Pentagon Funds Foreign Cloning Research

The wily warriors over at the Pentagon have found a novel way around President Bush's ban on federal research using newly created embryonic stem cells--fund foreign scientists. Reuters reports that the Pentagon has given a $240,000 grant to Swedish researchers who are trying to use human embryonic stem cells to cure Parkinson's disease. The Pentagon's rationale is that such research might develop therapies to help American soldiers harmed by exposure to toxic agents like nerve gas. Of course, if the House of Representatives' bill criminalizing the importation of therapies based on human embryonic stem cells passes, soldiers receiving such treatments would either be jailed or barred from returning to this the country.