GlobalTort : Commentary from lawyers and experts on mass torts, law, insurance and science

The Human Genome Project is one part of the stunning leaps in medical and biological science over the last 30 years. Today, lives are saved by what we now know and can do, and lives of course are priceless.

As if that's not enough,  now look at the eye-popping ROI numbers for the Human Genome Project. $ 796 billion and 310,000 jobs in return for a  $3.8 billion investment.  Even if we allow for some puffery or generous accounting, the numbers are stunning. The text  pasted below is just part of this excellent blog post by Donald Zuhn on Patent Docs (they are Chicago-based PhD patent lawyers for bio and pharma).

Imagine what might happen to save more lives if our nation fully invested in stem cells by having the wisdom to reject the their  purported "morality" in favor of saving lives. Imagine how many new jobs might be generated if our nation finds the courage to keep investing in science despite the screams of the deficit hawks who sat silently while Bush turned a surplus into a deficit. Imagine the economy if we as a nation supported science as well as we've supported the financial services industry. And, by the way, when was the last time you saw an investment banker save a life with her knowledge ?

_______________________________________________________________________

"Earlier this month, the Battelle Memorial Institute announced the issuance of a report concerning the economic impact of the Human Genome Project.  In the report, the research group indicated that the return on the $3.8 billion the U.S. government invested in the project between 1988 and 2003 totaled $796 billion.  The report also indicated that the project has created some 310,000 jobs (as of 2010), generating $244 billion in total personal income.  In 2010 alone, the project and associated genomics research and industry activity generated $67 billion in economic output, supported jobs that produced $20 billion in personal income, and provided $3.7 billion in federal taxes -- almost paying back the government's total investment in the project in a single year.  In addition, Battelle noted that the project had launched a "genomic revolution" that would "create significantly more jobs in the future."

The report also noted that the project led to significant breakthroughs including new forms of personalized medicine and genetics therapy, greater productivity in agriculture, and potential sources of renewable energy.  Life Technologies CEO Greg Lucier (the report was sponsored by Life Technologies' foundation) stated that "[f]rom a simple return on investment, the financial stake made in mapping the entire human genome is clearly one of the best uses of taxpayer dollars the U.S. government has ever made," adding that "[t]his project has been, and will continue to be, the kind of investment the government should foster."

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An  email landed in the inbox today for a free sample issue of this new law journal focused - apparently - on the rule of law.  The journal concept seems intriguing. So, the text of the email is set out below.

Hague Journal on the Rule of Law

Sample issue online
The rule of law and legal pluralism

DearColleague,

The latest issue of the Hague Journal on the Rule of Law (HJRL) features a section of the rule of law and legal pluralism. You can read the following fascinating articles free of charge for a limited period.

The Rule of Law and Legal Pluralism in Development - Brian Z. Tamanaha

Legal Pluralism and International Development Agencies: State Building or Legal Reform? - Julio Faundez

Sustainable Diversity in Law - H. Patrick Glenn

Historical Perspectives on Legal Pluralism - Lauren Benton

The latest issue of HJRL also features a section on the practical issues of rule of law promotion. This section and the rest of this issue is available online without charge, until the 1st of August 2011.

You can see the complete table-of-contents of this issue by following this link.

Content Alerts

You can manage your preferences on Cambridge Journals Online by following this link.

Recommend HJRL to your serials librarian

Recommendations from faculty members are the primary influence on librarians' budget decisions so to ensure you have full access to this journal, follow this link to recommend a subscription to your librarian now.

We hope you enjoy this sample issue.

Kind regards,

Jim Ansell
Cambridge Journals

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Litigation funding for international arbitration takes center stage on June 25  for a New York State Bar Association seminar at Fordham law School.  Registration is here. As always, Selvyn Seidel is one of the speakers, and the fee is very modest at $ 75.

The agenda is pasted below:

Themes and Objectives

A commercial claim is increasingly being viewed as a commercial asset, with value and use like other assets.  Around this new asset class, an emerging industry is growing:  third party capital investments to buy an interest in merit-based assets, with the capital to be used to prosecute the claim in return for some form of interest in the asset.  If successful, the investor gets investment returns related to the recovery.  If unsuccessful, the investor takes the loss.

