DON'T BE QUICK TO BAN CLONING, SCIENTISTS SAY

June 26, 1997

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- An international panel yesterday called for careful consideration of any legislation to ban the cloning of humans. The panel expressed concerns that new laws might impede legitimate scientific inquiry.

Scientists, biotechnology industry representatives and academics attending the forum on cloning, sponsored by the American Association for the Advancement of Science, stated that there was a consensus in the scientific community that immediate application of this technology to humans would be unsafe as well as unethical.

Earlier this month, the National Bioethics Advisory Commission, charged by President Clinton with reviewing the legal and ethical considerations of cloning technology, concluded that an attempt to create a child using somatic cell nuclear transfer cloning would be "morally unacceptable," given unanswered questions about safety and ethical concerns.

The commission also called for continuation of the current moratorium on use of federal funding to support human cloning by somatic cell nuclear transfer. Federal legislation on cloning should be enacted, panel members said, but with a "sunset provision" to ensure that the issue will be reviewed after three to five years, the commission concluded.

Maxine Singer, president of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, said yesterday that the scientific community is worried about a precedent set by any legislation banning human cloning. "To have national legislation governing what people can do in laboratories would be a very big step..." in the wrong direction, she said. "We have a very strong tradition of freedom in our country, and we have to consider very carefully when we institute new brakes on these freedoms," Dr. Singer declared.

The scientific consensus against proceeding with human cloning experiments "...does not extend to the kinds of experiments one might do with eggs into which a somatic nucleus has been transplanted. Those experiments are looked on as extremely interesting for what they can tell us about human development," she said.

Sheldon Krimsky, of the department of urban and environmental policy at Tufts University, Boston, decried the "...paucity of good research on human cloning issues," citing what he called "...a diminution in the importance of social and ethical analysis..." at research-funding organizations including the National Science Foundation.

Carl Feldbaum, president of the Biotechnology Industry Organization, drew comparisons with the issue of genetic privacy. At least 25 states have passed legislation offering protections against genetic discrimination, but specific protection varies in each state. As legislation is drafted, "...every word, every apostrophe, every comma, needs to be gone through to determine whether it would limit or deter vital research," he said.

William Dommel, Jr., of the NIH's Office for Protection from Research Risks, offered the example of the congressionally mandated moratorium on fetal tissue research. A commission was created to issue research guidelines for programs receiving federal funding. "What emerged were tight restrictions on fetal research, but no longer a ban. This is certainly something that might enter the mix here," he suggested.