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US debate on human cloning side tracked by stem cell patent disclosure
POLICY AND PEOPLE
US debate on human cloning side tracked by stem cell patent disclosure However Verfaille disagrees with this notion and told The Lancet that she “does not think that we shouldn’t proceed with other lines of work”,
Rights were not granted to include this image in electronic media. Please refer to the printed journal. AP
he US debate on human cloning has been complicated in the past week by the disclosure that researchers at the University of Minnesota have cultured stem cells, which the anticloning lobby argues renders human cloning unnecessary. US media reports revealed this week that Catherine Verfaillie (Stem Cell Institute, University of Minnesota Medical School, Minneapolis) and her group filed a patent application last year that claims that adult bone marrow cells, which they call multipotent adult progenitor cells, from mammals can be cultured to differentiate into cell types including neuronal and glial cells. Last year the House of Representatives passed a bill banning human cloning. The Senate is now facing a choice of bills: one sponsored by Republican Senator Sam Brownback that would ban all human cloning, or two bills that would allow cloning for therapeutic purposes. The bills are currently being discussed in a Senate subcommittee, where supporters of a ban claim that Verfaillie’s work shows that human cloning will not be needed. Brownback has stated that “science continues to show that destructive embryonic cell research is unnecessary”.
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Senator Sam Brownback
and has objected to descriptions in the press that she has discovered “the ultimate stem cell”. The patent application for her latest research, which is an extension of work on mesodermal progenitor cells (Blood 2001 98: 2615–25) has not yet been published in a scientific journal. Verfaille is not sure whether the cells they have described in the patent are embryonic cells, or are a result of the culture conditions. Her group is currently doing experiments to differentiate between the two. Meanwhile the UK has moved a step closer to rationalising its laws on human cloning. On Jan 19 a Court of
S Africa state offers HIV drug to pregnant women outh Africa’s Health Minister, Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, strongly criticised a state leader on Jan 23 for allowing state health authorities to supply nevirapine to HIV-infected pregnant women, in an effort to reduce mother-to-child transmission of the disease, a policy that is in direct conflict with the current federal health policy. “His [Mtshali] announcement has taken us by surprise. We’d have expected him to consult us”, said Tshabalala-Msimang. “Taking nevirapine is not like swallowing an aspirin”, she continued, “we . . . want to understand the other issues—of resistance and reversal of gains”. The Premier of KwaZulu Natal announced on Jan 22 that he would allow his health authorities to supply nevirapine to HIV-infected pregnant women in public hospitals. Current estimates suggest that about 36% of pregnant women in KwaZulu Natal have HIV and government studies estimate that more than one in three
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people in KwaZulu-Natal have HIV. “Constitutionally, no one may be refused emergency medical treatment. The administration of nevirapine is an emergency medical treatment”, said Premier Lionel Mtshali. “A mother who is already afflicted by an incurable disease should not have to contend with a hopeless situation of her unborn child facing the same affliction if it can be prevented”, he added. A spokesperson for Mtshali said the state planned to start a 5-year nevirapine programme. The federal government is in the process of appealing a high court ruling from December, 2001, (see Lancet 2001; 358: 2138) ) that said the country had a constitutional duty to expand access to nevirapine. KwaZulu-Natal is the second of South Africa’s nine provinces, after Western Cape, to make the drug freely available at public hospitals.
Appeal allowed the government to challenge a high court ruling from November, 2001, that found that the UK’s Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990 had no jurisdiction over human cloning (see Lancet 2001; 358: 1785). The high court had ruled that cloned embryos produced by cell nuclear replacement (CNR) were not embryos as defined by the Act, and there was no legal barrier to them being implanted into a woman’s womb, so effectively allowing human reproductive cloning to be done in the UK. The Court of Appeal agreed with the government’s challenge that any organism created by CNR should be classified as an embryo, even if it was not the product of fertilisation. The Appeal court said that the effect of the high court ruling leaving human cloning unregulated in the UK was “wholly at odds with the intentions of parliament” when it passed the act. The ProLife Alliance, which challenged the Act in court last year, has said that “the cloning judgement leaves the law in a catastrophic mess”, and has indicated that it will submit a petition to the House of Lords. Virginia Barbour
News in brief UK regulator rejects MS drug On Jan 25 the UK’s National Institute of Clinical Excellence announced that it had turned down an appeal for beta interferon to be made available on the National Health Service (NHS) for patients with multiple sclerosis (MS). In a statement NICE said that “on the balance of their clinical and cost effectiveness” neither beta interferon nor another MS drug, glatiramer acetate, was recommended for NHS treatment in England and Wales. The move was condemned by politicians and patients’ representatives. India tackles female foeticide The Indian Supreme Court told state authorities on Jan 30 to deal with female foeticide and take ultrasound equipment from clinics operating without licenses. India’s last census noted that the sex ratio was severely imbalanced.
Haroon Ashraf
THE LANCET • Vol 359 • February 2, 2002 • www.thelancet.com
For personal use. Only reproduce with permission from The Lancet Publishing Group.
