As President Bush vetoed a bill on Wednesday that would have loosened his restrictions on stem-cell research, he offered an alternative policy that he said would strengthen the field in an ethical way, but that critics called nothing but spin.
The alternative policy, expressed in an executive order, calls for expanding certain types of stem-cell research that do not require the destruction of human embryos. But it proposed no new money for that research, which is already eligible for, and has received, federal financing.
“This was a political fig leaf and a redundant policy designed to give the president political cover” as he vetoed the bill, said Sean B. Tipton, a spokesman for the Coalition for the Advancement of Medical Research, which supported the bill. “He’s not going to fool American scientists.”