The stem cell issue sure didn’t turn out to be as potent–or as important–as people expected this time last year. With the IPSC breakthrough, President Bush’s funding limitations ceased to be a cutting edge issue in the presidential campaign. That won’t matter to Senator Obama, since smashing everything Bush is a Democratic driving force. But apparently some involved with the issue think that Senator McCain may be softening in his opposition to the current policy. From the story:
McCain’s campaign did not respond to The Hill’s questions or numerous attempts to obtain a comment for this article. In February, the campaign issued a statement to the Wisconsin State Journal standing behind his record but containing the language O’Steen quoted as evidence of McCain’s flexibility on the issue.
“John McCain does support federal funding for embryonic stem cell research,” the February statement says in part. “[H]e believes that recent scientific breakthroughs [IPSCs] may render this debate academic,” according to the statement.
Oh, that is piquant isn’t it? I noticed that he made the same kind of statement during the candidates’ forum hosted by Pastor Rich Warren on Saturday.
The Bush policy–which has still resulted in at least $160 million in NIH funding for human ESCR–may survive after all. Stay tuned.