Several of the top institutions that conduct embryonic stem-cell research are considering ending research on nearly a quarter of the cell lines eligible for federal funds because of new ethical concerns raised about the origin of the lines.
A consensus to ban research on the lines would further limit, from 21 to 16, the number of human embryonic stem cell lines available to researchers supported by federal funds. A policy announced by President Bush in August 2001 restricted federal support for the research to cell lines that existed before the president’s speech.
The discussions come in response to an article published in May by an associate professor at the University of Wisconsin, Robert Streiffer. Mr. Streiffer found problems with the consent forms donors signed before the lines were originally derived. In one case, Mr. Streiffer wrote, patients were told their embryos would be destroyed at the end of a single experiment.