Hello, I'm going to try the cow-human stem cell topic again, this time seriously. I found some of the source materials relating to this particular stem cell creation at www.bioethics.gov. Displayed there are letters by President Clinton and by National Bioethics Advisory Committee Chairman Dr. Harold Shapiro on stem cell research. In case someone can't retrieve them for some reason, I will reproduce them in parts 2 - 4. The company Advanced Cell Technology created a stem cell by removing the nucleus from a cow egg cell and inserting the nucleus of an adult human skin cell in its place. The result was something like an embryo cell but not exactly. As I understand it, the cow egg environment causes the inserted cell material to revert to an early state. The result seems to have inspired in our President a feeling of moral revulsion (although after Monica et. al. I don't understand this.). Federal law states that the Health and Human Services Dept, under which NIH falls, cannot fund creating an embryo for research purposes. The following wording about this has been repeated in HHS appropriations bills for the past few years: "None of the funds made available in this Act may be used for-- "(1) the creation of a human embryo or embryos for research purposes; or "(2) research in which a human embryo or embryos are destroyed, discarded, or knowingly subjected to risk of injury or death greater than that allowed for research on fetuses in utero under 45 CFR 46.208(a)(2) and 42 U.S.C. 289g(b). "For purposes of this section, the phrase `human embryo or embryos' shall include any organism, not protected as a human subject under 45 CFR 46 as of the date of enactment of this Act, that is derived by fertilization, parthenogenesis, cloning, or any other means from one or more human gametes." So the issue at hand comes down to whether the cow-human cell is an embryo. According to Dr. Shapiro, the idea of an embryo implies the "potential" to develop into a child if transferred to a uterus. No one ever intended to do this, so we will not know whether there is such a potential. But the Commission is about to consider the ethical implications of the cow-human cell, and other stem cell research, starting in January. Such is the cow-human cell issue to date as I have been able to reconstruct it. Did I get it right? I sense something strange, almost medieval about it that I can't put my finger on. Does anyone else have this impression? For more on this and related stem cell ethics and legal issues, see www.washingtonpost.com articles by Rick Weiss, who writes well on this subject. [continued] Phil Tompkins Hoboken NJ age 60/dx 1990