NO PATENTS FOR HUMAN CLONING, SANTER SAYS

May 30, 1997

BRUSSELS (Reuter) -- The European Commission said on Friday it was studying whether to propose a formal ban on cloning humans, but stopped short of condemning use of the technique for animals.

Responding to a report by an advisory group on biotechnology ethics, Commission President Jacques Santer said in a statement that European Union rules should explicitly exclude human cloning from patent protection.

"I share entirely the rejection by this group of human reproductive cloning," Santer said in a statement.

Ethical concerns have grown since scientists in Scotland, working with a biotechnology company, cloned a sheep known as Dolly from a single cell of another sheep.

Santer joined other government leaders, including French President Jacques Chirac, who have condemned a technology that raises the spectre of Nazi efforts to create a "master race."

But Santer was less dogmatic about animal cloning, saying only that the EU executive would study the advisory group's recommendations, which put the emphasis on animal welfare.

The EU's Group of Advisers on the Ethical Implications of Biotechnology -- made up of outside scientific, legal and ethical experts and headed by French lawyer Noelle Lenoir -- said cloning of farm animals could have medical, agricultural and economic benefits.

Research would add to understanding of biological processes, including aging and "hence may contribute to human well-being," it said in a report handed to the Commission Thursday in The Hague.

But it was acceptable "only when the aims and methods are ethically justified and when it is carried out under ethical conditions," it said. "These ethical conditions include the duty to avoid or minimise animal suffering."

The group said research on animal cloning should take place under the supervision of licensing bodies and reflect the need to preserve genetic diversity in farm animal stocks.

It called for a ban on "reproductive" human cloning -- creating a genetically identical human being using cells from a child or adult -- saying the technique was "ethically unacceptable" and a safety threat.

The creation of genetically identical embryos to help couples have children should also be prohibited, it said.