Senate to support stem cells -- again

In what promises to be a repeat performance from 2006, the U.S. Senate tomorrow (April 10) will begin two days of vigorous debate followed by votes on measures to expand federal funding of human embryonic stem cell research.

And like last year, President George W. Bush has promised to veto the main bill (HR 3/S 5), which would extend federal research funding to newly derived cell lines. The House last year was unable to over-ride Bush's veto after Congress approved the measure.

The House passed this year's version of the bill in January, but the vote (253 to 164) fell far short of the number necessary to over-ride another veto. (Both the House and Senate must each have at least a two-thirds majority to over-ride a presidential veto.)

As a result, supporters hope to shift the legislative battle to the Senate, where the chances of achieving a veto-proof 67 votes are substantially better, especially if the bill includes language that is more palatable to the handful of undecided senators, according to research advocates familiar with the strategy. "The goal is to get that 67th vote," Jon Retzlaff, legislative director for the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB), told The Scientist.

Assuming the main bill passes the Senate and is vetoed, it would then return to the Senate. If there are enough votes to over-ride the veto, it "would jack up interest and send the message that there is a strong consensus in this country to support a broad range of stem cell research," said Tony Mazzaschi, senior associate vice president of the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC).

However, given that the House has far from a two-thirds majority in support of the bill, it likely won't produce enough votes to complete the over-ride effort, meaning the stem cell bill will die for the second time in two years, Mazzaschi told The Scientist.

To make the bill more attractive, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada and a bipartisan group of stem cell supporters will incorporate one of last year's failed alternative stem cell measures (S 2754) favored by many religious and social conservatives because it supports research into non-embryonic sources.

The Senate tomorrow will also consider a second, less-contentious bill (S 30) that would authorize federal funding for stem cell lines derived from human embryos deemed to be "naturally dead" -- incapable of cellular division, growth, and differentiation. "This threads the ethical needle because [those embryos] provide embryonic stem cells that don't involve the destruction of viable embryos," Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.), coauthor of the legislation, told The Scientist.

While the White House last week signaled its "strong support" for that measure, biomedical research associations and advocacy groups, including AAMC and the Coalition for the Advancement of Medical Research (CAMR), have decided to not take a position on S 30. "It's a political fig leaf," said CAMR Vice President Sean Tipton. "It doesn't advance stem cell research so we have no position on it," he told The Scientist.

Ted Agres
mail@the-scientist.com

Note: To participate in our online discussion about the future of stem cell research, click here.

Links within this article

Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act of 2007 (HR 3)
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c110:H.R.3.IH:

Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act of 2007 (S 5)
:http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c110:s5

T. Agres, "Stem cell supporters upset by Bush veto," The Scientist, July 20, 2006
http://www.the-scientist.com/news/display/23995/

T. Agres, "U.S. Senate approves stem cell bills," The Scientist, July 19, 2006
http://www.thescientist.com/news/display/23983/

T. Agres, "U.S. House passes stem cell bill," The Scientist, Jan. 12, 2007
http://www.the-scientist.com/news/display/40900/

Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act of 2007 (S 997)
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c110:S.997:

Alternative Pluripotent Stem Cell Therapies Enhancement Act (S 2754)
thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c109:S.2754:

Hope Offered through Principled and Ethical Stem Cell Research Act (HOPE Act) (S 30)
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c110:S.30:

Special Feature: Participate in our stem cell cloning discussion
'http://www.the-scientist.com/news/home/53034