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16 June 2004
The Scottish Council on Human Bioethics (SCHB) indicated, today, that it was very concerned about the possibility for the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) to grant a licence enabling British scientists to clone human embryos.
This follows an application to create such embryos by Newcastle researchers to the HFEA which will be considered today. And a similar application has also been submitted to the HFEA by the Edinburgh Scientists who cloned Dolly on the 21 April 20041.
But Dr. Calum MacKellar, Director of Research of the SCHB, indicated that "very serious ethical problems are created by the cloning of human embryos" adding that "the research would inevitably help maverick scientists who want to clone human persons.
The Scottish Council on Human Bioethics is also concerned that the proposed Newcastle University experiments would breach European Law. Indeed, Article 18.2 (Research on embryos in vitro) of the European Convention on Human Rights and Biomedicine2 states that:
In this respect, Dr. MacKellar indicated that "the UK is one of the only countries in Europe where such an experiment is even being considered" adding that "it would be very unwise for the HFEA to go it alone and ignore European Legislation."
The SCHB is of the opinion that it would like to see more public discussions taking place about the different issues before any decision is made by the HFEA.
1 Dolly scientists to clone embryos, BBC, 21.6.2004 - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/3645037.stm
2 European Convention on Human Rights and Biomedicine, http://conventions.coe.int/Treaty/en/Treaties/Word/164.doc