hey Tom, welcome back.

In all the hooting and hollering about the morality of funding stem cell research, the basic premise, that the Federal government is and should be the main source of funding for this, is never questioned.

Perhaps it hasn't been discussed loudly, but it's a part of the equation that I have considered. On balance I think that this is one of those cases where the strings attached to government funding will be beneficial. Stem cell research is certainly controversial, and to many people it's an ethical and moral question. Encouraging most of the research to take place under government and public scrutiny should help allay those concerns.

On top of that, the results of publicly-funded research will be shared among researchers instead of jealously guarded in pharmaceutical company labs, and the synergy will accelerate progress and should give us more bang for the buck. We're still at the basic research stage, and proprietary commercial applications are still far in the future.

--Robert