Such investments are still unknown to the majority of the potential market members.  They are gaining attention, and are increasingly being used by parties who need the financial support to pursue their claim.  Top tier law firms, major multi-national corporations and sovereign states are among those starting to turn to third party funders. Funding need per case has a wide range, running from the thousands to the tens of millions.  Recoveries anticipated in the cases are similarly wide ranging, from the thousands to the many billions.  Although data in this emerging market and industry is scarce indeed, one thing is for certain:  the market need dwarfs the available capital.

While investments in commercial disputes have something of a history, particularly in Australia and the United Kingdom, such investments are just gaining traction in the United States.  The American Lawyer thus recently labeled it the “New New Thing”.

Despite growth, several important parts of the industry have remained relatively untouched.  Funding of international arbitration claims is one such area, and a critical one.  Only now is it starting to gain some attention in the market, in the press and in academic institutions.  The market is demanding that notice be taken.

This Roundtable is among the first to respond.  It is devoted to investments in international arbitration claims.  The Roundtable is designed to strategically cover this important topic and to provide a platform and springboard for expansion of knowledge, analysis and understanding. 

Presentations, comments and questions by prominent experts in the field, including providers, users, academics and the media, will explore the current market structure, status, issues and opportunities. You will learn how the industry and the law is developing, what funders look for in making their investment decisions, what commercial,  professional, and ethical considerations need to be reviewed, why international arbitration may be ripe for expanded use of such investments, and what empirical research reveals and predicts for the future. Join us for knowledgeable and cutting edge discussions and presentations on an emerging practice that may serve to benefit the market and industry.

To supplement the discussions, written materials will also be distributed to address topics covered as well as to fill in gaps where limited time prevents discussion.

Scope of Program, and Those Who May be Interested in the Program

The program is designed for those interested in the emerging industry and market which involves third parties to a litigation providing capital to fund financial needs including the litigation or arbitration costs involved in prosecuting meritorious commercial claims in return for an interest in a recovery in the dispute.  It is focused on the most recent sector of that industry attracting interest and importance, the financing of international arbitration claims. 

Cutting edge topics to be covered include areas relating to professional and ethics issues (such as champerty, confidentiality and lawyers’ duty to avoid interference with their independent professional judgment); funding’s possible impact on the attorney-client relationship; attorney-client privilege; conflicts of interest among the participants; operational issues such as finding a funder, the role and responsibilities of the lawyer, the different structures available for funding, the various funder products and funder services provided, and the returns to and risks of the funder; analysis of how “sacred”  the contract is in this industry; and “hands-on” versus “hands-off” considerations.

The program will therefore be of particular interest to business entities and others who need such support; to attorneys whose clients need such support; to arbitrators; to judges; to academics; and to the media. 

Third Party Funding of International Arbitration Claims:
The Newest “New New Thing”

1:00 – 1:45           Registration and Lunch

1:45 – 2:00           Welcome and Introduction – Edna Sussman, ADR Practitioner in Residence, Fordham Law School,
                                                            Chair NYSBA Dispute Resolution Section

2:00 – 3:00           The “Old” -  Third Party Funding Basics
Moderator:        Timothy Scrantom, Co-Founder and CEO, Fulbrook Management; Founder, Juridica Management
Panelists:            Jonathan Ames, Senior Contributor, London Times; Editor, European Lawyer
                                Mark Beckett, Latham and Watkins, Partner and Co-Chairman, International Litigation and Arbitration
                                Timothy Nelson, Skadden Arps Meagher & Flom, Partner, International Litigation and Arbitration  Group
                                James Tyrrell, Patton Boggs, Member, Executive Committee; Chairman, Funding Alternatives

                                What is Third Party Funding of Commercial Claims?
                                Products, Services, Finding a Funder, Various Structures, Issues, Case Law, Status

