-- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://www.lrz.de/~ui22204/">leitl</a>
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Date: Thu, 2 Aug 2001 19:53:46 -0700
From: DS2000 <ds2000@mediaone.net>
Reply-To: isml@yahoogroups.com
To: isml <isml@yahoogroups.com>
Subject: [isml] House votes to outlaw cloning of humans by 'mad scientists'
>From The San Francisco Chronicle,
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2001/08/01/MN216755.DTL
-
House votes to outlaw cloning of humans by 'mad scientists'
Tom Abate, Chronicle Staff Writer Wednesday, August 1, 2001
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----The House of Representatives voted yesterday to criminalize all human cloning, whether the process is used to produce a baby or a batch of stem cells for research, sending the divisive issue to the Senate and the Bush administration.
House members, by a 265-to-162 vote, backed a bill drafted by Rep. Dave Weldon, R-Fla., that makes it a crime punishable by a $1 million fine and up to 10 years in jail to transfer the nucleus of an ordinary human cell into an unfertilized human egg whose own nucleus had already been removed.
This technique, known scientifically as nuclear transfer, is the process that was used to clone Dolly the sheep.
Two hundred Republicans, 63 Democrats and two independents voted for Weldon's bill, which is supported by President Bush, while 143 Democrats and 19 Republicans voted against it.
Earlier in the day, the lawmakers voted 249 to 178 to reject a narrower substitute bill from Reps. Jim Greenwood, R-Pa., and Peter Deutsch, D-Fla. That bill would have banned the cloning of human babies but would have permitted nuclear transfer in the course of researching whether human stem cells can be used to treat diseases like diabetes or Alzheimer's.
Backers of the successful bill praised the final decision, which was prompted by instances in which fertility doctors have recruited women to act as surrogate mothers for the first cloned human baby.
"This House should not be giving the green light to mad scientists to tinker with the gift of life," said Rep. J.C. Watts, R-Okla.
But Bay Area Reps. Anna Eshoo, D-Atherton, and Zoe Lofgren, D-San Jose, co- sponsors of the failed effort to separate reproductive cloning from the stem cell debate, reacted with disappointment and alarm.
"This is not good news for the families of people with degenerative diseases or people who are in wheelchairs," Lofgren said.
Eshoo said House Republicans purposely confused reproductive cloning with the separate debate over stem cells.
Stem cells are taken from human embryos in their first 10 days. Many scientists believe stem cells could be grown into heart cells, liver cells or other tissues. Before these cells could be used as transplants, however, scientists would have to make the replacement cells a genetic match for the patient. The best way to do this is through nuclear transfer, which the House voted to criminalize.
"That's the most shocking thing to me, making science a crime," Eshoo said. "My prediction is the Senate will take a different view."
Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., has introduced a cloning ban modeled on Weldon's restrictive legislation. But Capitol Hill observers said the Democratic leadership in the Senate, coupled with the pro-stem cell stance of key Republican senators like Utah's Orrin Hatch and Tennessee's Bill Frist, make it unlikely the Senate will ban cloning when used in stem cell research.
Staff writer Edward Epstein of the Chronicle Washington Bureau and Chronicle news services contributed to this report. / E-mail Tom Abate at tabate@sfchronicle.com.
-- Dan S
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