Stem Cell Research: "The 'untouchables' of US science"

The 'untouchables' of US science | Special reports | Guardian Unlimited:

"Over the past five years the imperative of segregating all stem cell research has created a jumble of red tape. This has allowed collaboration to restart, but at a price. In the Eggan lab each piece of equipment is marked with a sticker: green for privately funded machines that can be freely used; red for those bought by the National Institutes of Health, the federal funding body, which must not be used in stem cell research.

The most Kafkaesque is the yellow sticker. This is applied to equipment that is federally owned but where a deal has been reached: whenever a scientist uses the machine they record it in a book and the NIH is reimbursed.

In one room there are two cryostats, used to prepare tissue for the microscope, standing side by side. One has a green sticker, the other red. Someone has put a label above the red machine, showing Mr Bush pointing straight out and saying: 'You there! No human ES cell sectioning on this machine!'"