BIO favors limited anti-cloning legislation
The Biotechnology Industry Organization supports the enactment of legislation to ban reproductive human cloning, S*BIO President Carl Feldbaum said Wednesday during a Senate hearing. Feldbaum said that the FDA has the authority to prevent human cloning and he suggested that federal legislation is not necessary. If cloning legislation is enacted, it should be carefully crafted to ensure that research on therapies derived from cloned cells is not hindered, Feldbaum said. S*BIO favors federal legislation similar to state laws enacted in California and Rhode Island that impose criminal penalties for implanting a cloned human embryo, Feldbaum told the science, technology and space subcommittee of the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. Feldbaum told Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.), who chaired the hearing, that S*BIO opposes legislation introduced by Brownback that would ban therapeutic cloning (see BioCentury Extra, Thursday April 26). ...