Print

---

excellent article in today's Washington Post on the status of cloning
legislation in the new Congress. It also points out that if not for the
efforts of patient advocacy groups, it is likely a ban on  therapeutic
cloning
would have been passed by Congress in the last session.

FROM:
   The Washington Post
  December 26, 2002, Thursday, Final Edition
 SECTION: A SECTION; Pg. A01

An Uncertain Year For Cloning Laws; Ban on Embryo Research Seen as
 Unlikely

BYLINE: Rick Weiss, Washington Post Staff Writer

"   Emboldened by this fall's Republican sweep in Congress, Bush
administration
 supporters are preparing a fresh effort to pass legislation that would
outlaw
 all forms of human cloning.
 President Bush has implored Congress to ban not only the creation of
cloned
 babies -- a widely supported goal -- but also the cloning of human
embryos for
 research. The Republican House passed such a ban last session, but a
sister bill
 in the Senate died after a bitter stalemate in which scientists and
patient
 advocacy groups argued that a ban would stall promising medical
advances.

   Now conservatives and their allies favoring a total ban say their time
has
 come. But a number of political wild cards could make this session's
effort at
 least as tumultuous as the last, lobbyists and scientists said. Even the
option
 of a moratorium instead of a ban, an attempted compromise that many
observers
 think is likely to surface, promises to trigger a heated battle."This is
not going to be a quiet year on the cloning and stem cell front,"
 said Michael Manganiello, chief of the Coalition for the Advancement of
Medical
 Research (CAMR), which wants to keep research using cloned human embryos
legal...."

SENATOR FRIST:
  One big factor in the new political calculus is the ascendancy of
Senate
 majority leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.), who as both a conservative and a
physician
 has been seeking middle ground in the embryo research wars. Scientists
believe
 stem cells offer potential cures for Parkinson's disease, diabetes and
other
 ailments. Frist supports some kinds of human embryo research but has
said he opposes
 cloning human embryos. Two weeks ago, though -- before the unexpected
turn of
 events that led to the resignation of his predecessor, Sen. Trent Lott
(R-Miss.)
 -- he visited the Massachusetts company that has been at the forefront
of human
 embryo cloning to learn about scientists' progress there. It was the
first such
 visit by a U.S. senator...."

"...For his part, Frist did not reveal much about how he will navigate
the embryo
 shoals during his visit to Advanced Cell Technology, the Worcester,
Mass.,
 cloning research company he visited this month, said Robert Lanza, a
scientist
 there.

   "He's a transplant scientist, and he clearly recognized the value of
cloning
 technology," Lanza said. "But, obviously, he has a lot of political
realities he
 has to consider."

see full article at:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A37896-2002Dec25.html

----------------------------------------------------------------------
To sign-off Parkinsn send a message to: mailto:[log in to unmask]
In the body of the message put: signoff parkinsn