The other thing that I think is really interesting, and
if you're a lawyer you can geek out on this, because I did, even before I came to
United States I had already studied, this was like, this is amazingly weird.
Okay, there is a- >> That's
the only thing weird in America, right?
>> [LAUGH] [CROSSTALK] >> There is a federal law
that says you cannot use federal money to do anything harmful to
an embryo at all including make stem cells from that embryo.
But there is a federal policy that you can use
federal money to research those cells once they're out.
So we have the situation where if you've got an embryo left over from IVF and you
want to take the stem cells out, you use private money, whatever your statement.
And then once you've got those lines out,
now you can do research on them with federal money.
And it sort of, I mean, I know someone who is heavily involved in making this policy,
and it's very clear for policy.
But it is a little weird, counterintuitive, right?
Like- >> It was.
>> The federal government's like our hands had nothing to do with
destroying the embryo.
But once you get those cells out, here's the money to do the research.
That is actually- >> That's exactly what it is.
>> It's a very strange approach.
>> And I think it was, and we know it was Harriett Robb who's now at Rockefeller who
actually wrote that opinion.
>> Yeah I read that thing before I even came here, imagine,
I had so much excitement when I met Harriet, I was like wow she's so fast.
>> I was seriously like in awe as if she's like a pop star because I had so
much- >> So
the memo that was written by Harriet Redford Clinton of like
why she thought they could get through the Dickie-Wicker this way.
It's really clear of a law.
But it is also on a kind of intuitive level, takes a wee bit of processing.
And actually the whole thing was challenged in court in 2010 to 2012.
But by then, the federal government had using this approach, where they wouldn't
fund the derivation but they would fund the research for a decade, and the courts
were like, we are not interfering in this interpretation of the law.
You couldn't make it up, it's a fascinating kind of approach to
regulation, and it's a fascinating way through the Dickie-Wicker amendment which
keeps getting added to every appropriations bill, but
still allowing the research to go forward.
And it's the only country I know that's gone even close to a policy like this is
Germany which said for a while, you can't make stem cells from embryos.
But you can import them, and then do the research,
which is kind of the same sort of idea, right, yeah.
>> It seemed, at least on the surface, and I think it still does, an attempt for
the administration to go as far as it can given congressional policy.
>> Yes, absolutely.
>> So that the federal funds are not used in what might be considered abortion, or
anything having to do with destruction of an embryo,
and I'm sorry if I wasn't quite clear on that.
And that's also, in part,
why I think there was some disappointment in the Obama administration policy.
Because even though you're blinding yourself for
the federal funding as to where the stem cell line came from, there was a hope
that the Obama administration would say we'll blind ourselves even if you created
the embryo for research purposes and not just clinically excess.
[CROSSTALK] And it did not go that far.
>> Yeah, that's right.
>> And, of course, abortion again,
is the reason that we have such a screwy system so to speak.
>> No, it's a big part of it.
I mean, yeah.
So I'm wondering about international landscape in a way if any country
is more permissive or less permissive comparing to the US.
>> Well, I think the US is both being sort of simultaneously permissive and
not, right?
So you have these funding rules which are fairly restrictive on their face.
But you also have a background where you don't have national laws on it.
So in some countries like the United Kingdom, or Canada,
or Australia or a bunch of other places, >> Japan.
>> You have national laws that affect stem cell research and
effectively regulate it, embryonic stem cell research.
But at least in the UK, for instance, those national laws allow a lot more
things to occur than the federal rules do here.
So you can kind of have this, it's both more permissive, but also more controlled
because everything is subject to oversight.
There separate tracks for private money, so it's so generous I think.
It's an unusual combination of being both quite restrictive, not at least now,
but still.
And also quite permissive on the other hand,
where it's not the approach taken by other countries.
>> Certainly, and there's also, and you could speak to this as well, international
laws not just on the derivation, but on who can give informed consent.
I remember Japan actually being one of the most interesting ones.
It said that a husband and a wife must give informed consent.
It was not the gamete donors.
But there are international laws regulating various parts of this.
It's not all about just the derivation, let's say, aspect, there's more.
But Josie raised a very good point about
the way the US works which is that a lot of the restrictions are tied to funding.
Such so when Robert is talking about how states started to get into the act which
is a very odd thing in the US.
Most funding comes from the federal government.
But because of the Bush administration policy and the promise of stem cell
research states states started to get into the act, specifically,
of funding stems cell research with the hopes of building enterprises,
potentially, getting license rights back.
But mostly with their hopes of building their own enterprises.
The states have been able to go further than the federal policy.
Which is exactly why they were in place.
And private funding is,
it almost like the IVF wild west because there aren't restrictions.
>> And there is an interesting policy in New York, right?
So New York states stem cell money, theoretically,
I think, can be used to create an embryo from donors?
>> Yes.
>> And then they even allowed for the payment to the egg donor,
which is a whole another topic, so- >> That was my puppy, that was my thing.
>> So yeah, the one thing I do think must be a little confusing for
researchers, right, because depending on where their money comes from and
which state they're in, they can have really different situations happening.
>> Yeah, it's also quite hard for universities, actually.
It sounds like okay, well, it's clear that's state money that's federal money.
But the problem is that the university Columbia,
Cornell, etc, the feeling was when it was decided that we could use state money and
could not use federal funding.
That we had to make sure that, for instance,
no federal funding went into that building or that lab.
So for instance, if federal funding was used to help build the building, well,
that's federal funding being used if you were doing stem cell research there.