Congressional Republicans proposed a spending deal late Tuesday night to fund the government through 2016, and it places new restrictions on the use of federal funding for gene editing, Politico reported. The House and Senate are expected to pass the legislation soon. Obama will have to sign the bill or face the prospect of a government shut down. The $1.1 trillion Omnibus Spending Bill contains a provision that outlaws the use of federal money for research that involves genetically modifying human embryos, a topic of intense debate. The technology in question, known as CRISPR/Cas9, allows scientists to precisely and easily tweak the genomes of any organism. It has already been used by Chinese scientists to modify human embryos, though not ones that were capable of surviving until birth. Specifically, the bill specifies that none of the funding be used for clinical research "in which a human embryo is intentionally created or modified to include a heritable genetic modification." But Arthur Caplan, a bioethicist at NYU Langone Medical Center, thinks it's a bad move, for several reasons: First of all, banning federal funding won't stop efforts to edit human embryos, it's just going to move them into private industry. "You're not going to stop it, you're just going to shift it into private hands and let the market regulate it," Caplan told Business Insider. Secondly, gene editing technologies like CRISPR are still in their infancy, so the Fed's move is "basically the most fearful response possible," Caplan said. And finally, he said, it's irresponsible to cut off funding for something that has the potential to cure genetic disease. But Stanford law professor Hank Greely pointed out that the spending ban only applies to clinical research on human embryos (where the embryo is a considered a "drug" given to the mother), not on basic research. Specifically, the new provision limits the Food and Drug Administration's ability to acknowledge that it receives research requests to modify embryos in a clinical setting, but researchers don't need that approval if the "drug" (i.e. the embryo) is not being given to a person, he said. The funding ban comes on the heels of an international summit on human gene editing in Washington, DC, in early December, when scientists and bioethicists decided not to ban gene editing of human cells that can be inherited by the next generation, but urged caution until the relevant safety and efficacy issues have been resolved and there is "broad societal consensus" about the use of the technology. Proponents of gene editing say it will give us genetic therapies that will end a lot of suffering. But critics warn that it could lead to the creation of designer babies with specially selected traits like height or intelligence, reviving eugenics fears. Politico reported that the spending bill also expands the National Institutes of Health's annual budget by $2 billion to a total of $32 billion, including $350 million for Alzheimer's research. In addition, the Food and Drug Administration will get an additional $133 million for a total of $2.7 billion, which includes additional funding for President Obama's Precision Medicine Initiative. This article was updated at 12:38 pm ET, Dec. 17 to include comments from Hank Greely.
The US Congress has signed a wide ranging budget deal , pushed through by the Republicans , totalling $ 1.1 trillion . The spending bill blocks any funding for altering the genes of human embryos , and blocks the government from spending money from reviewing or approving clinical research regarding gene therapy solutions . Chinese scientists have already modified the genes of human embryos earlier this year , causing a widespread ethical crisis across the scientific community .