Scottish Council on Human Bioethics

15 Morningside Road, Edinburgh EH10 4DP, Tel: 0131 447 6394

7 October 2006

Press release:

Petition in Scottish Parliament to Prohibit Animal-Human Chimeras and Hybrids

The Scottish Council on Human Bioethics (SCHB) has decided to support the petition introduced to the Scottish Parliament by Dr. Euan Dodds opposing the creation of animal-human embryonic entities.

The new Petition can be found on the Scottish Parliament web site at:

In this respect, Dr. Euan Dodds (Tel: 0141 334 0442, Mob: 07815 792491) said that: "There are no regulations in the UK, concerning the creation of animal-human embryonic combinations” adding “because legislation relating to animal embryology is not reserved to the Westminster parliament, Scotland should prohibit the creation of such frightening entities as soon as possible."

The provisions would prohibit experiments being considered by Prof. Ian Wilmut (the creator of Dolly the sheep) to use animals eggs to clone animal-human embryos in order to address the serious shortage of available human eggs [1].

The Petition, includes provisions such as:

• The creation of an embryo containing cells made up of both human and animal chromosomes shall be prohibited.
• The insertion of a human cell nucleus or chromosomes into a non-human egg stripped of its chromosomes enabling an embryo to exist shall be prohibited.

Dr. Calum MacKellar, Director of Research of the SCHB, indicated in this respect that "The SCHB supports Dr. Dodds' Petition" adding "the use of animal eggs to create animal-human cloned embryos should not be possible in Scotland." He also indicated that "most people are not aware that these kinds of experiments are being considered and find it deeply offensive; the Scottish parliament should prohibit the creation of animal-human hybrid embryos."

Additional information relating to the creation of animal-human embryonic combinations can be found at www.schb.org.uk