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Ban human cloning - study
12/11/2007 15:12 - (SA)
Oslo - The world should quickly ban
cloning of humans and only allow exceptions for strictly
controlled research to help treat diseases such as diabetes or
Alzheimer's, a UN study said on Sunday.
Without a ban, experts at the UN University's Institute of
Advanced Studies said that governments would have to prepare
legal measures to protect clones from "potential abuse,
prejudice and discrimination".
"A legally-binding global ban on work to create a human
clone, coupled with freedom for nations to permit strictly
controlled therapeutic research, has the greatest political
viability of options available," the study said.
"Whichever path the international community chooses it will
have to act soon - either to prevent reproductive cloning or to
defend the human rights of cloned individuals," said AH Zakri,
head of the Institute, which is based in Yokohama, Japan.
Almost all governments oppose human cloning and more than 50
have legislation outlawing cloning. But negotiations about an
international ban collapsed in 2005 because of disagreements
over research cloning, also known as therapeutic cloning.
Research cloning can produce tissues that are a perfect
genetic match of a person and so help grow cells to treat
diseases such as strokes, spinal injuries, diabetes, Parkinson's
or Alzheimer's, according to the study, which was made available
in Oslo.
The United Nations in 2005 agreed a non-binding declaration
to ban human cloning but left many ambiguities. "The declaration
in itself is not an adequate response," said Brendan Tobin, an
author of the study from the National University of Ireland.
"This has left us in a situation where maverick scientists
can carry on with their research and that is likely to lead to
an eventual cloning," he told Reuters.
The authors said laws should grant clones full human rights
to protect from discrimination.
Otherwise, opponents of clones in an inheritance dispute,
for instance, might say that a clone and the person from whom
their cells were grown should only get a half share each.
"In the same way as an identical twin is an individual, a
clone would be an individual," Tobin said.
The report noted that clones have been made of mice, sheep,
pigs, cows and dogs and that US researchers last year achieved
the first cloning of a primate - a rhesus monkey embryo cloned
from adult cells and then grown to generate stem cells.
It said that national bans on cloning could be skirted since
researchers could simply move elsewhere.
"Disgraced South Korean medical researcher Woo Sook Hwang,
whose human clone claims were unsubstantiated, reportedly
continues his work in Thailand," the UN study said.
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