June 14, 2002

The Honorable Tom Daschle
United States Senate
Washington, DC 20510

Dear Senator Daschle:

I write as President of the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (ASBMB) to inform you that we strongly support the Human Cloning Prohibition Act of 2002, introduced by Senators Feinstein, Hatch, Kennedy, and Specter. This bill would ban reproductive cloning while allowing research on regenerative medicine and therapies using stem cells.

We understand that Senator Brownback is discussing a proposal for a two-year moratorium on this latter type of research. This would replace his original proposal for a permanent ban. However, a moratorium is ill-advised, and will have just as serious effects on the health of the American people and our ability to develop cures as a permanent ban.

Two years may not seem like a long time to us, but for someone suffering from any of the many maladies that might be treated by stem cell therapies, two years is an eternity filled with more suffering. A two-year moratorium puts potentially life-saving breakthroughs further out of reach and may literally mean the difference between life and death for many patients.

A moratorium would delay development of the science behind stem cells. Scientists will be diverted from conducting needed research and, while the moratorium was in effect, new scientists could not be trained. If the moratorium is ever lifted, rebuilding our research capability would take years. What is worse, the whole field may become stigmatized so that researchers would be reluctant to return to it.

A moratorium, like a permanent ban, will continue to cause private companies to locate "off shore," and more U.S. scientists will leave and set up research labs overseas.

A moratorium is a ban by any other name. Congress could easily extend it, without debate, much as the "one-year" ban on federal funding for embryo research is extended each year in the Labor-HHS appropriations bill. In short, a moratorium is nothing more than a permanent ban disguised.

ASBMB does not view the Brownback moratorium proposal as any more palatable than his original position; it would continue to deny hope for cures and therapies to millions of people.

Sincerely,



Robert D. Wells