Appeals court upholds federal funding of stem cells

A three-judge appeals court panel on Friday unanimously upheld a 2011 lower court's dismissal of a suit claiming NIH violated a law prohibiting federal funds for research in which a human embryo is destroyed. Chief Judge David Sentelle of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit wrote in the court's opinion that the Dickey-Wicker amendment permits federal funding of research projects that use already derived embryonic stem cells --"which are not themselves embryos-- because no human embryo or embryos are destroyed in such projects." Sentelle added that the plaintiffs' argument was no different than it was in the court's prior review of the suit and therefore the "law of the case is established." ...