institutes of Health on human ASCR in 2002, and over $190 million in 2003. In the past few years, AScells have been used not only to treat animals, but to treat humans of a variety of diseases, such as Parkinsons, cartilage defects, blindness, sy
