Bush is good for Stem-cell research
Ronald Bailey, in an article over at reason, points out one unintentional consequence of Bush’s funding restrictions:
The National Institutes of Health spent $24.3 million dollars on human embryonic stem-cell research last year. Critics of President Bush’s policy of limiting federal funding to only those stem-cell lines derived before August 2001 worry that this amount—relative to NIH’s annual $30 billion budget—is not enough. Persuaded of the importance of this research, the U.S. House of Representatives voted in May to lift President Bush’s funding restrictions. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist announced this summer that he supported that legislation. The Senate is poised to vote on the issue later this fall.
But do stem-cell researchers really need the feds? Already there is nearly $4 billion in private and state monies committed to stem-cell research over the next decade, with another three-quarters of a billion dollars under active consideration.
I find it amazing and heartening that the non-Federal sector has stepped up and committed 16.4 times that what the Feds have (assuming $243 million over a decade from NIH) and makes me wonder what other areas might be better served by a switch to non-NIH funds for some areas.
Look, I’m no utopian Libertarian, I know there are areas of research (and specific parts of some general areas) which won’t be funded privately because they don’t show any promise of profit anytime soon. And I know that a lot of this funding comes from other government bodies ; but I think there are areas that now suckle off of Uncle Sam’s breast who need to be kicked out of the Treasury nest and find their own funding. This would free up a lot of cash for more “pure” research projects, and advance our nation’s general knowledge of science.
Just my thoughts.
Who would decide which research projects are pure, which ones would generate real results?
Bush cronies perhaps?
It’s always somebody’s cronies.
Fine, but What if the cronies are like him. Here’s one of them.. Brown…
.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2002534379_c aneice02.html
“The American taxpayers, cannot endure this kind of wasteful spending,” Collins said.
http://seattletimes
This is why a leader has to be smart, smart people usually have smart friends, you know.
:)
“The American taxpayers, cannot endure this kind of wasteful spending,” Collins said.
Cannot endure? I thought Comrade Delay said we couldn’t cut spending anymore!
a quibble:
stem cells were sold the public as a biomedical application, but the best science is probably going to come from essentially pure research into human development and cell biology in a ES cell model
but … the real problem of the bush funding limitations is that it prevents mixed (allowed and not allowed) research from going on in the same lab; if it were merely that the feds were agnostic about ES cell funding, then it wouldn’t be such a problem.
President Bush is a politician (of course) which means he seeks positions that unite the public. This means compromise. It is said that a good good court decision make both parties unhappy. Bush, by that rule, has done very well with stem cell research.
Personally I am in favor of no political restraints on science of (almost) anykind. But I recognize that a large minority of the electorate is fearful. The American electorate is also fearful of atomic power and recombinant DNA. This is unfortunate and I hope to live to see less prior restraint from our political leaders.
I must note however that the real villain of the piece is not George Bush but Al Gore. Read “Earth in the Balance” for its heavy dose of fear of science and technology. Gore was a theology student. He has always been suspicious of progress. He led the fight against Genentech and recombinant DNA research.
In general I’m unhappy to see religion where I want to see only science but in this regard Bush seems on the record to be much less objectionable than Gore.