BAN IMPLANTATION OF CLONED EMBRYOS FOR NOW, PANEL SAYS

June 7, 1997

ARLINGTON, Virginia (AP) -- Cloning a human being is "morally unacceptable," a federal commission said Saturday, and recommended legislation that would ban cloning experiments aimed at making a person. But it said such laws should allow laboratory research using cells of humans and animals.

"We believe it would violate important ethical obligations were clinicians or researchers to attempt to create a child" using techniques that Scottish scientists used to clone a sheep, the National Bioethics Advisory Commission said in a report approved Saturday.

The 18-member presidential commission said its consensus on the ban was reached because of worries that techniques used in creating the Scottish sheep would be unsafe and perhaps ineffective in humans.

"We have hung our hat on the safety issue," said commissioner Dr. Lawrence H. Miike, director of the Hawaii Department of Health.

The commission recommended, however, that any law have a "sunset clause" to expire in three to five years and force the nation to re-examine the question then, when the science of cloning may have improved.

The commission urged President Clinton to continue a ban on using federal dollars for research into human cloning and asked scientists in private research "to comply voluntarily with the intent of the federal moratorium."

"Professional and scientific societies should make clear that any attempt to create a child by somatic cell nuclear transfer and implantation into a woman's body would at this time be an irresponsible, unethical and unprofessional act," the panel said.

Somatic cell nuclear transfer and implantation was the technique used to create the sheep named Dolly, the first mammal to be cloned using cells from an adult.

The commission also urged that any laws on cloning "be carefully written so as not to interfere with other important areas of scientific research."

Some members of Congress said the commission's report failed to settle the issue, and leaves loopholes for unbridled cloning research.

"They are leaving the door wide open to future cloning," said Sen. Christopher Bond, R-Missouri. "I had hoped that the federal ethics commission would not be afraid to make a strong moral statement that human cloning is wrong, period, and should be banned."

Commission member Alexander M. Capron, a law professor at the University of Southern California, said the recommendations' intent was to forbid cloning attempts that include implantation of a cloned egg into a woman's uterus. But he said members would allow any cloning research to continue that stops short of actual implantation.

The head of an anti-abortion group said the position creates "two grave evils."

John Cavanaugh-O'Keefe, director of the American Bioethics Advisory Commission, a part of the American Life League, said that by permitting laboratory cloning research but forbidding implantation, the commission would permit the making of human embryos that then must die.

"This means it is OK to clone as long as you kill," he said. His group considers any human embryo to be a human, he said.

Scottish scientists announced February 24 that they had cloned Dolly using the nucleus, which includes the genes, from an udder cell of an adult sheep. The nucleus of an egg from another sheep was removed and the udder cell nucleus was substituted. The egg then was put into the uterus of a third sheep, and Dolly was born.

Dolly's stunning appearance prompted legislators to propose laws to forbid human cloning. Several European countries passed such laws, but Clinton assigned the Bioethics Commission to study the subject and make recommendations. The president said new laws should await the commission's report, which will be delivered Monday to the White House.

In its deliberations, the commission said the process was unsafe for humans because the birth of the sheep came after 277 failures, including many lambs born with quickly fatal birth defects.

The procedure's safety is only part of the consideration, said commission Chairman Harold T. Shapiro, president of Princeton University.

"The safety issue is key and compelling, but I feel it is quite important that there are unresolved issues on the ethical and moral side," he said. "These things as a package are quite powerful."