3:00 – 4 :55          The “New” – Third Party Funding of International Arbitration Claims:  Similarities and
                                Differences from Funding Litigation Claims, Products, Services, Issues, Recent Jurisprudence, Status
Moderator:        Bernardo Cremades,  Founder,  B. Cremades y Asociados
Panelists:            Michele DeStefano Beardslee, Associate Professor, University of Miami Law School
                                Nigel Blackaby, Partner, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer
                                Bruce Green, Louis Stein Professor, Fordham Law  School
                                James Rhodes, Arbitrator and Mediator
                                Maya Steinitz, Associate-in-Law, Lecturer-in-Law, Columbia Law School

                                The Work and Impact of Funding in International Arbitration
                                Importance and Implications
                                Selected Illustrations
                                Distinctions Between Funding Arbitration and Litigation
                                Actual and Potential Benefits; International Arbitration v. Litigation
                                Actual and Potential Ethical and Other Issues; Perceptions and Publicity
                                New York, Front and Center
                                United States compared to United Kingdom

4:10 – 5:00           Where do we go from here?
Moderator:        David Samuels, Managing Editor, Global Arbitration Review
Panelists:            Bernardo Cremades, Founder, B. Cremades y Asociados
                                George Bermann, Walter Gelhorn Professor of Law and Director of European Legal Studies, Columbia Law School
                                   Maurice Mendelson  QC, Blackstone Chambers, London
                                   Timothy Scrantom, Co-Founder and CEO, Fulbrook Management; Founder, Juridica Management
                                   Selvyn Seidel, Co-Founder and Chairman, Fulbrook Management LLC; Co-Founder, Burford Group Ltd
                                Stefan Vogenauer, Director, Oxford Institute of European & Comparative Law, Oxford University

                                Growth of Information and Analysis
                                Spread of Credibility
                                Impact on Market and Industry
                                Rules, Regulations, Regulators

5:00 – 5:30           Open Question and Answer
Moderator:        Selvyn Seidel, Co-Founder and Chairman, Fulbrook Management; Co-Founder, Burford Group Ltd

5:30 – 5:45           Conclusion:  Edna Sussman

5:45 – 7:00           Reception

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STOLI policies are  Stranger Owned Life Insurance policies. Insurers spend plenty of time and ink  complaining about STOLI policies, and seeking laws making them illegal. 

But, interestingly, this new lawsuit in Chicago alleges that Lincoln National Life actually encourages STOLI policies in order to earn premium before rescinding the policies. According to the allegations, Lincoln National sold a series of STOLI policies through one particular agent in Chicago, and apparently loved the premium income. In this instance,  $10 million policies were sold to a 70 year old  husband and wife.  Selling policies that size seems fishy on its face when the purchasers are 70 years old.

A Google search on Lincoln National and STOLI turned up multiple cases involving Lincoln as issuer of STOLI policies. And, this article, quotes from one case in which Lincoln National is said to have sold some 80 policies known to it to be financed by a third-party funder (which can happen innocently for some types of policies).

"Lincoln had prior experiences with the Mutual Credit Corporation because Mutual had funded more than eighty other policies that Lincoln had written.301 Of those policies not a single original insured or beneficial trust retained ownership of the policies after the two-year contestability period had expired.302 It was known that Mutual’s funding source was a hedge fund that invests in life settlements.303"

Call me cynical, but I'd bet that Lincoln did in fact know it was aiding and abetting the sale of STOLI policies, and loved the premiums it earned before it sued to rescind the policies.

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Selling asbestos fibers today seems not real bright. As a result, this blog includes this post and this post highlighting the flaws in the arguments for selling asbestos fibers for "controlled use."  But Jon Stewart and the Daily Show just did it in a big way, as shown here by opponents of asbestos fiber sales.The Canadian Press later picked up on the story on the story.

Kudos to Stewart and Company for publicizing the folly.

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Certainty is valuable. Just ask entrepreneurs making decisions on where to invest or seeking to sell future cash flows for a multiple of earnings.