US debate on human cloning side tracked by stem cell patent disclosure However Verfaille disagrees with this notion and told The Lancet that she “does not think that we shouldn’t proceed with other lines of work”,
Rights were not granted to include this image in electronic media. Please refer to the printed journal. AP
he US debate on human cloning has been complicated in the past week by the disclosure that researchers at the University of Minnesota have cultured stem cells, which the anticloning lobby argues renders human cloning unnecessary. US media reports revealed this week that Catherine Verfaillie (Stem Cell Institute, University of Minnesota Medical School, Minneapolis) and her group filed a patent application last year that claims that adult bone marrow cells, which they call multipotent adult progenitor cells, from mammals can be cultured to differentiate into cell types including neuronal and glial cells. Last year the House of Representatives passed a bill banning human cloning. The Senate is now facing a choice of bills: one sponsored by Republican Senator Sam Brownback that would ban all human cloning, or two bills that would allow cloning for therapeutic purposes. The bills are currently being discussed in a Senate subcommittee, where supporters of a ban claim that Verfaillie’s work shows that human cloning will not be needed. Brownback has stated that “science continues to show that destructive embryonic cell research is unnecessary”.
T
Senator Sam Brownback
and has objected to descriptions in the press that she has discovered “the ultimate stem cell”. The patent application for her latest research, which is an extension of work on mesodermal progenitor cells (Blood 2001 98: 2615–25) has not yet been published in a scientific journal. Verfaille is not sure whether the cells they have described in the patent are embryonic cells, or are a result of the culture conditions. Her group is currently doing experiments to differentiate between the two. Meanwhile the UK has moved a step closer to rationalising its laws on human cloning. On Jan 19 a Court of
S Africa state offers HIV drug to pregnant women outh Africa’s Health Minister, Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, strongly criticised a state leader on Jan 23 for allowing state health authorities to supply nevirapine to HIV-infected pregnant women, in an effort to reduce mother-to-child transmission of the disease, a policy that is in direct conflict with the current federal health policy. “His [Mtshali] announcement has taken us by surprise. We’d have expected him to consult us”, said Tshabalala-Msimang. “Taking nevirapine is not like swallowing an aspirin”, she continued, “we . . . want to understand the other issues—of resistance and reversal of gains”. The Premier of KwaZulu Natal announced on Jan 22 that he would allow his health authorities to supply nevirapine to HIV-infected pregnant women in public hospitals. Current estimates suggest that about 36% of pregnant women in KwaZulu Natal have HIV and government studies estimate that more than one in three
S
416
people in KwaZulu-Natal have HIV. “Constitutionally, no one may be refused emergency medical treatment. The administration of nevirapine is an emergency medical treatment”, said Premier Lionel Mtshali. “A mother who is already afflicted by an incurable disease should not have to contend with a hopeless situation of her unborn child facing the same affliction if it can be prevented”, he added. A spokesperson for Mtshali said the state planned to start a 5-year nevirapine programme. The federal government is in the process of appealing a high court ruling from December, 2001, (see Lancet 2001; 358: 2138) ) that said the country had a constitutional duty to expand access to nevirapine. KwaZulu-Natal is the second of South Africa’s nine provinces, after Western Cape, to make the drug freely available at public hospitals.
Appeal allowed the government to challenge a high court ruling from November, 2001, that found that the UK’s Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990 had no jurisdiction over human cloning (see Lancet 2001; 358: 1785). The high court had ruled that cloned embryos produced by cell nuclear replacement (CNR) were not embryos as defined by the Act, and there was no legal barrier to them being implanted into a woman’s womb, so effectively allowing human reproductive cloning to be done in the UK. The Court of Appeal agreed with the government’s challenge that any organism created by CNR should be classified as an embryo, even if it was not the product of fertilisation. The Appeal court said that the effect of the high court ruling leaving human cloning unregulated in the UK was “wholly at odds with the intentions of parliament” when it passed the act. The ProLife Alliance, which challenged the Act in court last year, has said that “the cloning judgement leaves the law in a catastrophic mess”, and has indicated that it will submit a petition to the House of Lords. Virginia Barbour
News in brief UK regulator rejects MS drug On Jan 25 the UK’s National Institute of Clinical Excellence announced that it had turned down an appeal for beta interferon to be made available on the National Health Service (NHS) for patients with multiple sclerosis (MS). In a statement NICE said that “on the balance of their clinical and cost effectiveness” neither beta interferon nor another MS drug, glatiramer acetate, was recommended for NHS treatment in England and Wales. The move was condemned by politicians and patients’ representatives. India tackles female foeticide The Indian Supreme Court told state authorities on Jan 30 to deal with female foeticide and take ultrasound equipment from clinics operating without licenses. India’s last census noted that the sex ratio was severely imbalanced.
Haroon Ashraf
THE LANCET • Vol 359 • February 2, 2002 • www.thelancet.com
For personal use. Only reproduce with permission from The Lancet Publishing Group.