The Dickey Amendment is the name of a piece of federal legislation passed by United States Congress in 1995 which prohibits the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) from using appropriated funds for the creation of human embryos for research purposes or for research in which human embryos are destroyed. HHS funding includes the funding for National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding. Technically the Dickey Amendment is a "rider" to other legislation, which amends the original legislation. The rider receives its name from the name of the Congressman that originally introduced the amendment, Representative Jay Dickey. The Dickey amendment language has been added to each of the Labor, HHS, and Education appropriations acts for FY1997 throught FY2004. The original rider can be found in Section 128 of P.L. 104-99. The wording of the rider is generally the same year after year. For FY2005, the wording prohibits HHS from using FY2005 appropriated funds for: The Congress of the United States is the legislative branch of the federal government of the United States of America. ... 1995 was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... The United States Department of Health and Human Services, often abbreviated HHS, is a Cabinet department of the United States government with the goal of protecting the health of all Americans and providing essential human services. ... The National Institutes of Health is an institution of the United States government which focuses on medical research. ... Jay W. Dickey, Jr. ...

(1) the creation of a human embryo or embryos for research purposes; or (2) research in which a human embryo or embryos are destroyed, discarded, or knowingly subjected to risk of injury or death greater than that allowed for research on fetuses in utero under 45 CFR 46.208(a)(2) and Section 498(b) of the Public Health Service Act (42 U.S.C. 289g(b)). For purposes of this section, the term "human embryo or embryos" includes any organism, not protected as a human subject under 45 CFR 46 (the Human Subject Protection regulations) . . . that is derived by fertilization, parthenogenesis, cloning, or any other means from one or more human gametes (sperm or egg) or human diploid cells (cells that have two sets of chromosomes, such as somatic cells).

Categories: Biology stubs ... Kaguya is one success from 460 attempts at growing embryos. ... Cloning is the process of creating an identical copy of an original. ... Gametes (in Greek: γαμέτες) —also known as sex cells, germ cells, or spores—are the specialized cells that come together during fertilization (conception) in organisms that reproduce sexually. ... Schematic diagram of a sperm cell, showing the (1) acrosome, (2) cell membrane, (3) nucleus, (4) mitochondria, and (5) flagellum (tail) A sperm cell, or spermatozoon ( spermatozoa) (in Greek: sperm = semen and zoon = alive), is the haploid cell that is the male gamete. ... Wiktionary has a definition of: Egg Egg has multiple meanings. ... Diploid (meaning double in Greek) cells have two copies (homologs) of each chromosome (both sex- and non-sex determining chromosomes), usually one from the mother and one from the father. ... Figure 1: Chromosome. ... Somatic means to refer to the body. ...

External links

• Johnson, Judith A. & Erin Williams, Stem Cell Research (http://www.fas.org/spp/civil/crs/RL31015.pdf) Congressional Research Service, The Library of Congress, Order Code RL31015, (August 13, 2004).
• Stem Cell Legislation Highlights Aastrom Biosciences and Stem Cells Inc. (http://www.antandsons.com/faceoff)