The press review index from 23 to 27 May 2005

G. Bush against embryonic stem cell law

United States: two laws to govern stem cell research

The dangers of surrogacy

Cloning: UK following in Korea's footsteps

Last Tuesday, the US House of Representatives adopted a law facilitating research on human embryo stem cells. The law must now be passed by the Senate and obtain presidential approval. It allows federal funding to be allocated to researchers carrying out studies requiring the destruction of embryos to produce stem cell lines. In August 2001, George Bush decreed that federal funds could not be allocated to this type of research and has already announced his intention to veto the text. "We should not use federal funding to support the further destruction of human life," he declared.

In support of his statement, the president met with families who had "adopted" frozen embryos from IVF programmes. "The children here today remind us that there is no such thing as a spare embryo," he said. "This bill would take us across a critical ethical line … [which] would be a great mistake," he added.

Certain senators are keen to put this bill on the Senate's agenda as quickly as possible but the Senate President, who shares the government's point of view, is in no hurry to do so.

Libération (Pascal Riché) 26/05/05 - La Croix 26/05/05 - le Nouvel Observateur (Cécile Dumas) 25/05/05 - Le Figaro (Guillemette Faure) 26/05/05 - Le Monde 26/05/05

United States: two laws to govern stem cell research

Last Tuesday, the US House of Representatives adopted two laws aimed at facilitating stem cell research. The first authorises federal funding of research on human embryo stem cells. The second provides for the creation of a national network of cord blood banks in which blood products will be harvested from the umbilical cords of newborn babies.

The House of Representatives passed the first law by 238 votes to 194; this falls short of the two-thirds majority required to prevent a presidential veto. The second law, however, was approved by practically all members of the House.

The two laws must now be adopted by the Senate before being submitted for presidential approval.
In August 2001, President Bush banned the use of federal funding for human embryo stem cell research.

Radio Canada 24/05/05

The dangers of surrogacy

How can you make a lot of money when pregnant? By selling your future baby over the Internet, of course. This is what one Belgian woman did. Over a year ago, she offered to be a surrogate mother for a Flemish couple, through insemination with the husband's sperm, for a sum of around 10,000 euros. Once she had received the money, she claimed she had miscarried and offered the baby up for sale on an Internet forum, a few months before its birth.

As a homosexual couple in Belgium refused to pay 15,000 euros for the baby, she offered it to another couple in the Netherlands for the same amount. Today, the surrogate mother continues to be active on the Internet.

According to Belgian law, which does not recognise surrogacy without banning it, the legal mother is the one who gives birth. The couple who provided the sperm therefore has no legal recourse. The agreements signed between potential parents and surrogate mothers have no legal standing.

The affair has caused a scandal in Belgium and Senator Clotilde Nyssens (Christian Democrats) is set to submit a bill shortly to ban surrogacy. Likewise, Jeanine-Anne Stiennon, the new head of the Belgian Bioethics Advisory Committee, has decided to make this matter a priority during her presidency.

dhnet.be 23/05/05 24/05/05 - rtl.be 23/05/05 24/05/05 - lalibre.be  24/05/05 - La Croix 26/05/05

Cloning: UK following in Korea's footsteps

The press reacted to the publication in Science magazine of a study by a South Korean team, led by Prof. Woo Suk-Hwang. Thirty-one embryos were cloned from the skin cells of patients suffering from degenerative diseases. These were used to create 11 stem cell lines, each immunologically compatible with the patient from whom the somatic cell had been harvested.

In February 2004, this team was the first to succeed in cloning human embryos to the blastocyte stage and creating a stem cell line from them. Using 242 eggs, they obtained 32 cloned embryos followed by a line of embryonic stem cells.

On Friday, 20 May, The Times revealed that a British team led by Prof. Alison Murdoch, head of the Newcastle Fertility Centre, and Dr Miodrag Stojkovic of the University of Newcastle, had succeeded in developing a cloned embryo up to the blastocyte stage. Using 36 eggs, the team succeeded in cloning 3 embryos, only one of which developed to the blastocyte stage, i.e. a 5 to 7-day-old embryo containing around one hundred cells. The researchers did not manage to extract a line of stem cells from the cloned embryo. Therapeutic cloning was approved by the UK Parliament in 2001. In March 2004, this team received the first authorisation from the British authorities. Their findings were submitted for publication in Reproductive Biomedecine online, a journal specialised in assisted reproduction.

China, the United Kingdom and South Korea are the three countries in the world in which therapeutic cloning is authorised. Laws along these lines have been approved in Belgium, Sweden and the Netherlands.

In the United States, President George Bush reacted to the British and Korean experiments by stressing his opposition to this type of research. While the US House of Representatives was set to debate on 24 May whether to extend research to embryonic stem cells, President Bush threatened to veto such a law saying he was "against the use of federal money, taxpayers' money, to promote science which destroys life in order to save life". In 2001, George Bush allowed research on existing lines of embryonic stem cells to be federally funded. He mostly supports research on adult stem cells whose use does not pose any ethical problems.

Bishop Elio Sgreccia, president of the Pontifical Academy for Life, described the scientific experiment carried out by the South Korean team as "abominable" as it would "lead to the destruction of one or more embryos". He added that the experiment was "even more serious as it serves no purpose"; "destroying one life in order to save another remains an aberration".

For Axel Kahn, director of the Cochin Institute of Molecular Genetics, "the first obstacle along the road to therapeutic cloning" has been swept aside. "To a certain extent, the damage has been done. I've a feeling it's inevitable."

For Prof. Peschanski, director of the "neuroplasticity and therapeutics" laboratory at Inserm-Généthon, the Korean announcement is "a scientific revolution". He called for a change to French law which bans therapeutic cloning (punishable by up to 7 years in prison and a 1 million euro fine). On Saturday, 21 May, the former minister of research, Roger-Gérard Schwartzenberg, currently PRD MP for Val-de-Marne, announced that he would submit a bill aimed at repealing the article of the 2004 bioethics law that outlaws therapeutic cloning.

La Croix (Denis Sergent, Marie Verdier, Pierre Bienvault, Martine de Sauto, Irène Frat) 23/05/05 - Le Monde (Jean-Yves Nau, Paul Benkimoun, Corine Lesnes) 21/05/05 - Le Figaro (Martine Perez) 21 et 23/05/05 - Libération (Corinne Bensimon) 21/05/05

Israel: Parents may choose their baby's sex

On Thursday, 19 May, Israel adopted a law approving sex selection during assisted reproduction. This practice is already authorised for gender-linked genetic diseases. Now, parents wishing to choose their baby's sex will be required to fulfil certain conditions such as having at least four children of the same sex and none of the other.
Each request will examined by a committee of 7 experts.

20 minutes (Céline Bruneau) 20/05/05