A letter recommending that current National Institutes of Health (NIH) guidelines on stem cell research remain intact was signed by members of Yale’s Interdisciplinary Bioethics Committee and sent to Secretary of Health and Human Services Tommy G. Thompson on May 9.
“Our strong recommendation is that the present NIH guidelines remain in place,” said Bioethics committee chair, Gene Outka, Dwight Professor of Philosophy and Christian Ethics, Department of Religious Studies and Divinity at Yale. “They allow for a cautious amount of research on embryonic stem cells.”
The committee met over a two-year period to consider a range of ethical questions that stem cell research has generated. “While we have disagreed on many matters, we do agree that the NIH guidelines judiciously accommodate a spectrum of rival views,” the letter states.
The letter was signed by 13 members of the Yale Faculty Working Group on the Ethics of Stem Cell Research.
For more information on the letter or the committee, please contact Carol Pollard at 203-432-6188 or Gene Outka at 203-248-9320.
