UN 'must ignore cloning ban call'

The United Nations should ignore a call by George Bush to ban all forms of human cloning, say UK scientists. The US president told the UN last month member countries should support a Costa Rican proposal to ban both reproductive and therapeutic cloning.

But the Royal Society urged countries to back a second proposal from Belgium at the UN vote on 20 and 21 October. The proposal would allow countries to make their own decision on therapeutic cloning but bans reproductive cloning. Therapeutic cloning has been legal in Britain since 2002.The US government's approach at the UN appears more designed to influence domestic legislation


Lord May of Oxford, president of the Royal Society, the UK's national academy of science, said: "The US should be allowed to decide whether therapeutic cloning should be outlawed within its borders.
"But other countries, including the UK, have now passed legislation to allow carefully regulated therapeutic cloning while introducing a ban on reproductive cloning.

Earlier this year, scientists from the University of Newcastle were granted a licence to clone human embryos in the UK for medical research. Stem cells from early embryos could potentially be used to provide new treatments for incurable diseases such as Alzheimer's, diabetes and Parkinson's.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/3747734.stm