Human cloning bans advance in "radically changed" stem cell field
Perth, May 9, 2008 / 04:48 am (CNA).- In one of the first legislative
actions involving embryonic cloning since the discovery of a
breakthrough stem cell production technique, lawmakers in an
Australian state have rejected legislation that would allow human
cloning for research purposes, Cybercast News Service reports.
Advocates of bans on such cloning argued the new discovery
has "radically changed" the field and helps justify the prohibition
of research that destroys human embryos.
Last November, scientists in the U.S. and Japan reported the
successful "direct reprogramming" of human adult skin cells into
cells that behave like embryonic stem cells. These "induced
pluripotent stem cells," iPS cells, are considered to have
significant research and therapeutic promise while avoiding the
ethical problems involved in creating, manipulating, and destroying
human embryos.
Cybercast News Service reports that the upper house of the Western
Australia parliament on Tuesday voted down a bill presented by the
Labor government that would have resembled federal legislation passed
in late 2006 that lifted a ban on human "therapeutic cloning,"
somatic-cell nuclear transfer.
Though several Australian states had passed similar legislation, the
Western Australia bill was the first considered since the progress of
iPS cell research was announced. Several lawmakers opposed to the
bill said the legislation was rendered outdated by the new research.
Western Australia minister of health Jim McGinty attacked the vote,
saying, "Conservative forces in the upper house… have denied the
people of Western Australia world class medical research and denied
people with life threatening medical conditions potential cures."
Professor Peter Klinken of the Western Australia Institute for
Medical Research said embryonic cloning was still relevant to stem
cell research.
"All stem cell research has pluses and minuses and we need to explore
all of them and not close off any doors," he said, according to
Cybercast News Service.
The Australian Christian Lobby welcomed the decision, saying the
lawmakers were the first "to reject pressure to line up with national
cloning laws."
"Human embryo cloning has always been wrong, as human life should not
be
arbitrarily created and destroyed, no matter how noble the supposed
goal might be," said the lobby's Western Australia director, Michelle
Pearse.
Dr. David Van Gend, national director of Australians for Ethical Stem
Cell Research, said the lawmakers understood that stem cell science
has "so radically changed since November 2007, providing such a
magnificent and ethical alternative to cloning, that there is no
longer any compelling argument for cloning."
"This blighted science can be left to wither on the vine," he said.
Van Gend noted that world leaders in cloning science, including Ian
Wilmut, creator of the first cloned mammal, Dolly the Sheep, had
abandoned cloning in favor of directly reprogramming cells.
Van Gend urged other Australian states to rescind their approval of
therapeutic cloning.
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StemCells subscribers may also be interested in these sites:
Children's Neurobiological Solutions
http://www.CNSfoundation.org/
Cord Blood Registry
http://www.CordBlood.com/at.cgi?a=150123
The CNS Healing Group
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CNS_Healing
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