US continues to debate cloning regulation

Tension is mounting on both sides of the cloning debate in the US. Two polls assessing the public attitude towards cloning have produced differing results. One, undertaken by the Coalition for the Advancement of Medical Research (CAMR) found that 68 per cent of Americans are in favour of allowing human cloning for medical research purposes. However, a poll taken by lobby group Stop Human Cloning found that 59 per cent of Americans believe cloning human embryos for medical research should not be allowed. Stop Human Cloning claims that the results from CAMR are skewed because it did not actually use the word 'embryo' in its questions.

Meanwhile, in a surprising development, Utah's US Republican senator Orrin Hatch, known for his anti-abortion opinions, voiced his support for the bill currently before the Senate that would allow therapeutic cloning to take place, while banning human reproductive cloning. Writing in his local paper, he said 'I analysed this issue from a pro-life, pro-family perspective, with the conviction that being pro-life demands helping the living. Regenerative medicine is pro-life and pro-family; it fully enhances, not diminishes, human life'.

Hatch has said that his decision was made following a letter from the mother of a boy from Utah who described the effects of diabetes on her family, including her two-year-old son, and asked him to support therapeutic cloning. Some Senators as yet remain undecided about which way to vote, but it has been suggested that Hatch's decision may sway some of them to vote the same way.

Meanwhile, Norwegian scientists have announced that they have been able to make skin cells behave like immune system cells. The cells changed after being bathed in extracts of immune system cells in a petri dish. Eventually, the technique, if perfected, may become an alternative to other regenerative therapies such as therapeutic cloning.