----- forwarded message -----
Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2004 05:12:25 -0700
From: Teresa Binstock <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Bioethics Panel Calls for Ban on Radical Reproductive Procedures, eg,
animal-human
hybrids
Bioethics Panel Calls for Ban on Radical Reproductive Procedures
By Rick Weiss
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, January 16, 2004; Page A02
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A21071-2004Jan15.html
A presidentially appointed bioethics commission yesterday
approved near-final wording for its highly anticipated report on
human reproductive technologies, calling for enhanced
professional guidelines for fertility doctors and a federal ban on
certain radical procedures, such as creating animal-human hybrids.
But the report stops short of recommending broad new regulations
relating to baby making, which the fertility industry had feared and
fought against.
The report, "Biotechnologies Touching the Beginnings of
Human Life," will be issued by the President's Council on
Bioethics, a panel of scholars and scientists commissioned by
President Bush in 2001 and chaired by University of Chicago
scientist-philosopher Leon Kass.
The council has previously addressed such intensely
controversial issues as human embryonic stem cell research and
cloning. But its nine-month foray into human reproductive
technologies -- a field that encompasses not only basic research
but also a medical specialty that performs 100,000 fertility
procedures a year at a cost of about $1 billion -- took the group
through especially treacherous political, ethical and economic
terrain.
Initial discussions by the council last summer left many fertility
specialists convinced the council was, as some said then, "out to
get us." Those fears were stoked by recent writings by Kass
and other council members expressing grave reservations about
the fate of the human race should it continue to tinker with its
embryonic roots.
In fact, the council did discuss at length the fertility industry's
relatively unregulated status. Concerns were raised about the
"slippery slope" that could lead fertility doctors -- or at least a
few rogues among them -- to try increasingly far-reaching
techniques to achieve pregnancies, at the risk of producing
grotesque mistakes.
Several council members were critical of the profession for not
proving the safety of its techniques before trying them in
women. Early versions of the report called for far more public
disclosure of the fates of all embryos made in fertility clinics as
well as detailed tracking of the health of all babies born by in
vitro fertilization (IVF) and other techniques.
In the latest draft, however, those provisions have been
dropped, in part because of concerns that systematic tracking of
IVF children would constitute an invasion of their privacy and
could stigmatize them. Instead, the council calls for greater
attention to professional ethics -- including better informed
consent for women about the risks and costs of fertility
treatments -- and a federally funded and voluntary study of the
health of IVF children.
Initial versions of the report also contained politically divisive
language, now removed. Instead of using the word "embryo,"
for example, early drafts used phrases such as "child to be" or
"future child."
All told, Kass said, the draft approved yesterday -- which now
faces only minor edits before being released -- is a "modest"
document but one that the nation and Congress should be able
to get behind.
"It's a community expression of boundaries," Kass said, "and
shifts the burden of persuasion to the innovators who want to
cross those boundaries."
Beyond its call for professional reforms, the council
recommends that Congress at least temporarily prohibit the
gestation of human embryos in animal wombs and the
fertilization of human eggs with animal sperm, and vice versa.
It also asks Congress to outlaw any transfer of an IVF embryo
to a woman's womb for any purpose other than to produce a
live-born child -- a measure aimed at preventing the "farming"
of fetuses for body parts.
And the draft calls for a ban on the creation of human embryos
from cells obtained from a human fetus -- a technique now
technically feasible that could lead to the birth of a child whose
parent was never born.
"There is a lot to like in this report, and we certainly are pleased
to have Dr. Kass and his colleagues join our longtime call for
additional federally funded research in this area," said Sean
Tipton, a spokesman for the American Society for
Reproductive Medicine, which represents fertility doctors and
lobbied the council hard.
Congress has long blocked federal spending on human embryo
research, leaving it to fertility clinics to finance their own
studies. And federal funding for follow-ups of U.S.-born IVF
children has been minimal.
The American Infertility Association, representing fertility
patients and families, applauded the revised draft, saying in a
statement that it was "relieved" the council had decided not to
recommend new restrictions on egg and sperm donation or
surrogacy arrangements.
© 2004 The Washington Post Company
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