August  2002 Continue                                                                                         11 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