British expert team recommends allowing human cloning * Britain has approved the use of embryonic cells for research
21/12/2000 British Minister of Health: the research "holds the key to healing people and gives hope to those suffering from degenerative diseases, cancer and heart disease"
The upper house of the British Parliament, the House of Lords, decided early yesterday morning, in a debate into the night, to approve a law allowing the cloning of human embryos. In doing so, Great Britain became the first country in the world to enact such a law.
The law allows researchers to also conduct experiments on human "embryonic stem cells", which exist only in very young embryos. Embryonic stem cells are the source of all body cells. During embryonic development, they differentiate and become each of the types of tissue in the body. Scientists believe that it is possible that embryonic stem cells could be used to create tissues for transplantation, in liver diseases, for example, diabetes and degenerative diseases.
According to the regulations established by law, more per tribe are transferred for medical research purposes only. The law allows the extraction of stem cells from the embryos, but prohibits the continued growth of the embryo for more than 14 days. That is, the cloning cannot be used as a treatment for fertility problems or having children.
The decision was preceded by a heated debate. The head of the Science and Technology Committee of the House of Lords, Lord Winston, said in his address to the House: "Lords, there is no doubt that the question of whether people will receive treatment in the near future that may save them from illness, or even death, depends on your vote."
"The word clone," said Lady Warnock, who opposes the law, "sends a shudder of horror down the spine of the British public." The fear is that there will not be any serious supervision of the research, and that we will roll down the slippery slope leading to the cloning of an adult." Her words represented the opinion of right-wing groups and religious leaders, who in recent days have conducted a public campaign against the law.
The debate, which lasted 11 hours, was decided after the government persuaded the House of Lords to approve the law and promised to appoint a special committee to act quickly to examine its aspects, before any scientist has enough time to make the first human clone. The government even promised to "take into account the committee's conclusions" if its conclusions differ greatly from the language of the law. The law passed by a majority of 212 to 92.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who and his government support the law (which also passed in parliament about a month ago), explained his support for his desire to keep Britain at the forefront of research. Many scientists believe that stem cells and cloning will have an important place in the medicine of the future.
If scientists succeed in creating a genetic twin embryo cloned from a diseased human cell, they may be able to derive embryonic stem cells from it. Then, in laboratory dishes, researchers will be able to try to get the cells to differentiate into the type of damaged cells in the patient's body. Thus, for example, cells that produce insulin in the pancreas of diabetics will be able to be transplanted; Nerve cells in the brains of people who have had a stroke, or whose brain cells have degenerated in diseases such as Parkinson's or Alzheimer's; or cardiac muscle cells in a heart suffering from heart failure.
Patients who need transplants today should hope that a suitable donor will be found for them. After the transplant, they must take medication so that their immune system does not reject the transplant. Through cloning, scientists hope, they will be able to create tissues with the same genetic structure as the patient's, which will not be rejected.
Prof. Michel Rebel from the Weizmann Institute, who serves as the chairman of the National Committee for Biotechnology, believes however that it will take some time before they start applying the technology to patients. The efficiency of the current cloning method is quite low. In all the animals that have been cloned so far, several hundred eggs were required to obtain one live and healthy newborn. The suffering that will be caused to a woman by producing such a large number of eggs cannot justify, in the meantime, the application of the procedure to humans.
The scientists will have to solve some fundamental problems even before they can use stem cells for transplantation in patients, says Dr. Benjamin Raubinoff, who is involved in human stem cell research. One of the main problems today, he adds, is that the conditions that must be provided to the cells in order for them to differentiate into the type of tissue needed for transplantation have not yet been discovered.
Israeli law does not prohibit embryo cloning
At the end of 1998, about two years after the birth of Dolly the sheep, the first adult animal created by genetic duplication, the Knesset joined other countries and approved a law prohibiting human duplication.
However, it turns out that the law does not directly refer to genetic replication (cloning) of human embryos. Attorney Gali Ben-Or, from the Department of Counseling and Legislation at the Ministry of Justice, says that according to her interpretation, the law does not prohibit such cloning of embryos.
"In fact", she adds, "allowing experiments of this type, which have now been approved in the UK, does not apparently require legislative amendments, but only the approval of the Higher Helsinki Committee". As far as is known, no one has yet requested permission for such a clone.
According to what is stipulated in the law, its validity will expire in about four years. "The main rationale of the law was to impose a ban on the birth of a child through cloning," explains Attorney Ben Or.
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{Appeared in Haaretz newspaper, 24/1/2001}
21/12/2000
Politicians in Great Britain voted yesterday (Tuesday) in favor of expanding the research done on human embryos.
Supporters of the change say the decision could help scientists trying to find cures for a range of diseases. But the decision also raised moral questions about its effect on the sanctity of life and human cloning.
The British government wanted to change the law, to allow scientists to take embryonic cells at a very early stage of development. Researchers believe that these fetal cells will revolutionize the treatment of degenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's, especially if the cells are obtained according to the cloning technology that created Dolly the sheep. The vote was accepted by a two-thirds majority, about 366
MPs voted in favor and 174 opposed. Because of the controversy over medical cloning and embryo research, MPs voted in a free vote to amend the Human Fertilization and Embryology Act of 1990.
A strong lobby of external stakeholders made the debate a major event. Peter Garrett, director of research at the anti-abortion organization, said: "As soon as the dam was opened regarding embryo cloning, the prerequisites for full cloning were actually created. I believe that in a few years we will already be a tribe of humans." But the health minister, Yvette Cooper, denied that the decision was a "slippery slope" towards human cloning. Cooper told members of the lower house of parliament that the research "holds the key to healing people and gives hope to those suffering from neurodegenerative diseases, from cancer
and heart diseases". The Minister of Health in the shadow government, Liam Fox, said that he is morally opposed to the use of fetal cells and that he is not convinced that there is no alternative. "Just because we can do something doesn't mean we have to do it."
The debate in parliament was stormy, but in its conclusion, Cooper praised the members of parliament and said: "This is the most thoughtful and considered debate I have ever seen in parliament."
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By Tamara Traubman 17/8/2000
A team of experts, led by the Director General of the British Ministry of Health, published a report yesterday recommending that human cloning be allowed under restrictions. The government announced that it supports all of the recommendations in the report and that it will try to pass a bill that would repeal some of the current bans on human cloning in England.
The vote on the law is due to take place in the fall, and British Prime Minister Tony Blair has said he will give MPs a free vote on the matter.
The team of experts recommended allowing the cloning of human embryos and allowing their development up to the age of 14 days. At this age, they said, the fetus still lacks any human characteristics and is, in fact, a lump of cells without characteristics.
The experts said that this kind of cloning could be of great benefit. The cloned embryos could be used as a source of "embryonic stem cells" - cells from which all types of cells in the body develop. These cells could be used in the future as an inexhaustible source for tissue transplantation. The scientists hope that they will even succeed in integrating the DNA of a person in need of a transplant into the cloning process, so that his body will not reject the transplant as is the case with transplants today.
The team recommended keeping the ban on human cloning as a substitute for normal fertilization, that is - the growth of the cloned embryo will not last beyond 14 days, in order to prevent it from growing into a baby. It was also recommended to limit the cloning of embryos to a research framework and to avoid commercial use.
The main part of the report dealt with the question of conducting research on human stem cells. In the USA and some European countries, the use of these cells is prohibited.
The main opponents are extremist religious groups. Such groups responded yesterday in England and claimed that human cloning is murder and cannibalism in its modern form. In Israel, fetal stem cell research is subject to the approval of a national genetics committee, established by the Ministry of Health.
