Obama's Order on Stem Cells Leaves Key Questions to NIH

The Washington Post reports Obama's Order on Stem Cells Leaves Key Questions to NIH.

"President Obama's open-ended order lifting limits on federal funding for stem cell research raises the prospect that taxpayer money could be used for a much broader, much more controversial array of studies than many scientists, officials and activists anticipated.

Although the decision to allow expanded funding had been long expected, many thought Obama would limit federally funded scientists to working with cell lines derived from embryos destined to be discarded at infertility clinics. Instead, he left that key issue open.

The task of deciding what kinds of studies will be supported now falls to the National Institutes of Health, which finds itself confronting far more extensive questions than its officials were contemplating. It has 120 days to do the job."

I think I'm more comfortable with the NIH having to decide this than the president.