(Circulation. 1998;97:1889.)
© 1998 American Heart Association, Inc.
Legislation of Human Cloning in the United States
Ruth SoRelle, Circulation Newswriter
The United States scientific community
dodged a bullet in the Senate earlier this year when an attempt by
Senate Republican leaders to ban human cloning failed.
The bill's sponsors, Sen Christopher S. Bond, R-Mo, and Sen Bill
Frist, R-Tenn, wanted to send the bill directly to a vote, avoiding the
usual procedure of sending the legislation to a committee for study and
possible hearings.
Republicans and Democrats joined to prevent the action. But the bill
itself would have banned what it called human "somatic cell nuclear
transfer," the procedure that resulted in the cloned sheep, Dolly, in
Scotland last year.
An opposing bill sponsored by Sen Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif, and Sen
Edward Kennedy, D-Mass, would allow laboratory work but for the next 10
years would prevent transfer of a cloned embryo to a woman's
uterus.
Matthew P. Scott, PhD, found himself in the middle of controversy
earlier this year when he was asked to review both bills in his role as
President of the Society of Experimental Biology. "Who would dream
that this obscure society would be drawn into the debate over
legislation on human cloning?" he said during a conversation with
medical students earlier this year.
He called the Republican-sponsored bill "chilling," not only
because it was a total ban but because it also called for criminal
penalties for those who violated it. He called the Feinstein-Kennedy
bill "acceptable."
But he called the concern over human cloning overblown at this point.
"You don't have to deal with the ethical . . . [Full Text of this Article]
