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The source of this article is The Scientist: http://tinyurl.com/5hdy8 Australian cloning vote unclear Scientists support therapeutic cloning, but the government position on UN vote is vague | By Ray Welling SYDNEY—Australia's position on the upcoming United Nations (UN) vote on human cloning is being clouded by a tight federal election contest and the need to coordinate state and national legislation. The UN is trying to formulate a global convention on cloning, a subject the General Assembly attempted to tackle in 2003 but postponed for a year after intense debate. That vote is now tentatively scheduled for October 21–22. In the lead-up to the ballot, the world's science academies have been urged by the InterAcademy Panel (IAP) to intensify their efforts to lobby their respective governments in support of an international treaty that does not ban cell nuclear replacement for therapeutic purposes. The Australian Academy of Science (AAS) is one of the 67 signatories to the IAP proposal. However, the renewed lobbying efforts coincided with an election being called in Australia for October 9. The conservative Coalition government is locked in a tight battle with a resurgent Labor Party, and both sides are focusing on national security and economic issues, so neither party's published election policies contains a stand on cloning. Sue Serjeantson, executive secretary of the AAS, told The Scientist that neither party had indicated either support or rejection of the academy's position on therapeutic cloning. "I think quite frankly it's all too hard for them at the moment," she said. In the UN, countries have divided into two camps—one supporting a proposal put forward by Costa Rica, which called for a total ban on all forms of cloning, the other behind a proposal by Belgium that advocates a ban on reproductive, but not therapeutic cloning. Australia is not a signatory to either proposal, and there is some confusion over where the government stands on the issue. Last November, the country voted with the United States and other supporters of the Costa Rica proposal against delaying a decision about the cloning ban for 2 years, but the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's AM program recently reported that Australia was backing the Belgium proposal, which is supported by the United Kingdom, Japan, and several European countries. Alan Trounson, head of the Monash Institute of Reproduction and Development, who in June led a delegation of 10 scientists to the UN to speak in favor of the Belgium proposal, told The Scientist, "I advised the prime minister of what we were doing, but I have no idea what his position is on this issue… he may have supported the Belgium proposal last year, but it's hard to say where the government stands today." Trounson encouraged the Australian government to join the United Kingdom, Belgium, Sweden, Korea, China, Singapore, Taiwan, and other countries that are "getting on with" passing legislation banning reproductive cloning but permitting therapeutic cloning. A UN vote would be only the first step in a long legislative process in Australia. Current national legislation bans cloning, but each state also has its own legislation. The Australian Parliament is in the middle of a review, due to be completed in 2005, aimed at developing consistent legislation to be implemented at territory, state, and federal levels. It could be several years before such legislation is implemented. In the meantime, Trounson said, his team and others would be exploring other ways to conduct stem cell research "which don't involve forming an embryo or transferring [nuclear material] into a human egg." Links for this article United Nations Ad Hoc Committee on an International Convention against the Reproductive Cloning of Human Beings http://www.un.org/law/cloning/ T. Tamkins, "UN to vote on cloning in a year," The Scientist, December 10, 2003. http://www.biomedcentral.com/news/20031210/05/ S. Pincock, "Singapore rules on cloning," The Scientist, September 3, 2004. http://www.biomedcentral.com/news/20040903/02/ S. Pincock, "Academies lobby on cloning," The Scientist, August 31, 2004. http://www.biomedcentral.com/news/20040831/02/ Australian Academy of Science http://www.science.org.au Alan Trounson http://www.monashivf.edu.au/about/trounson.html Research Involving Human Embryos Act 2002 and Prohibition of Human Cloning Act 2002 http://www.health.gov.au/nhmrc/embryo/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------- To sign-off Parkinsn send a message to: mailto:[log in to unmask] In the body of the message put: signoff parkinsn