U.K. ducks on cloning

OXFORD - British academic institutes specializing in embryonic cloning could lose out on funding following the U.K. government's decision last week to defer a decision on whether to allow use of the techniques for therapeutic applications.

In a surprising move, health ministers chose to ignore the advice of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA), and the Human Genetics Advisory Commission (HGAC), which the government established to give such advice in the wake of Britain's 1990 ban on human reproductive cloning. Last December, the committees jointly recommended that use of human embryos be permitted in the development of therapies for mitochondrial diseases and for diseased or damaged tissues or organs...