For the first time, an experimental treatment made from human embryonic stem cells has shown evidence of helping someone, partly restoring sight to two people suffering from slowly progressing forms of blindness.WASHINGTON – A federal judge on Monday temporarily blocked Obama administration regulations expanding stem cell research.
The nonprofit group Nightlight Christian Adoptions contends that the government’s new guidelines will decrease the number of human embryos available for adoption.
U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth ruled the plaintiffs are entitled to bring their lawsuit in the courts.
A federal appeals court had ruled two doctors who were among those bringing the lawsuit, adult stem cell researchers James Sherley of the Boston Biomedical Research Institute and Theresa Deisher of AVM Biotechnlogy, had the authority to do so, prompting Lamberth to reverse a decision he made last October.
Lamberth said the injury of increased competition that Sherley and Deisher would face because of the guidelines “is not speculative. It is actual and imminent. Indeed, the guidelines threaten the very livelihood of plaintiffs Sherley and Deisher.”
Nightlight helps individuals adopt human embryos that are being stored in fertilization clinics. It began the program in 1997, using some of more than 400,000 frozen embryos.
Lamberth concluded those filing the lawsuit have demonstrated a strong likelihood of success in arguing the new government guidelines violate a law that prohibits the use of federal funds for research in which human embryos are destroyed.
It is in the public interest to block the government from implementing the guidelines because they allow federal funding of embryonic stem cell research, which involves the destruction of embryos, the judge said.
Stem cell research has the potential to produce breakthroughs in treating life-threatening diseases that have resisted traditional treatment.
“As demonstrated by the plain language of the statute, the unambiguous intent of Congress is to prohibit the expenditure of federal funds on ’research in which a human embryo or embryos are destroyed,'” Lamberth wrote.
“The question before the court is whether ESC research is research in which a human embryo is destroyed. The court concludes that it is.”
