Bush wants therapeutic cloning ban

President Bush has decided that all research on therapeutic cloning should be prohibited, a senior administration official told Congress on Wednesday. The Bush administration opposes "the use of human somatic cell nuclear transfer cloning techniques either to assist human reproduction or to develop cell- or tissue-based therapies. At the same time, we strongly support other approaches to development of these therapies, such as research with genes, cells, or tissues from humans or animals, consistent with current law," Health and Human Services Deputy Secretary Claude Allen said. Testifying before the health subcommittee of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, Allen said that Bush personally made the decision to seek legislation to prohibit human therapeutic cloning. Bush supports legislation that would ban research involving the creation of human embryos by private industry, as well as prohibiting government funding of such research.

The White House opposes legislation proposed by Rep. James Greenwood (R-Penn.), The Cloning Prohibition Act of 2001 (H.R. 2172), Allen said. "We do not support the Greenwood bill because it allows for research cloning," he said. He stated that the administration's opposition to therapeutic cloning is based on concerns that it would be impossible to enforce a ban solely on reproductive cloning (see BioCentury Extra, Tuesday June 19 for a description of H.R. 2172 and Thursday April 26 for a description of H.R. 1644). The Biotechnology Industry Organization has expressed support for H.R. 2172; S*BIO opposes H.R. 1644, which it feels would criminalize or hinder the pursuit of biomedical research that is not related to reproductive cloning. The administration broadly supports H.R. 1644, the Human Cloning Prohibition Act of 2001, but will seek technical modifications to the bill before explicitly endorsing it, Allen reported. ...