US cloning regulation news

A US Senate Judiciary Committee hearing was held last week, convened by Senator Orrin Hatch, co-sponsor of a bill that would allow the creation of cloned human embryos for the derivation of stem cells to be used in medical research, but would ban human reproductive cloning. The hearing was held to 'get everybody's views out in the open', said Hatch.

Orrin Hatch, Diane Feinstein, Arlen Specter, Edward Kennedy and Tom Harkin introduced The Human Cloning Ban and Stem Cell Research Protection Act 2003 last month, to compete with legislation that proposes a ban on cloning for any purpose. Under Hatch's proposed new legislation, creating a child by cloning would become a crime punishable by up to ten years in prison and fines of either $1 million or three times any profit that is made, whichever is the greater sum.

The bill would allow therapeutic cloning and stem cell research to proceed with Federal support. It contains a number of ethics provisions designed to protect egg donors and provides that all nuclear transplantation research would take place in laboratories completely separate from infertility treatment centres. Civil fines of up to $250,000 could be imposed for violation of any of the ethical provisions.

But the US House of Representatives has already given initial approval to a bill sponsored by Bart Stupak and Dave Weldon, that would ban all forms of cloning. President Bush has also indicated his support for this bill. Senators have yet to debate the issues fully but could vote to allow cloning for research purposes - their vote could be conclusive.

Meanwhile, at state level, the Arkansas Senate has voted unanimously to approve a bill that would ban all forms of human cloning. The bill will become law if passed by the governor of the State. The New York state assembly, however, has approved by two votes to one a bill that would ban reproductive cloning but allow cloning for medical research purposes. Assembly Speaker Sheldon hoped that the proposed legislation would bring researchers to the state 'on the heels of the congressional move to ban the procedure'.