26 
Monitoring Stem Cell Research 
subsection 498(b) of the Public Health Service Act (42 
U.S.C. 289g(b)).‘ 
(b) For purposes of this section, the term ‘human embryo 
or embryos' includes any organism, not protected as a 
human subject under 45 CFR 46 as of the date of the en- 
actment of the governing appropriations act, that is de- 
rived by fertilization, parthenogenesis, cloning, or any 
other means from one or more human gametes or human 
diploid cells.® 
This law effectively prohibits the use of federal funds to 
support any research that destroys human embryos or puts 
them at serious risk of destruction. It does not, however, pro- 
hibit the conduct of such research using private funding. Thus, 
it addresses itself not to what may or may not be lawfully 
done, but only to what may or may not be supported by tax- 
payer dollars. At the federal level, research that involves the 
destruction of embryos is neither prohibited nor supported and 
encouraged. 
The Dickey Amendment was originally enacted before the 
isolation of human embryonic stem cells, first reported in 1998 
by researchers at the University of Wisconsin, whose work 
was supported only by private funds (largely from the Geron 
Corporation and the University of Wisconsin Alumni Research 
Foundation). The discovery of these cells and their unique and 
potentially quite promising properties aroused great excite- 
ment both within and beyond the scientific community. It led 
some people to question the policy of withholding federal 
funds from human embryo research. Most Members of Con- 
gress, however, did not change their position, and the Dickey 
Amendment has been reenacted every year since. For many of 
its supporters, the Amendment expresses their ethical convic- 
tion that nascent human life ought to be protected against 
exploitation and destruction for scientific research, however 
promising that research might be, and that at the very least 
such destruction should not be supported or encouraged by 
taxpayer dollars. 
These legal citations refer to the federal regulations and federal statute 
relating to research on living human fetuses. 
PRE -PUBLICATION VERSION 
