WHAT THE NIH THINKS ABOUT STEM CELL RESEARCH

NIH Agency Chiefs Criticize Federal Policy on Stem Cells
By Rick Weiss
Washington Post Staff WriterThursday, April 7, 2005; Page A29
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A32390-2005Apr6.html?referrer=email

Breaking with a tradition of deference to top administration officials, several institute directors at the National Institutes of Health went public yesterday with their distaste for federal restrictions on human embryonic stem cell research.
"Progress has been delayed by the limited number of cell lines," wrote Elizabeth G. Nabel, the new director of the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute. "The NIH has ceded leadership in this field."
Nora D. Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, complained that gaining access to the relatively few approved lines of stem cells is "complicated and expensive."
Duane Alexander, director of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, expressed frustration over "cumbersome procedures and long waiting times" for approved cells, which in the end, he added, are often of poor quality and die easily when they are thawed.
James F. Battey, director of the Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders, who until recently was in charge of the agency's task force on stem cells and has made a reputation for being politic in assessing the Bush policy, also was unusually blunt.
"The state of the science is moving very, very rapidly," Battey testified, drawing attention to several new lines of cells developed in Chicago that show special biomedical promise. "These cell lines, however, were all created after August 9th, 2001, and are therefore ineligible for federal funding," said Battey, who has applied for a job with a newly formed California stem cell research institute that promises to fund studies on both old and new lines of cells at many times the current level of federal support.
Perhaps inadvertently, even NIH Director Elias A. Zerhouni appeared to give away his personal feelings while testifying before the subcommittee.
"If they're going to be destroyed [anyway], where is the moral issue?" Specter asked Zerhouni, referring to the legislative proposal to allow funding of research on embryos destined to be discarded.
"I think you'll have to ask that from those who hold that view," Zerhouni replied.
The candor with which various institute directors answered Specter's letter may have had something to do with how he asked. In the past, the answers to similar questions were vetted by administration officials in the Department of Health and Human Services, raising Specter's ire.
But the senator's March 24 letter asking for comments from institute directors specifically precluded that. "Your response should be submitted directly to the Subcommittee without editing, revision, or comment by the Department of Health & Human Services," he wrote.