THE chances of resolving the issue of human cloning in the US this year seem to be fading fast. Supporters of a total ban have run into a legislative stalemate that leaves the US as one of the few Western countries with no laws to control the technology.
Companies and scientists involved in cloning research say the failure to settle the matter leaves them in limbo. Meanwhile, the supporters of a total ban say they will fight on.
鈥淲e will seek all possible avenues in our attempt to stop human cloning and get the current leadership to take this issue up fairly,鈥� says Kansas Republican Sam Brownback, who has led the fight against cloning in the Senate. Earlier this month, a Brownback bill that would ban the cloning of human embryos for both reproduction and research stalled indefinitely over a disagreement about voting procedures.
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Last week, Brownback tried a different tactic 鈥� he added an anti-cloning amendment to legislation dealing with insurance against terrorism. The amendment would have barred patents being issued for cloning humans or the technology needed to create them. But opponents blocked the amendment, arguing that it was so broadly worded it could have stopped many other types of medical research.
Brownback鈥檚 bill seemed to lose some supporters to an alternative Senate bill sponsored by Dianne Feinstein, a Democrat from California. Her bill allows for therapeutic cloning, in which stem cells are taken from a cloned human embryo for transplants and research, but would make human reproductive cloning an offence subject to 10 years in jail and a minimum fine of $1 million.
This latest move may herald a reversal of fortune for cloning science in the US. President George Bush has long supported a complete ban on human cloning, and a vote on Brownback鈥檚 bill had been anticipated for over a month before it stalled.
But Robert Lanza of the Massachusetts-based cloning company Advanced Cell Technology isn鈥檛 ready to cheer just yet. 鈥淣o vote is almost the same as a moratorium,鈥� he says. 鈥溈烀ǘ淌悠祍 aren鈥檛 going to be able to move ahead with this uncertainty and neither are investors.鈥�
Feinstein鈥檚 bill would go a long way towards easing those concerns, Lanza says. But as 快猫短视频 went to press, her bill was still a few votes shy of the 60 needed to guarantee passage.