Several Wisconsin top stem-cell researchers, advocates, as well as industry leaders, voiced concern that Republican Senator John McCain will back off his previous support for the work provided he is elected president.

McCain has supported the removal of President Bush’s ban on directing some of the federal money toward creating new stem cell lines from extra embryos and allocating a higher amount of money to researchers, in order to study them. His rival in the November 4 election, US Senator Barack Obama, Democrat from Illinois, also promised to contribute to the matter.  

Experts and advocates who gather in Madison on Sept. 21-23 for the 2008 World Stem Cell Summit, would like to know what the Republican senator from Arizona would do given that he wins the competition. According to The Chicago Tribune, they said that the Republican Party adopted a platform which called for banning embryonic stem cell research, letting scientists work with stem cells derived from other sources.

"Three or four months ago, I felt fairly certain that we were through with the federal ban. Now I'm not so certain," Jeff Sheehy of the UCSF AIDS Research Institute asserted. "I can't really tell where McCain stands but we hope he keeps his commitments," he added.

On the same topic, Alta Charo, a University of Wisconsin bioethicist who will speak at the event, said: "If McCain backs away from his prior support, it will not be popular with disease activist groups or people who have sick people in their families," But “if he doesn't say that, it will irritate the people who support him from the socially conservative part of the base. He would rather not have to say anything on this."

It is estimated that the summit would attract more than 1,000 advocates. Being held at the Alliant Energy Center, it is hosted by the University of Wisconsin Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine Center, The Genetics Policy Institute and the WiCell Research Institute.