Or, ask insurers pricing risk premiums. Put aside mere money. Consider doctors or scientists seeking to predict the success of any particular treatment for any given disease. Consider the patient wondering if he or she will, for example, remain paralyzed for life, or whether stem cells may help to cure Alzheimer’s, cancers or other diseases.

Now consider the impact of the news that experiments by smart researchers at UCSD further prove the folly of depending on faux stem cells (“ induced stem cells or iPS).  The iPS cells are the faux stem cells touted by the religious right as an alternative to true stem cells from embryos. The latest research results were publicly announced last Friday, and are now moving through the news cycle. Nature’s press article is here, Andrew Pollack’s NYT article is here, and the full Nature paper is here. Key excerpts are pasted below from Nature’s press article.

Implications ? On the money side, the uncertainty plainly will slow progress in research and investment in iPS cells in particular. On the human sides, that means more patients will die or suffer while waiting even longer for answers.

The implications also are broader. The Catholic Church now faces a new set of challenges and questions as it seeks to limit science based on its “moral” view. And, right wingers will face a new set of challenges for the 2012 elections whne they argue to limit science. ____________________________________________________________________________________________________

“Cells that have been reprogrammed to grow into different types of tissue might be rejected by the body — even when they are transplanted into the individual from whom they are made, researchers report in a study published today in Nature.

The study was led by Yang Xu, a molecular biologist at the University of California, San Diego. It will shake up the regenerative-medicine field, because until now, most scientists have assumed that reprogrammed cells made from an individual's own tissue could be safely transplanted back into the same person.”

"This is a surprise; it's going to put a spanner in the works for the whole field," says Paul Fairchild, an immunologist and stem-cell biologist at the University of Oxford, UK. The latest study looked at mouse embryonic stem cells and mouse induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells. Both types of cell are pluripotent, meaning that they can grow into many other cell varieties.”

****

“The finding comes on top of the publication of a spate of studies suggesting that iPS cells might contain more genetic abnormalities than embryonic stem cells.. The US Food and Drug Administration heard concerns about genetic mutations in iPS cells at a meeting in Bethesda, Maryland, in March.”

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Why support federally funded cancer research ? An expert article presents the case in brief, with the argument presented by George W. Sledge, Jr., MD,  who is the President of the American Society of Clinical Oncology.

The short summary? Supporting federally funded cancer research is important because it's compassionate for the 500,000 people who die of cancer each year in the US. And its important  because it's a vast and growing area of science that produces great jobs and more. Federal investment also is needed because pharma does not pay for basic science research, and we need to keep up with China, which is investing heavily in the area, as is described here. Dr. Sledge also is urging oncology and other professionals to speak out because his trip to Washington was not encouraging.  

Here's a key excerpt, followed by the text of the full article:

 "An investment in cancer research not only enhances the lives of patients, it also creates jobs and spurs economic growth. In 2007, NIH and NCI funding created over 350,000 jobs and generated more than $50 billion in economic activity. NIH and NCI contribute to local economic revitalization efforts by providing funding to universities, research institutions, and smalls businesses across the country." 

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Great to see these convictions. And, remember,  the original charges involved  insider trading in 37 stocks, but the government winnowed it to 14 stocks to simplify trial.

Let's hope there are many more wiretaps, indictments, guilty pleas and convictions.  

From the WSJ:   NEW YORK--Raj Rajaratnam, a billionaire hedge-fund impresario who built his fortune in the relentless cultivation of corporate contacts, was convicted Wednesday on all 14 counts of securities fraud and conspiracy against him in the biggest insider-trading case ever, likely accelerating an unprecedented wave of prosecutions rocking Wall Street.

The verdict by the 12-member jury, following 12 days of deliberation, capped a blockbuster trial that began in early March and featured 45 wiretaps showing how the founder of Galleon Group trafficked in insider tips provided by a web of contacts at the top tier of American business.

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It seems inevitable that sovereign liability issues will continue to grow; several posts on this topic are indexed under  the heading  "sovereign."  Two new items caught my eye on sovereign-owned or supported entities.

