Britain's leading scientists today urge the United Nations to ban cloning of babies but leave open the door for cloning of embryo stem cells as treatments for so-far incurable illnesses.
Like the Inter Academy Panel, the umbrella body for the world's national science academies, the Royal Society wants an international ban on human reproductive cloning that would allow nations to make their own decisions about research using embryo tissue. The UN general assembly is to discuss a convention on human cloning in October.
After a series of free votes in Parliament, and years of public debate, Britain banned human cloning in 2001 but became the first nation to endorse the use of cells from embryos not needed for fertility treatment in other kinds of medical research. The Royal Society and 67 other science academies in effect want to prevent the bathwater from being thrown out with the baby.
"It is clear that if the convention bans all human cloning, the UK, and other countries which permit carefully regulated therapeutic cloning, will not sign up to it," said Richard Gardner, who led a Royal Society study of the issue.
"To effectively stop cowboy cloners claiming their work on human reproductive cloning is acceptable, because it is not outlawed throughout the world, a UN convention must be passed that all countries are willing to endorse."
The creation by the Roslin Institute in 1996 of the clone Dolly the sheep shook the world. Scientists saw the technique as a key to the understanding of cancer, and the neurodegenerative diseases.
Some governments and religious leaders saw it as a threat to the nature of humanity. A handful of mavericks leapt into celebrity by claiming they could, or would, clone human children. At least two groups claimed, without producing any evidence, to have done so.
But in February, a Korean group reported in the journal Science that it had cloned the first human embryo, and then halted the experiment. Last month, the first British group, at the University of Newcastle, formally received a licence to clone embryo tissue in a study of its potential use against human disease.
Humans begin life as a single fertilised cell, which divides to make embryo stem cells. These divide again and again to make a baby composed of 10 trillion cells of more than 200 different kinds.
Researchers believe embryo stem cells could be a source of new heart tissue, or new nerves or brain cells. They could open up new ways of treating spinal injury, diabetes, Alzheimer's or multiple sclerosis.
The Bush administration is firmly against the technology. No US scientists may use federal money for such research, which is why one of the world's leading scientists has already moved from California to set up a new institute in Britain.
But researchers are still anxious about the legal basis for endorsing such studies, while outlawing the direct reproduction of humans from cloned cells. This would be difficult - it took more than 200 attempts to make Dolly - but not impossible.
