From: Gina Miller (echoz@hotmail.com)
Date: Fri May 07 1999 - 21:27:12 MDT
Many laws being introduced to ban human cloning, and some already on the
statute books, have loopholes that might allow cloners to evade them. By
Nell Boyce
Human cloning by nuclear transfer, the technique used to create Dolly, isn't
even explicitly prohibited by Britain's 1990 Human Fertilisation and
Embryology Act, one of the world's most thorough attempts at regulating
human reproduction. "The law bans all kinds of cloning except for the Dolly
technique," says Barney Wyld, a spokesman for the Human Fertilisation and
Embryology Authority in London. However, he adds that anyone wanting to
clone a person would have to apply to the authority for permission--which
would be refused.
In the US, legislators have tried to ban cloning at the state and federal
levels. California has already passed an anti-cloning law and 21 other
states are considering bans. Seven federal bills have been proposed in
Congress.
Lori Andrews, an expert in the legal aspects of reproduction at the
Chicago-Kent College of Law, says that recent technological advances may
make much of that legislation obsolete. For example, at least 11 state bills
and California's cloning ban prohibit cloning involving the replacement of a
human egg's nucleus with that of another human cell. But researchers in Neal
First's laboratory at the University of Wisconsin at Madison have already
put the DNA of primates into cows' eggs that have gone on to develop into
early embryos (This Week, 24 January, p 5). If the same technique can
produce normal human embryos, then these laws could be circumvented.
Other loopholes are created by poor wording. At least eight state bills
would prohibit the cloning of a genetically identical person, but Andrews
notes that eggs carry mitochondrial DNA in their cytoplasm--so a clone
created by nuclear transfer would not have identical DNA.
But even an airtight law could be challenged by Americans who might claim it
infringes their constitutional right to reproduce. "There already is an
infertile man who is thinking of challenging the California law," says
Andrews.
>From New Scientist, 9 May 98
Gina "Nanogirl" Miller
Nanotechnology Industries
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