First, note this NLJ article on decisions holding that FCPA  prosecutions are proper for bribes paid to business entities which are arguably owned or controlled by government entities. Second, consider the growing scale of global Chinese government investment in  businesses around the world, and how many entities may soon be considered sovereign-owned  or controlled. According to this recent NYT article about a new study on Chinese investment:

"Flush with capital from its enormous trade surpluses and armed with the world’s largest foreign exchange reserves, China has begun spreading its newfound riches to every corner of the world — whether copper mines in Africa, iron ore facilities in Australia or even a gas shale project in the heart of Texas.

The study, commissioned by the Asia Society in New York and the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars in Washington, forecasts that over the next decade China could invest as much as $2 trillion in overseas companies, plants or property, money that could help reinvigorate growth in the United States and Europe."

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Here is a comprehensive summary of the asbestos-cement industry in India as of 1997-98.  Papers like this tend to end up becoming "tomorrow's"  evidence.

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A May 25, 2011 conference in London will bring together true industry leaders and legal thought leaders, including Justice Jackson. The agenda and registration are here for Maximising Opportunities in Litigation Funding.

Justice Jackson authored the leading report for the UK on litigation costs and funding. Background materials are here, as are links to the paper. Panel members will include Selvyn Seidel, a leader in this field.

The conference agenda is pasted below.  

09:20 - 09:25 Chair’s opening remarks

09:25 - 10:00 Access to justice and third party funding

10:00 - 10:45 Third party funding in practice

10:45 - 11:00 Coffee

11:00 - 11:45 Finding the right cases for funding

11:45 - 12:30 Conditional fee agreements

12:30 - 13:30 Lunch

13:30 - 14:10 After-the-event insurance

14:10 - 14:40 Contingency fees

14:40 - 15:20 Funding arbitration

15:20 - 15:35 Afternoon Tea

15:35 - 16:15 Developments in European litigation funding

16:15 - 17:00 Panel Session: The future of third party funding and after-the-event insurance

17:00 - 17:10 Chair’s closing remarks

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Science beyond fiction.

Think about  that phrase. Think about the changes of the last hundred years. The last ten years. The last two years. The last week. Science is exploding, and today's fiction cannot keep pace with the fundamental daily advances in science. 

The source of the phrase ?  An EU-created group  focused  on  science and change.

The group?  FET. Future and Emerging Technologies.  FET's tagline:  "science beyond fiction."

FET's mission ? The website defines it as follows:

 "Within the EU Framework Programme for Research and Technological development, Future and Emerging Technologies (FET) is funding frontier research based on a radically new visions of what can be done and grounded in scientifically valid ideas how to make major steps towards achieving such visions.

FET acts as a pathfinder open to new ideas and opportunities, as they arise from within science or society. It aims to go beyond the conventional boundaries of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) and ventures into uncharted areas.

FET funded projects increasingly rely on fresh synergies, cross-pollination and convergence with different scientific disciplines and with the arts and humanities. This transdisciplinary and high-risk research requires new attitudes and novel organisational models in research and education. The multidisciplinary creative process that is at the heart of future and emerging technologies is a constant challenge to conventional academic boundaries."

A conference known as fet11 just finished up in Hungary, and brought together scientists, government leaders and dreamers from around Europe. Among other things, they talked about new projects, and a billion dollars of research grants.  Neelie Kroes, Vice President of the European Commission, is one of the government leaders.  Her resume is impressive:

"Biography: From February 2010 Kroes has been a Vice President of the European Commission and is leading implementation of the Digital Agenda for Europe - the EU's new comprehensive action plan to harness ICTs to drive growth and address social challenges. Kroes will be mobilising industry, national governments, other stakeholders and her colleagues to deliver on 31 pieces of legislation and 101 targets by the end of her term in 2015. At the top of the list is the EU's commitment to deliver 'broadband for all' .  Prior to her roles in Brussels, Kroes was President of Nyenrode University from 1991-2000, and served on the boards of a string of major companies such as Lucent Technologies, Volvo, and P&O Nedlloyd.  Kroes hails from the liberal VVD Party in the Netherlands, and served as a national minister of transport and telecommunications in the 1970s and 1980s. Kroes has been a Knight of the Order of the Netherlands Lion since 1981 and a Grand Officer of the Order of Orange-Nassau since 1989."

