Clinton Bans Funding for Embryo Creation

In a highly unusual move, President Clinton injected himself into the scientific process Friday night by announcing that his Administration would prohibit the use of federal money to create human embryos solely for research purposes.

“I do not believe that federal funds should be used to support the creation of human embryos for research purposes,” Clinton said, “and I have directed that NIH not allocate any resources for such research.”

The ban applies only to the most controversial question involved in embryo research: Whether to allow the creation of such embryos for research purposes only. Notably, his action did not address the larger question of the use of federal money for any human embryo research, leaving the door open for possible government approval of wide-scale research on the thousands of already existing and unused embryos now in storage as a result of in-vitro fertilization.

Nevertheless, his decision--coming on the same day that a federal advisory panel to the National Institutes of Health recommended permitting the creation of research embryos under some circumstances--almost certainly will send a disturbing message to a research community that has grown increasingly troubled in recent years over what it views as political intrusion into the scientific process.

Research on embryos has generated growing ethical concerns because it deals with creating and manipulating human life.

Many scientists believe that studying the human embryo, which after one week of growth constitutes a cluster of cells no bigger than the period at the end of this sentence, could yield infinite knowledge about some of nature’s worst medical scourges, including genetic diseases, infertility and cancer.

But the work has been condemned by abortion foes and others who view it as the destruction of human life, and have vowed to fight any efforts to conduct such research.

In many ways, the Clinton ruling was reminiscent of the moratorium during the Ronald Reagan and George Bush administrations on research using human fetal tissue, which met with similar opposition. Paradoxically, Clinton lifted that ban with great fanfare in 1993 during his first few days in office.

Researchers also have been critical of the growing involvement of Congress and other federal officials in pursuing their own investigations into questions of scientific fraud and abuse.

At least one member of the NIH advisory panel, Patricia King, a law professor at Georgetown University who served as the committee’s co-chair, bluntly dismissed Clinton’s action as having more to do with “politics” than the “merits of embryo research.”

The action marked the second apparent concession Clinton has made to conservatives since the Nov. 8 election. On Thursday, Clinton unveiled plans to increase defense spending, in part to head off a GOP push.

But the White House denied that the decision was influenced by the election results.

“The election had nothing to do with this decision,” White House Press Secretary Dee Dee Myers said Friday after the announcement. “The President simply believes this (funding) is not right.”

The advisory panel, which presented its findings to NIH Director Harold E. Varmus earlier Friday, endorsed human embryo research generally, but proposed only two specific circumstances under which embryos could be created for research reasons: “when the research by its very nature cannot otherwise be validly conducted,” and when a “compelling” case can be made that it is necessary “for the validity of a study that is potentially of outstanding scientific and therapeutic value.”

Varmus was expected to study the panel’s findings and decide soon whether to accept them. Clinton’s action, in effect, circumvented that process.

Varmus could not be reached for comment Friday. NIH sources, however, indicating they were taken completely by surprise by the White House action, said it took several hours to sort through and understand exactly what the directive meant.

The sources said they concluded that “it probably should be narrowly interpreted,” meaning that the NIH would likely still consider “all the other avenues of important research” not addressed by Clinton’s decision.

The panel, in endorsing the field of human embryo research, said it holds significant promise for medical advances, but proposed a strict framework for its conduct.

The recommendations apply only to research conducted on human embryos that are created outside the uterus, that is, embryos produced in a laboratory by mixing sperm and egg.

The panel said that research should be limited “to the shortest time possible.”