France bans reproductive and therapeutic cloning
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《英国医生杂志》
France has banned reproductive human cloning, labelling it a "crime against the human species." It will be punishable by 30 years in prison and a fine of �7.5m (?m; $9.3m), drawing to an end a two and a half year parliamentary debate to modernise France抯 1994 bioethics laws.
France has also banned therapeutic cloning—the creation of stem cells to replace damaged organs and tissue—making it a misdemeanour punishable by seven years in prison and fine of �100 000.
But in a controversial about-face it suspended for five years a ban on stem cell research on human embryos (produced by in-vitro fertilisation, not through cloning), to give the government time to study the ethical and medical ramifications of such research, which could lead to treatments for such illnesses as Alzheimer抯 disease, diabetes, and heart disease.
"The work we have accomplished has brought about a that tries to find a path between the hopes of some and the fears of others," said Philippe Douste-Blazy, the health minister.
However, the law, which was passed last week, also called for the creation of a national biomedicine agency, to start on 1 January 2005, to further study the issue of therapeutic cloning and what is happening in this area across the world. The agency will also be responsible for authorising research into genetics, prenatal diagnostics, and embryology.
"The protection of the embryo is a very clear objective of the civil code," Mr Douste-Blazy told the daily newspaper Le Monde.?"We did not want scientists to be able to create in vitro embryos for the purposes of research."
The parliamentary debate began in January 2002, under the socialist government of Lionel Jospin, and the text was significantly rewritten after the government changed later that year.
Politicians on the right wing voted for the law, but the left voted against it. The left wanted it to be part of a much larger legislation on bioethics, covering such elements as making it legal for a widow to be impregnated with an embryo conceived while her husband was still alive.
Nevertheless, the law does allow for such innovations as what the French call a "medicine baby" or baby of "double hope." The mother of a child with an incurable genetic disease may get an embryo analysed before implantation so as to choose an embryo that is not affected by the genetic disorder and that is compatible with the sibling. The future baby抯 blood cells are taken from the umbilical cord and used to cure the first child.
Mr Douste-Blazy said the law on embryo research is a compromise between respect for the embryo and the need to produce beneficial research. But Alain Claeys, the socialist deputy, said the socialists would fight the law in the Constitutional Council, France抯 highest administrative body.
Among other objections, he said creating patents for products that include an element of a human body "creates dependence on the patent owner by all of the inventors who, subsequently, find another function for the same gene."(Paris Brad Spurgeon)
France has also banned therapeutic cloning—the creation of stem cells to replace damaged organs and tissue—making it a misdemeanour punishable by seven years in prison and fine of �100 000.
But in a controversial about-face it suspended for five years a ban on stem cell research on human embryos (produced by in-vitro fertilisation, not through cloning), to give the government time to study the ethical and medical ramifications of such research, which could lead to treatments for such illnesses as Alzheimer抯 disease, diabetes, and heart disease.
"The work we have accomplished has brought about a that tries to find a path between the hopes of some and the fears of others," said Philippe Douste-Blazy, the health minister.
However, the law, which was passed last week, also called for the creation of a national biomedicine agency, to start on 1 January 2005, to further study the issue of therapeutic cloning and what is happening in this area across the world. The agency will also be responsible for authorising research into genetics, prenatal diagnostics, and embryology.
"The protection of the embryo is a very clear objective of the civil code," Mr Douste-Blazy told the daily newspaper Le Monde.?"We did not want scientists to be able to create in vitro embryos for the purposes of research."
The parliamentary debate began in January 2002, under the socialist government of Lionel Jospin, and the text was significantly rewritten after the government changed later that year.
Politicians on the right wing voted for the law, but the left voted against it. The left wanted it to be part of a much larger legislation on bioethics, covering such elements as making it legal for a widow to be impregnated with an embryo conceived while her husband was still alive.
Nevertheless, the law does allow for such innovations as what the French call a "medicine baby" or baby of "double hope." The mother of a child with an incurable genetic disease may get an embryo analysed before implantation so as to choose an embryo that is not affected by the genetic disorder and that is compatible with the sibling. The future baby抯 blood cells are taken from the umbilical cord and used to cure the first child.
Mr Douste-Blazy said the law on embryo research is a compromise between respect for the embryo and the need to produce beneficial research. But Alain Claeys, the socialist deputy, said the socialists would fight the law in the Constitutional Council, France抯 highest administrative body.
Among other objections, he said creating patents for products that include an element of a human body "creates dependence on the patent owner by all of the inventors who, subsequently, find another function for the same gene."(Paris Brad Spurgeon)