What did they decide?  This page from IPfrontline provides the following synopsis of the finalists for the grants, in alphabetical order:

 FuturICT Knowledge Accelerator and Crisis-Relief System: ICT can analyse vast amounts of data and complex situations so as to better predict natural disasters, or manage and respond to man-made disasters that cross national borders or continents.

• Graphene Science and technology for ICT and beyond: Graphene is a new substance developed by atomic and molecular scale manipulation that could replace silicon as the wonder material of the 21st century.
• Guardian Angels for a Smarter Life: tiny devices without batteries that act like autonomous personal assistants, and which can sense, compute and communicate potentially even while travelling through your bloodstream.
• The Human Brain Project: understanding the way in which the human brain works can bring the benefits of brain-related or brain-inspired developments to computing architectures, neuroscience and medicine.
• IT Future of Medicine: digital technology has the power to deliver individualised medicine, based on molecular, physiological and anatomical data collected from individual patients and processed on the basis of globally integrated medical knowledge.
• Robot Companions for Citizens: soft skinned and intelligent robots have highly developed perceptive, cognitive and emotional skills, and can help people, radically changing the way humans interact with machines.

 That's a great list of projects, andthe fet11 website is full of interesting articles and videas.   Kudos to the  EU leaders  trying to push science ahead.  Science is our future, and makes sense for reasons of business, jobs and finding solutions to help people. 

Here in the US, President Obama and others also "get" the value of science. Indeed, he's made some wonderful decisions to push science forward. Sad to say, US efforts to push science ahead face opposition vocal, headline-grabbing opposition from  misguided  tea-partiers who seek  to slash research budgets, and restrict science.   Hopefully forward-looking people will speak out with voices and numbers sufficient  to overcome the opposition. 

Hat tip to the Financial Times for covering the topic here, but it's articles are often behind barriers.

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 It feels like science fiction. But, here is the ScienceDaily summary of an experiment - and success - in robots learning altruism and cooperation. The experiment was undertaken to test "Hamilton's Rule" on why humans act altruistically. The full paper is here in PLoS.

The experiment involved researchers at the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland,  and the  Department of Ecology and Evolution, Biophore, University of Lausanne. The Swiss researchers used  small "Alice"  robots previously developed at the University.  The robots seek out food. The robots started with 33 "genes" of code. They evolved and improved over 500 generations of robots. The authors now want to put the results to work to see if flying robots will better cooperate in swarming. 

The law side? Who knows. But this article caught my eye because somewhere an article set out  the idea that some day robots could be used to clean up debris at nuclear power plants, but current design standards make that harder because power plant designs assume human mobility and dexterity. Will it some day be negligent to design a nuclear plant without providing for robotic clean up?

Here's the conclusion from the article:

"Because the 33 genes were initially set to random values, the robots' behaviors were completely arbitrary in the first generation. However, the robots' performance rapidly increased over the 500 generations of selection (Figure 2). The level of altruism also rapidly changed over generations with the final stable level of altruism varying greatly depending on the within-group relatedness and c/b ratio (Figure 3). When the c/b value was very small (0.01), the level of altruism was very high in the populations where within-group relatedness was positive (i.e., 0.25, 0.5, 0.75, and 1.00) and close to zero when robots were unrelated (Figure 4). In the treatments with other c/b values, the level of altruism was also very low when the relatedness was close to 0 and the level of altruism also rapidly increased when the relatedness became higher than a given value. In all cases, the transition occurred when r became greater than c/b, as predicted by Hamilton's rule."

