[Congressional Bills 109th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[S. 1557 Introduced in Senate (IS)]








109th CONGRESS
  1st Session
                                S. 1557

To amend the Public Health Service Act to provide for a program at the 
 National Institutes of Health to conduct and support research in the 
derivation and use of human pluripotent stem cells by means that do not 
              harm human embryos, and for other purposes.


_______________________________________________________________________


                   IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES

                             July 29, 2005

Mr. Coburn (for himself and Mr. DeMint) introduced the following bill; 
     which was read twice and referred to the Committee on Health, 
                     Education, Labor, and Pensions

_______________________________________________________________________

                                 A BILL


 
To amend the Public Health Service Act to provide for a program at the 
 National Institutes of Health to conduct and support research in the 
derivation and use of human pluripotent stem cells by means that do not 
              harm human embryos, and for other purposes.

    Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

    This Act may be cited as the ``Respect for Life Pluripotent Stem 
Cell Act of 2005''.

SEC. 2. FINDINGS.

    The Congress finds as follows:
            (1) Stem cells may be derived from various sources, 
        including adult tissue, umbilical cord blood, and living human 
        embryos. The use of cells from embryos has drawn great interest 
        in the scientific community but also raises very serious 
        ethical concerns for many Americans, because as practiced today 
        it requires the destruction of human embryos to obtain their 
        cells.
            (2) The President's Council on Bioethics in its May 2005 
        White Paper: ``Alternative Sources of Pluripotent Stem Cells'', 
        describes several potential methods to derive stem cells like 
        those now derived through the destruction of embryos, but which 
        would not involve doing harm to embryos. Some methods propose 
        to involve embryos in ways that do not harm them, while others 
        propose to reprogram adult cells to produce cells with the 
        capabilities of embryonic stem cells without producing or 
        involving embryos at all.
            (3) Such proposals should be thoroughly tested in animal 
        models before being applied to humans, to establish that they 
        do not involve creating or harming human embryos.
            (4) Several scientific reports also suggest that some 
        subclasses of adult stem cells (derived from postnatal tissues, 
        umbilical cord blood, and placenta) show a flexibility 
        comparable to that of stem cells now derived through the 
        destruction of embryos.
            (5) American scientists should be encouraged to pursue all 
        ethical avenues of stem cell research and to explore morally 
        uncontroversial alternatives to research requiring the 
        destruction of human embryos.

SEC. 3. DERIVATION OF STEM CELLS WITHOUT HARMING EMBRYOS; RESEARCH 
              THROUGH NATIONAL INSTITUTES OF HEALTH.

    Part B of title IV of the Public Health Service Act (42 U.S.C. 284) 
is amended by adding at the end the following:

``SEC. 409J. BASIC AND APPLIED RESEARCH ON DERIVATION AND USE OF 
              PLURIPOTENT STEM CELLS WITHOUT HARMING EMBRYOS.

    ``(a) Definitions.--In this section, the following definitions 
apply:
            ``(1) Human embryo.--The term `human embryo' includes any 
        organism, not protected as a human subject under 45 CFR 46 as 
        of the date of the enactment of the Respect for Life 
        Pluripotent Stem Cell Act of 2005, that is derived by 
        fertilization, parthenogenesis, cloning, or any other means 
        from one or more human gametes or human diploid cells.
            ``(2) Pluripotent stem cell.--The term `pluripotent stem 
        cell' means a cell that can in principle be differentiated to 
        produce all or almost all the cell types of the human body, and 
        therefore has the same functional capacity as an embryonic stem 
        cell, regardless of whether it has the same origin.
    ``(b) In General.--With respect to producing stem cell lines for 
important biomedical research, the Director of NIH shall, through the 
appropriate national research institutes, provide for the conduct and 
support of basic and applied research in isolating, deriving and using 
pluripotent stem cells without creating or harming human embryos. Such 
research may include--
            ``(1) research in animals to develop and test techniques 
        for deriving cells from embryos without doing harm to those 
        embryos;
            ``(2) research to develop and test techniques for producing 
        human pluripotent stem cells without creating or making use of 
        embryos; and
            ``(3) research to isolate, develop, and test pluripotent 
        stem cells from postnatal tissues, umbilical cord blood, and 
        placenta.
    ``(c) Prohibitions Regarding Harm to Human Embryos.--Research under 
subsection (b) may not include any research that--
            ``(1) involves the use of human embryos;
            ``(2) involves the use of stem cells not otherwise eligible 
        for funding by the National Institutes of Health;
            ``(3) involves the use of any stem cell to create or to 
        attempt to create a human embryo; or
            ``(4) poses a significant risk of creating a human embryo 
        by any means.
    ``(d) Authorization of Appropriations.--For the purpose of carrying 
out this section, there are authorized to be appropriated $15,000,000 
in fiscal year 2006, and such sums as may be necessary for each of the 
fiscal years 2007 through 2010. Such authorization is in addition to 
other authorizations of appropriations that are available for such 
purpose.''.
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