Wanted to add: i read a number of news accounts this morning -as usual mixed - some very good , but others confusing. The Washington Post article stated
"As supporters had hoped, Obama's order will come without any caveats and leave the details to be worked out by the National Institutes of Health, which will have 120 days to develop guidelines that will be used to vet requests for federal funding for research. The guidelines will address a host of thorny ethical issues raised by such research, such as how to obtain proper consent from donors of embryos used to obtain the cells.

"As a result of lifting those limitations, the president is in effect allowing federal funding of embryonic stem research to the extent it's permitted by federal law -- that is work with stem cells themselves, not the derivation of those stem cells," Varmus said.

Obama does not intend to call for the repeal of the Dickey-Wicker amendment, which bars the use of federal funds to conduct research on embryos directly.

"Congress will have to make a determination about how they want to deal with that," Barnes said. "
full text at
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...l?hpid=topnews

So the NIH has 120 days to come up with new guidelines. . Maybe it will take less than a year for funding to begin, if tthey can build on what already exists. Another news account said that at least immediately researchers willl be freed from needing to use different facilities for federally funded and non-federally funding research.

There will probably be accompanying legislation.

I agree we need to ge the message to the NIH that input by actual patients -- and not just disease advoacy orgs--- should also be a part of the process and keep the urgency of getting funding moving as soon as possible on the front burner.