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Japan - not the place one thinks of as hotbed for asbestos use and litigation. But, in fact, asbestos was heavily used as Japan rebuilt after the war. Today people are dying because of that past use. Much of that story, and more, apparently is told in a new book aimed at detailing events in Japan, and helping developing countries avoid our past mistakes. The book is:

 Asbestos Disaster: Lessons from Japan's Experience by Kenichi Miyamoto, Morinaga Kenji,  and Mori Hiroyuki

Google Reader includes the book, and is a good place to read the wide-ranging table of contents for this book of over 300 pages. The book looks good (given the subject matter) but at $ 190.00, I've not yet ordered a copy. One chapter appears to be online here as a paper.

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Canadian asbestos miners and asbestos cement makers like to argue that continuing to use asbestos makes sense because use is "controlled."  That might be true every now and then, but Mother Nature has recently and repeatedly proved that the world's societies cannot realistically assume control over nature, and so products need to be evaluated based on the harms they can cause when use is not controlled.   Thus, Insurance Journal reports here that asbestos monitoring is now underway in Japan's tsunami-stricken communities due to asbestos cement wreckage from buildings. Not surprisingly, fibers are being found by the monitoring, and exposures are occurring.  The Insurance Journal article assumes the fibers are chrysotile (white) fibers. But the facts are that a Kubota-owned plant in Japan produced vast amounts of asbestos cement board using the far more carcinogenic crocidolite (blue) asbestos fibers, as is detailed in this medical article.

The controlled use rationale sounds logical. But it fails to account for the reality that we know that we cannot control nature, and there will be nature-caused calamities. We also know there will human mistakes and errors, with a prime example being the BP oil rig fiasco. The controlled use argument also fails to account for events that actually are not predictable. Law and society should move to the point that the controlled-use rationale is carefully scrutinized and limited to situations where it is proved - not assumed -  to  comport with human experience. 

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My 54th birthday brought an unexpected present. On April 29,  2011, the DC Circuit vacated the nation-wide injunction limiting stem cell research involving federal funding, as is well-described  by Lyle Denniston at Scotusblog. The opinion is here. Thank goodness for appellate courts,  the Obama Administration pressing the appeal quickly, and true scientists supportiing the effort to overturn the injunction.

It's hard to grasp why the injunction was ever issued given the public interest factor for issuing injunctions. Delaying research is not simply an abstract issue. To say the least, stem cell research goes to the heart of diseases (e.g. cancers)  which kill thousands every day, and to profound injuries that can devastate lives. Stem cell research also is big business, and would be bigger here except that the restrictive limits push researchers outside the US. 

As it happens, ScienceDaily  this week brought news of new research papers which highlight the importance of basic and wide-ranging research to fully understand stem cells and their internal cellular components. Thus, this April 26, 2011 ScienceDaily article highlights an April 15, 2011 online paper reporting that scientists researching breast cancer recently found evidence that some breast cancer cells can go backwards to become a stem-cell like cancer cells:

ScienceDaily (Apr. 26, 2011) — Whitehead Institute researchers have discovered that a differentiated cell type found in breast tissue can spontaneously convert to a stem-cell-like state, the first time such behavior has been observed in mammalian cells. These results refute scientific dogma, which states that differentiation is a one-way path; once cells specialize, they cannot return to the flexible stem-cell state on their own.

"It may be that if one eliminates the cancer stem cells within a tumor through some targeted agent, some of the surviving non-stem tumor cells will generate new cancer stem cells through spontaneous de-differentiation," says Whitehead Founding Member Robert Weinberg. Cancer stem cells are uniquely capable of reseeding tumors at both primary and distant sites in the body.

As to the value of fundamental research, ScienceDaily noted here that one of the world's great medical journals - Cell -  includes a new paper highlighting a fundamental new discovery on the path of genetic mutations. The new paper is set out as the featured and free article of Cell's  April 29, 2011 issue, and is accompanied by a video and graphic explanations. The new knowledge arises from research lead by  University of San Francisco scientists who unraveled a genetic mystery embodied in a mutant mouse first noted by NIH researchers back in the 1940s. The mutant mouse was notable for a short, kinky  tail and a neck with an extra set of ribs. Back in the 1940s, the scientists lacked the tools needed to understand the mutation, but they kept breeding the mouse line, knowing the future should bring new analytic tools. 

