US Supreme Court leaves stem cell research alone

The US Supreme Court declined Monday to take up an appeal concerning stem cell research, thus allowing the federal government to continue funding it. The top US court did not give a reason for its decision, which ends a long judiciary saga. The appeal had come from two researchers working with adult cells rather than embryonic stem cells. They had asked the Supreme Court to halt financing for stem cell research on the grounds that federal law banned the creation and destruction of embryos for scientific study. Shortly after taking office in 2009, President Barack Obama lifted restrictions on such financing that had been imposed by George Bush. Stem cell research is said to be promising for finding new treatments for a variety of diseases. Financing through the National Institutes of Health was authorized for cells from frozen embryos that were left over from fertility treatments. A federal judge banned the financing in 2010, but an appeals court in Washington reversed the ruling in 2012. This court said the federal ban does not apply to previously existing embryos that resulted from in vitro fertilization procedures.