August 2002 Continue
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P U B L I C
P O L I C Y
B R I E F I N G Bioethics Council Releases Mixed Cloning Report The President’s Council on Bioethics, ap- pointed last Summer by President Bush as he announced his decision to allow federal fund-
ing for research on a limited number of
stem cell lines, released its report last
month on human cloning. The Council
is chaired by Leon R. Kass of the
University of Chicago. Former ASCB
President Elizabeth Blackburn serves on the
Council. After several months of debate and
dis- cussion, the 18 Council members
produced a divided report. The document,
entitled Human Cloning and
Human Dignity: An Ethi- cal Inquiry, conveys
unanimous opposi- tion to
cloning for reproduction. But the Council was split three ways on the issue of nuclear transplantation for biomedical research, with seven members favor- ing research with regula- tion, seven members sup- porting an outright ban, and three supporting a four- year moratorium. Last minute maneuvering by anti-research members re- sulted in majority support for a four-year moratorium and minority support of al- lowing research to continue under regulation. The
impact of the report is unclear. The Council was created only to make recommen- dations to the President and has no legisla-
tive or regulatory authority. The divided
out- Singer Testifies
Before President’s Council on Bioethics Carnegie
Institution of Washington President and ASCB Public Policy Committee member Maxine Singer spoke
be- fore the President’s Council on
Bioethics following release of its report
calling for a four-year moratorium on nuclear transplantation. Singer,
who spoke on behalf of the Coalition for the Ad- vancement of Medical Research in opposition to the action
by the Council, presented the Council with
a petition signed by over two thousand
medical school faculty across the U.S. op- posing a ban or moratorium on nuclear transplantation
re- search. In her remarks to the Council, Singer said, “the role of
sci- ence is to discover answers to the
unknown. The moratorium that a
majority of the members of this Commission support would, as your
member Janet Rowley said yesterday, be
nothing more than four more years of ignorance.” To view the petition, see http://www.multiversity.org/stem.htm.
To see a list of the signers
of the
petition, see http://www.multiversity.org/sigpage-new-petition.htm. n [T]he
Council was split three ways on the issue
of nuclear
transplantation for biomedical research, with seven members
favoring research with regulation, seven members supporting
an outright ban, and
three supporting
a four-year moratorium. Maxine Singer