Today U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth dismissed a lawsuit that has been creating uncertainty for stem cell scientists for almost a year. The Huffington Post quotes Lamberth’s opinion:
“This Court, following the D.C. Circuit’s reasoning and conclusions, must find that defendants reasonably interpreted the Dickey-Wicker Amendment to permit funding for human embryonic stem cell research because such research is not ‘research in which a human embryo or embryos are destroyed,’ ” Lamberth wrote.
Here’s some history on the lawsuit from this blog:
- What the embryonic stem cell research ban means to California researchers (8/27/2010)
- Government appeals stem cell ruling, claims harm to patients (8/31/2010)
- The ups and downs of federal funding for stem cell research (9/9/2010)
- Legal wrangling slows Stanford researcher’s quest for a cure (9/15/2010)
- U.S. Appeals Court decision–good news, but not the final word (4/29/2011)
A.A.