Forum Bioethik
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INFO/ Human Genetics Alert
November 22, 2001
Contents
1. Conference
2. The text of the
British Governments new legislation to ban Human
Reproductive Cloning
3. Human cloning
ban expected
4. Singapore to allow
stem cell research; cloning prohibited
5. Smallpox vaccine
uses fetal cell line
Conference
'Designer embryos & stem cell design: the final frontier
in assisted
conception' / Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists,
London / 22
February 2002 / 9.30am
This one day meeting, organised by the British Fertility
Society (BFS), will
discuss the science and ethics of stem cell research
before asking 'What's
so wrong with designer babies?' For more information,
email
info@britishfertilitysociety.org.uk
<mailto:info@britishfertilitysociety.org.uk> .
Contents
The text of the British Governments new legislation
to ban Human
Reproductive Cloning
A Bill to prohibit the placing in a woman of a human embryo
which has been
created otherwise than by fertilisation.
1. The Offence
1. A person who places in a woman a human embryo which
has been created
otherwise than by fertilisation is guilty of an offence.
2. A person who is guilty of the offence is liable on
conviction on
indictment to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 10
years or a fine or
both
Contents
Thursday, 22 November, 2001, 10:39 GMT
BBC News
Human cloning ban expected
A bill explicitly banning human reproduction through cloning
is being
published by the UK Government on Thursday after it passed
a first reading
unopposed in the House of Lords on Wednesday. Ministers
say their aim is to close a recently exposed loophole in the current law
that could be used to justify any unlicensed cloning experiments.Critics
say the government is rushing to bring forward bad legislation and they
will make strenuous efforts to amend it.
The government action was deemed necessary after anti-abortion
campaigners,
the Pro-Life Alliance, won a High Court ruling last week
that laid bare a
major deficiency in the legislation covering embryology
research.
Medical malpractice This flaw centred on the legal definition
of an embryo - the union of an egg and a sperm. Because a clone is produced
in a different way, the judge ruled that current
regulations did not embrace the new technology. This
loophole, in theory, could allow someone to conduct cloning experiments
without the licensed permission of the Human Fertilization and Embryology
Authority, the body that is supposed to oversee this area of research.
In reality, commentators said, other laws relating to
medical malpractice and even assault could be used to prevent cloning experiments.Therapeutic
cloning
Nevertheless, the government is determined to remove
the legal flaw. It also
intends to appeal against the High Court ruling. Ministers
hope that by closing the loophole researchers will then be properly licensed
to carry out a more limited form of cloning - so-called therapeutic cloning
- that aims to develop replacement cells to treat
degenerative diseases.
The government's critics say the country's embryology
legislation is deeply
flawed and there is little point in merely trying to
patch it up.
Peers and MPs opposed to the use of embryos for research
on ethical grounds
say they will attempt to amend the bill so that both
reproductive and
therapeutic cloning are banned. 'Proven success' Richard
Gardiner, chairman of the Royal Society, argues this would be wrong: "We
need to secure a watertight ban on reproductive cloning," he told Radio
4's Today programme.
"But we would argue very strongly not at the expense
of therapeutic cloning,
which is a vital technique for helping us to understand
how you can
reprogram the genetic information from specialised cells
so that we can more
effectively help patients. Lord Alton, who opposes all
forms of human cloning, told Today an
alternative had emerged since previous legislation was
drafted.
"Since January last, impressive new evidence... illustrates
that there is an
alternative, and that's the use of adult stem cells.
There's a vast biomedical potential there, a proven success record in laboratory
culture and a proven success record in current clinical
treatment," he said.
Contents
Singapore to allow stem cell research; cloning prohibited
Posted: 9:10 PM (Manila Time) | November 20, 2001
Agence France-Presse
Tentative nod
SINGAPORE -- The use of embryonic stem cells received
a tentative nod in
Singapore on Saturday after a multisectoral advisory
committee agreed to the
use of 14-day old embryos for research.
However, the Bioethics Advisory Committee (BAC) tasked
to address the
ethical, legal and social issues arising from biomedical
research said human
cloning must be prohibited.
"We feel perhaps taking embryos at an early stage when
the full personhood
is far from being realized yet... (provides) an opportunity
to help cure
patients, alleviate their suffering and even prolong
their life," said BAC
chairman Lim Pin.
