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Clinton administration finds loophole in law banning human embryo research WASHINGTON (February 10, 1999 8:28 p.m. EST http://www.nandotimes.com) - A Clinton administration decision to promote some human embryo research despite a law prohibiting it has delighted scientists but blurred the ethical boundaries of medical research, opponents say. Earlier this month the White House authorized public funding for scientific experiments on some human embryo cells. The decision, announced two weeks ago by National Health Institutes director Harold Warmus, inflamed an already heated debate on the ethics of meddling with human embryos. For most people, the issue of spending public money on such research died in 1995 when the Republican-led U.S. Congress banned it outright. In the previous decade former President Reagan imposed a moratorium and Congress stepped in with the ban when a committee of experts set up by President Clinton recommended it should be lifted. However, Walrus took advantage of a loophole in the law and argued that non-differentiated human embryo cells, or stem cells, could not be considered emrbyos, because on their own they cannot develop into a human being. So though the ban remains, but Walrus and other scientists have sidestepped it. The interest for them is that stem cells hold the potential of developing into any kind of human tissue -- skin, nerves, muscles or cartilage. "The prospect of doing amazingly interesting science is really quite wonderful," Warmus said. Although Warmus stressed that federal funding would only go for research on the cells themselves and not on other embryonic tissue, his proposal touched off an avalanche of criticism. "The Clinton administration now seeks to do indirectly what Congress has forbidden it to do directly: provide federal support for research in which human embryos are created and destroyed," said Richard Doerflinger, of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops. By contrast, Warmus' announcement was met by messages of encouragement from the scientific community. "It's terrific, said Johns Hopkins University specialist John Gearhart. "Federal money will get us moving ahead quicker and give us the kind of public oversight that might be desirable." Above all, the measure will prevent private initiative from monopolizing such a promising sector, several experts on ethics said. Up to now, public fetal cell research has been funded by a lone private firm in California, the Geron group, which has been busy patenting its discoveries. "The question is who is going to control that, who is going to get the patents," said David Magnus of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania. "It would have been irresponsible to allow private hands to completely tie up the clinical usage of these technologies," he added. But by untying the hands of researchers, the U.S. government may have opened a dangerous crack on the ethical front. As soon as the NIH's decision was known, Scottish researcher Ian Wilmut, "father" of Dolly, the world's first cloned sheep, announced that he would team up with Geron to clone the first human embryos, in order to cultivate non-differentiated cells in the laboratory. "It definitely opens a door," Magnus said. "But it also points to a very interesting question we will have to face sooner or later, which is what exactly is an embryo." Copyright 1999 Nando Media Copyright 1999 Agence France-Press By PHILIPP ALFROY http://www.nandotimes.com/noframes/story/0,2107,17015-28143-205372-0,00.html janet paterson - 51 now /41 dx /37 onset - almonte/ontario/canada <http://www.newcountry.nu/pd/members/janet/index.htm> [log in to unmask]