JAPANESE PANEL RECOMMENDS HUMAN CLONING CONTROLS

June 16, 1998

TOKYO (Yomiuri) -- A subcommittee of the Council for Science and Technology recommended in an interim report released Monday that the government establish laws or guidelines to control and in some cases ban the use of human cloning techniques.

The subcommittee's report is notable because it calls for regulations to apply to all research institutions, not just those of universities. The council is an advisory panel to the prime minister.

A similar interim report compiled in February by the Science Council, an advisory body to the education minister, recommended that such regulations apply mainly to universities.

The subcommittee will resume discussions on the subject in September and finalize the report before the end of this year, after seeking the views of experts in various related fields.

The interim report said that in applying cloning techniques to humans, certain moral factors have to be considered. This makes it necessary for legislation to apply to both public- and private-sector research, it said.

Research institutions should be subject to laws with penal provisions or guidelines stipulating self[-regulation, with government supervision, for about five years, the report said. During this time the government would discuss developments on a case-by-case basis, it said.

The report specifically recommended that the regulations apply to the transplantation of a cloned embryo into a womb as well as a ban on the production of humans without a brain to acquire organs.

It stressed that legislation should be in harmony with laws of the United States and European countries.