Richard Magnus, a senior district judge who heads the
BAC's human stem cell
research subcommittee, said: "We are just confining our
recommendation with
regard to early embryos not more than 14 days old. That's
as far as the BAC
is prepared to recommend at this point in time."
Scientists in Singapore, a prosperous Southeast Asian
city-state, are
already involved in stem-cell research despite the absence
of ethical, legal
and social guidelines.
The republic is poised to become an important center
for the fledging
science by the end of the year when one of the world's
top three stem-cell
suppliers, ES Cell International, sets up shop here.
This has prompted the government to set up the BAC last
year to draw up
guidelines after the use of human embryos in research
has generated intense
controversy worldwide because of the ethical and moral
questions involved.
Embryonic stem cells are undifferentiated cells that
can evolve into blood,
liver, muscle and other organs. Researchers hope they
can one day be used to
repair damaged organs or cure diseases such as Parkinson's,
diabetes and
Alzheimer's.
In a media briefing to announce their tentative position,
the BAC drew the
line, saying it was against the cloning of humans as
its "possible benefit
is greatly overweighed by ethical concerns and safety
issues."
Lim said however that they would "entertain the possibility
of keeping the
embryo perhaps for research purposes" but this would
be considered only as a
"last resort."
Last week, the BAC released a consultation paper to 38
religious, medical
and other interest groups ahead of dialogues sessions
in December.
Contents
BIOLOGICAL WAR-FEAR
Smallpox vaccine uses fetal cell line
Some Americans may refuse shot, worsening potential outbreak
By Jon Dougherty
) 2001 WorldNetDaily.com
A company that would use a stem-cell line from an aborted
fetus to
manufacture a new smallpox vaccine is one of only a few
firms being
considered for a major new government contract despite
concerns that the use
of such tissues could lead many people to refuse the
shots, thereby
worsening any outbreak.
The company, Acambis PLC of England, in partnership with
the Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention
<http://www.biospace.com/ct/detail.cfm?ClinicalID=290004>
in Atlanta, has
already been contracted by the federal government to
make 40 million doses
of the vaccine.
According to the Washington Post, that contract signed
last year is set
to increase to 54 million doses. But, as a part of a
plan being formulated
by the Department of Health and Human Services, the number
could rise by as
much as 250 million doses under new requirements to manufacture
enough
vaccine for every man, woman and child in the country.
Three other companies besides Acambis are being considered
for the new
vaccine contract, the Post reported.
The department announced earlier this month that the
agency is soliciting
bids for the manufacture of a new smallpox vaccine. The
current stockpile,
at just 15 million doses, is far from adequate should
terrorists release new
strains of the disease in public, HHS Secretary Tommy
Thompson said.
Officials have voiced new concerns over intentional smallpox
outbreaks in
the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks and the outbreak of
anthrax at various
locations along the East Coast.
Meanwhile, health officials with the Food and Drug Administration
say the
method of manufacturing the old vaccine, called Dryvax,
which was made by
Wyeth using calf skin, is "no longer considered optimal."
Instead, the
agency says the new smallpox vaccine "will be prepared
in MRC-5 cells" a
line of aborted fetal cells dating back to 1966 because
that method is
more efficient.
"The MRC-5 line was developed from lung tissue taken
from a 14-week fetus
aborted for psychiatric reasons from a 27-year-old physically
healthy
woman," said a description of the cell tissue by the
Coriell Institute for
Medical Research at the University of Medicine and Dentistry
of New Jersey,
where the line is maintained. The institute further describes
it as "normal
human fetal lung fibroblast."
<http://locus.umdnj.edu/nia/nia_cgi/sample.cgi?MRC-5>
The new manufacturing method has concerned some pro-life
groups, who argue
that the use of aborted fetal tissue could cause pro-life
supporters to
refuse it, making any outbreak worse in terms of duration
and mortality.
"If enough people refuse the vaccine, we may be faced
with serious epidemic
problems," said Debi Vinnege, executive director of Children
of God For
Life, <http://www.cogforlife.org/> an organization
that monitors the use of
aborted fetal tissue in the manufacture of vaccines.
