Funding Restrictions Stifle Cloning Research

Unlike many other countries, the United States has no federal restrictions on cloning. Scientists can clone human embryos as much as they want, provided they have the human eggs to do it, and in many states they could transfer those embryos to a female volunteer if they wanted.The only thing that we have in the U.S. are funding restrictions. The very important Dickey-Wicker Amendment, a rider on the Omnibus Appropriations Act, prohibits any federal funding from going to research where human embryos are created or destroyed. This means that the National Institutes of Health (NIH), a major source of funding for research in this country, cannot fund cloning research.So the researchers in Oregon who where the first to successfully clone multiple embryos and extract embryonic stem cell lines did so with funds not provided by you, the American taxpayer.While an outright ban on all somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT) or other means of asexual reproduction in humans is preferred, those funding restrictions are the finger in the dike, preventing many other researchers who depend on federal funds from trying to replicate the "breakthrough" or even from examining the stem cell lines created by cloning and killing human embryos.Continue reading at Creative Minority Report >>

Source: Mary Meets Dolly - June 20, 2013 Category: Geneticists and Genetics Commentators Tags: Cloning Source Type: blogs