Senators Introduce Bipartisan
Cloning Bill
May 3, 2002- A bipartisan group of senators, led by
Senators Arlen Specter (R-Pa,), Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.),
Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) and Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) introduced
legislation May 1 to prohibit human cloning while preserving
the use of cloning technology to produce stem cells. S. 2439
would make it illegal to implant or attempt to implant the
product of nuclear transplantation into a uterus or "the
functional equivalent of a uterus." Violators would be
subject to criminal penalties of up to 10 years in prison
and civil penalties of at least $1 million. The bill would
also prohibit shipping the products of nuclear transplantation
to conduct human cloning in the United States or overseas.
The bill would permit research using nuclear transplantation
to produce embryonic stem cells, and would apply federal ethical
requirements - including informed consent, ethics review board
review, and protections of the safety and privacy of research
participants - to all nuclear transplantation research. Violations
of the ethics requirements are subject to a $250,000 civil
penalty.
S. 2439 is a revised version of legislation introduced last
December by Senators Feinstein and Kennedy as an alternative
to the proposal by Senator Sam Brownback (R-Ka.) that would
ban both reproductive cloning as well as the use of nuclear
transplantation to produce stem cells.
AAMC President Jordan Cohen, M.D., April 30 issued a press
statement endorsing S. 2439, saying, "[W]e will never
see the fulfillment of any of this promise [of stem cell research]
if we choose to take the perilous and unprecedented path of
banning through legislation research on nuclear transplantation
to produce stem cells."
Information:
Dave Moore, Senior Associate Vice President
AAMC Government Relations
dbmoore@aamc.org
(202) 828-0525
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