"There is no reason to endanger the lives of hundreds
of thousands, if not
millions, of Americans when perfectly acceptable alternative
methods may be
used to cultivate the smallpox vaccine," she told WorldNetDaily.
Lenore Gelb, a spokeswoman for the FDA, said the use
of the stem-cell line
for vaccine production was not new, adding that it was
not up to her agency
to decide who should and should not receive the vaccine.
"The FDA doesn't have that role," she said.
Asked if she was concerned about a prolonged outbreak
due to the refusal by
some to take the vaccine, she said, "FDA approves a vaccine
based on the
'safety and effective' [criteria]." She said "recommendations
for who should
get a vaccine" were up to the CDC.
Smallpox 'easily transmitted'
Vaccinations to prevent smallpox have not been required
in the United States
since 1972, says HHS, because it was largely eliminated
as a threat in the
United States.
Caused by a virus known as Variola major, smallpox "is
considered one of the
most dangerous potential biological weapons because it
is easily transmitted
from person to person and because few people carry full
immunity to the
virus," according to department documentation.
Although a worldwide immunization program eradicated
the smallpox disease in
1977, small quantities of the smallpox virus still exist
in two secure
facilities in the United States and Russia, the government
said.
"However, it is possible that unrecognized stores of
smallpox virus exist
elsewhere in the world," said an HHS assessment.
"Smallpox vaccine has proven to be highly effective in
preventing infection.
In unvaccinated people exposed to smallpox, the vaccine
can lessen the
severity of, or even prevent, illness if given within
four days after
exposure," said Anthony S. Fauci, M.D., director of the
National Institute
of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the National Institutes
of Health, a
division of the HHS, in testimony to the Senate Appropriations
Committee
Nov. 2.
Nevertheless, there is obvious concern among experts
that terrorist
entities as they have with anthrax could eventually
reintroduce smallpox
into U.S. society. If that happens, some public health
experts say extreme
measures would be needed to combat the threat.
One such plan is already in the works. Last month, all
50 state governors
were sent a copy of a proposal that, if passed into law,
would grant each of
them new authority to act in the event of a health emergency
like a smallpox
outbreak.
According to the report, the measure would allow governors
upon the
declaration of a health emergency to invoke the authority
to order roads
and airports closed, to quarantine entire cities, and
to move people to
holding facilities like sports stadiums, if need be,
to protect the rest of
the public from becoming infected.
"In tough times, you have to make tough decisions," Paul
Jacobsen, assistant
commissioner for the Massachusetts Department of Public
Health, told the
Boston Herald Monday.
One of those "extreme measures" could be compulsory vaccination,
some worry.
Under the proposal, even those who philosophically disagree
with the
ingredients of the vaccine may, under extreme measures,
be vaccinated
against their will for the good of an entire community.
Nevertheless, April Bell, a spokeswoman for the CDC,
told WorldNetDaily that
the United States does not currently have a mandatory
vaccination
requirement. Also, she said that in the event of widespread
infection,
universal vaccination may not even be necessary.
Under the epidemiological concept of "herd immunity,"
Bell said, "you would
vaccinate around the case. If some people refused to
be vaccinated, you
vaccinate those they were in contact with," thereby isolating
the spread of
the disease.
"That's how smallpox was eradicated in the first place,"
she said, adding
that smallpox carries a relatively low 30 percent
mortality rate.
Bell said the CDC had no position on the state emergency
health powers
legislation. However, according to Lawrence O. Gostin,
director of the
Center for Law and the Public's Health at Johns Hopkins
and Georgetown
Universities, <http://www.publichealthlaw.net/index.html>
the author of the
measure, the "act ensures a strong, effective and timely
response to public
health emergencies without unduly interfering" with
civil rights and
liberties.
"Emergency health threats, including those caused by
bioterrorism and
epidemics, require the exercise of extraordinary government
functions," he
wrote in a preamble introduction to his 40-page "model"
bill.
The bill was drafted in collaboration with the National
Governor's
Association, National Conference of State Legislatures,
National Association
of Attorneys General and the National Association of
City and County Health
Officers.
If you'd like to sound off on this issue, please take
part in the
WorldNetDaily poll. <http://worldnetdaily.com/polls>
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