Stem-Cell Ruling Gets Appealed
The AP reports:
WASHINGTON — The Obama administration on Tuesday asked a federal judge to lift a restraining order that it says could undercut federally funded embryonic stem cell research.
The Justice Department filed its request with U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth only days after he blocked government funding of embryonic stem cell research.
Medical researchers value stem cells because they are master cells that can turn into any tissue of the body, and they expect the research to eventually lead to cures for spinal cord injuries, Parkinson's disease and other ailments.
Stopping the research could cause "irrevocable harm to the millions of extremely sick or injured people who stand to benefit" from continuing human embryonic stem cell research, the department said in court papers, "as well as to the defendants, the scientific community and the taxpayers who have already spent hundreds of millions of dollars on such research through public funding of projects which will now be forced to shut down and, in many cases, scrapped altogether."
It was not immediately known when Lamberth would make a decision on the government's petition. Federal officials also indicated that they plan to appeal Lamberth's ruling to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia circuit.
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