Letter
Draft Guidelines on Human Embryonic Stem Cell Research (2009)
Letter from USCCB General Secretary Monsignor David J. Malloy to the National Institutes of Health on May 29, 2009.
"In these Guidelines, the NIH is missing an enormous opportunity to show how sound science and responsible ethics can not only co-exist but support and enrich each other. More than a decade after human embryonic stem cells were first isolated, we have seen incredible advances in the use of stem cells to treat dozens of ailments and disabling conditions - but these advances have come from the adult and cord blood stem cells that the NIH has prematurely dismissed as being of secondary interest and limited benefit. The new advance in producing iPS cells without using or harming human embryos has prompted leading stem cell researchers to declare that this is 'the beginning of the end' of embryonic stem cell research and its attendant moral controversy."