FROM MEDIAMATTERS.ORG
Krauthammer echoed misleading Bush administration claim on stem cells
Syndicated Washington Post columnist and FOX News Channel contributor Charles Krauthammer falsely claimed that "up until this
administration, there was a ban" on federal funding for stem cell research. "The president, he broke the ban," Krauthammer said on the August 12 edition of FOX News Channel's Special Report with Brit Hume, adding that "he said that he will support with the federal tax dollars some stem-cell research." Krauthammer's comments expanded upon First Lady Laura Bush's recent claim that President George W. Bush was the first president ever to fund stem cell research.
The truth is that Bush's stem cell policy replaced a less restrictive set of rules issued by the Clinton administration, though those rules had yet to take effect. On August 10, 2001, the day after Bush's nationally-televised speech announcing his new stem cell policy, The Washington Post explained that "the new policy will replace guidelines issued by the National Institutes of Health a year ago under the Clinton administration that would have allowed the first federal subsidies of human embryo cell research." More broadly, the "ban" that Krauthammer referred to did not target stem cell research specifically. Rather, in each year since 1996, Congress has passed a general ban on research in which human embryos are damaged or destroyed. But scientists realized the potential of stem cell research only in the late 1990s; Clinton's 2000 guidelines were a response to this newly-emerging field of research, as The Washington Post explained on August 24, 2000.
more here...http://mediamatters.org/items/printable/200408130009