---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Sun, 2 Apr 2000 20:20:05 PDT
From: AFP <C-afp@clari.net>
Newsgroups: clari.tw.science, clari.world.europe.british_isles.uk,
clari.tw.issues, clari.tw.misc, clari.tw.science+space,
clari.world.europe, clari.world.europe.british_isles
Subject: Britain to allow human cloning
LONDON, April 3 (AFP) - The British government is expected to
give the go-ahead for human embryos to be cloned for medical
research after a panel of experts concluded it would be beneficial,
the Daily Telegraph said Monday.
The newspaper quoted one unnamed member of the panel as saying:
"The potential is enormous. This could allow us to regrow a heart
muscle or bone marrow and that is not a threat to humanity."
"Ministers are almost certain to end the ban on the 'therapeutic
cloning' of embryos for research that could eventually cure kidney,
liver or heart disease," the daily said, quoting unnamed government
sources.
But the newspaper said the government would first try to
convince the public that "using embryos for tissue engineering" was
different from "creating a carbon copy of a human being".
A panel of scientific advisers urged the government in December
1998 to allow cloning of human embryos under 14 days old for
research purposes only, but in June last year the government decided
to mantain its ban.
A British company that contributed to the creation of Dolly the
Sheep, the first mammal to be cloned from an adult cell, announced
in mid-March the first cloning of pigs.
Experimenters hailed it as a breakthrough in the race to produce
organs for transplant to humans, a process called
xenotransplantation.
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