As reported in Cell, the research team used today's new tools and the line of mutant mice to learn  that a cell component known as the ribosome has a heretofore unknown role in determining which proteins are produced by our cells, and how one missing protein could produce the mutations. The conclusions almost certainly apply to humans  because cells are cells. This is major science news because - until now -  the ribosome was known as simply a production machine that did not influence outcome. To learn that the ribosome may alter outcome is  fundamental and highly important new knowledge, as illustrated by Cell giving the paper so much coverage.  (Sad to day, it's far too easy to think of various newly-elected US Representatives, and envision an uninformed, budget-cutting  tea-partier deriding the research as "wasting money for over 60 years on trying to find out why some mice have kinky tails". )

Most scientists "get" the importance  of stem cells and wide-ranging research on their characteristics. Indeed, only a zealous few argue that their personal, "moral" beliefs are more important than scientific knowledge. Thus, national scientific research leaders actively opposed the injunction, and submitted evidence opposing the injunction, as described in this press release from the  University of California at San Francisco.  The comments illustrate  the point that research delays and injunctions are not abstract matters:

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April 29, 2011

The U.S. Federal Court of Appeals has overturned an August 2010 ban on federal funding of embryonic stem cell research, paving the way for broader exploration of how stem cells function and how they can be harnessed to treat a wide range of currently incurable diseases

The ruling has been welcomed by the Obama Administration, which attempted to lift the ban in 2009, and by the nation’s top researchers in the field, including Arnold Kriegstein, MD, PhD, director of the Eli and Edythe Broad Center of Regeneration Medicine and Stem Cell Research at UCSF.

“This is a victory not only for the scientists, but for the patients who are waiting for treatments and cures for terrible diseases,” Kriegstein said. “This ruling allows critical research to move forward, enabling scientists to compare human embryonic stem cells to other forms of stem cells, such as the cell lines which are derived from skin cells, and to pursue potentially life-saving therapies based on that research.”

Kriegstein said the ruling will make a significant difference for stem cell research in general, including at UCSF, where the majority of stem cell investigators receive some funding from the National Institutes of Health for their research, as well as from private sources and from the state. The ruling enables those scientists to integrate research from various funding sources, thereby more quickly addressing the causes and therapies for diseases.

Kriegstein was one of two University of California scientists to file a Declaration in September 2010 in support of the UC Board of Regents’ motion to intervene in the August lawsuit, Sherley v. Sebelius.

Sherly v. Sebelius had argued that when the Obama Administration lifted a ban on federal funding for the research in March 2009, it had violated the 1996 Dickey-Wicker Amendment which barred using taxpayer funds in research that destroyed embryos.

In response, a U.S. District Court judge temporarily ordered a ban on the use of federal money for the research until the court battle could be resolved.

The Appeals Court decision put the Dickey-Wicker question to rest, ruling that the amendment was “ambiguous” and that the NIH “seems reasonably to have concluded that although Dickey-Wicker bars funding for the destructive act of deriving an ESC (embryonic stem cell) from an embryo, it does not prohibit funding a research project in which an ESC will be used,” according to the 2-1 decision.

“I am very happy with this decision, although I am surprised that it wasn’t a unanimous vote,” Kriegstein said. “In my opinion, the evidence in favor of pursuing this research is overwhelming compared to the arguments submitted to stop the research.”

UCSF is one of two universities, along with the University of Wisconsin, that pioneered human embryonic stem cell research in the United States, beginning in the late 1990s.

UCSF has developed one of the largest programs in the nation, primarily funded by the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, a voter-supported initiative that provided $3 billion to fund statewide research in lieu of federal funding for it. Funding from the NIH, private philanthropy and other state sources also have been critical for the program.

UCSF also launched the nation’s first stem cell PhD program in 2010, for which the first class already has been chosen and will begin in fall 2011.

UCSF is a leading university dedicated to promoting health worldwide through advanced biomedical research, graduate-level education in the life sciences and health professions, and excellence in patient care. For more information, visit www.ucsf.edu.

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