Obama injects politics — and profit — into science

Obama says he's "restoring science to its proper place," by introducing federal government funding into research that destroys human embryos. As you might guess, the Biotechnology Industry Organization--a major lobbying group--counts this as a win. My column today:

Somehow, in Obama’s rhetoric, fulfilling the funding requests from these industry lobbyists counts as getting politics out of science.

Throughout its brief history, the embryonic stem cell industry has always been supremely political. It has been busy not warding off regulations — recall, this research has never been banned — but seeking taxpayer money at the federal and state level.

Read the whole thing here.