Eideard

A survey of scientists studying stem cells suggests that the absence of clear federal regulations governing the use of embryonic stem cells and uncertainty over funding for stem cell research…

According to the survey, published…in the journal Cell Stem Cell, nearly half of the scientists questioned who study embryonic stem cells or are considering using the cells said that the climate of uncertainty has had a substantial impact on their research. Many said they had delayed the start of new projects or were considering moving away from the field altogether. While many experts in the field had predicted these negative outcomes, the survey is one of the first efforts to systematically assess the effects of U.S. policy regarding stem-cell research…

Embryonic stem cells are considered one of the most promising tools for regenerative medicine, especially as a source of replacement tissue, thanks to their ability to replicate themselves and to grow into any cell type in the human body. But the topic has been fraught with controversy because deriving new lines of embryonic stem cells requires the destruction of human embryos.

Stem-cell researchers experienced a brief bout of optimism two years ago when President Obama signed an executive order ending a restrictive policy enacted in 2001 by President Bush. That policy had blocked federal funds from being used to study most human embryonic stem cells and led to a patchwork of state regulations governing funding for the field. Current federal policy permits federal funding for research using existing cells but not the derivation of new cells.

The optimism came to an unexpected end last August when a federal judge issued an injunction blocking federal funding for any research involving embryonic stem cells, pending the result of a lawsuit claiming such funding to be illegal. As a result, research and grant reviews at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the nation’s largest biomedical funding agency, came to a halt, and scientists who had federal funds were left wondering what to do. The Obama administration successfully appealed the injunction in September, but ongoing uncertainty over the timing and outcome of the lawsuit means that confusion remains.

The absurdity of a nation with a self-professed history of freedoms having to waste funds and years fiddling in court with 19th Century moralizers is more than frustrating. It looks like researchers who picked up and left the country with the advent of the Bush Taliban controlling the Republican Party may have made the safe choice.

Though mainstream religions kept an easy truce between church and state for decades, the assumption of a mantle of infallibility among the fearful who have crawled into the bosom of fundamentalist demagogues – has constructed a wall of fire and brimstone between essential civil service and the ranks of scientists, educators and scholars. The latter didn’t set out to spend their career explaining the Age of Reason all over again to ignorant opportunist politicians every four to eight years.

Marijuana is thought by some to be a gateway drug among young people who eventually go on to try stronger substances. But that may be the exception rather than the rule, a new study finds.

Researchers from the University of New Hampshire looked at data from a random group of 1,286 children, teens and young adults who were in Miami-Dade public schools in the 1990s. Among the study participants, 26% were African American, 44% were Hispanic, and 30% were non-Hispanic white…

Education played a role in use of other substances–those more likely to have used marijuana as teens and other drugs as young adults didn’t graduate from high school or go to college. Employment factored in as well, since those who smoked pot as teens and were out of work after high school were more apt to use other drugs.

Researchers also discovered that if young adults became involved with other substances after using marijuana as teens, that link didn’t hold once the sources of stress, such as not working, went away.

Age was yet another issue. Researchers discovered that after the age of 21, the gateway effect seemed to disappear.

“Employment in young adulthood can protect people by ‘closing’ the marijuana gateway,” said lead author Karen Van Gundy, in a news release, “so over-criminalizing youth marijuana use might create more serious problems if it interferes with later employment opportunities.”

No kidding.

Not that this will mean much of anything to politicians and other professional moralists. Don’t let facts get in the way of your beliefs.

The U.S. Treasury and Federal Reserve have delayed the implementation date for a new Internet gambling payment ban for six months, a move that gives lawmakers time to overturn it or end confusion over illegal practices.

In a joint statement, the Treasury and Fed said the December 1 implementation date for the law passed in 2006 would not be achievable for some financial institutions. They set a new compliance deadline of June 1, 2010.

“Commentators expressed concern that the act and the final regulation do not provide a clear definition of ‘unlawful Internet gambling,’ which is central to compliance,” the two agencies said.

In addition, they said certain members of Congress have “expressed an intent to consider legislation that would allow problematic aspects of the act to be addressed.”

The 2006 law, which cost European Internet gambling companies billions of euros in lost market value, prohibits credit card, check, and electronic fund transfer payments by U.S.-regulated financial institutions in connection with “unlawful Internet gambling.”

But rather than define what types of gambling are illegal online, the bill relied on existing federal and state laws to answer that question.

Congress passed the anti-gambling legislation in 2006, when Republicans still controlled both the House and Senate. The final regulations issued to enforce the ban were issued by the Treasury and Fed just before former President George W. Bush left office in January.

In America you have the right to be stupid as long as it’s not immoral. You can vote for a moron but not play bingo online.

Daylife/Getty Images used by permission

The longstanding ban on use of federal AIDS grant funds to support needle exchange programs will soon be history, if the Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services of the House Committee on Appropriations has its way. Led by Rep. David Obey (D-WI), the subcommittee left the language which has imposed the ban these many years out of the new bill. According to Obey’s office:

This bill deletes the prohibition on the use of funds for needle exchange programs. Scientific studies have documented that needle exchange programs, when implemented as part of a comprehensive prevention strategy, are an effective public health intervention for reducing AIDS/AIV infections and do not promote drug use. The judgment we make is that it is time to lift this ban and let State and local jurisdictions determine if they want to pursue this approach…

President Obama pledged during his primary campaign to eliminate the ban. Legislation allows the president to do so if certain scientific findings are made, specifically that needle exchange programs do not increase community drug use levels, and do reduce the spread of HIV. These findings were made long ago, and the Clinton administration acknowledged them, but declined to eliminate the ban…

Elimination of the ban will neither increase nor decrease the amount of money the federal government spends on AIDS prevention, at least not directly. What it will do is allow state governments who receive federal AIDS grants to choose whether or not to spend some of that money on needle exchange. Those states which are in the habit of using scientific evidence to guide their policies will undoubtedly support needle exchange.

We have states using scientific evidence? Where? Wha? Who?