Licenses to Harvest Stem Cells from Unborn Babies Granted by British Government.(Brief Article)

The British government granted licenses March 1 to researchers who want to harvest stem cell lines from embryos originally created for in vitro fertilization treatment. The licenses are the first to be granted under a 2001 law that allows scientists to clone and kill human beings for destructive research.

Pro-lifers fought a long battle to invalidate the law, but their attempt ended when a committee of the House of Lords gave final approval February 27 for the government's Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority to begin accepting applications for research licenses.

ProLife Alliance, the group that spearheaded the legal fight against the law, insisted that the government should not kill human beings for research purposes, but should instead focus on stem cell research that shows more promise for actually leading to effective treatment for diseases.

"We demand confirmation that the research aims identified by the licenses could not properly be carried out in either animal embryo models or with adult stem cells," the alliance said in a press release. "Developing treatments for diseases such as Parkinson's should be conducted using adult stem cells which, unlike embryonic stem cells, are already being used in clinical trials in humans in dozens of centers around the world."

"A huge amount of money will now be wasted in dead-end research and, by diverting scarce resources, put back cures for serious diseases possibly by decades," the alliance said. "Far from winning, Britain risks losing this particular biotech race."

The Centre for Genome Research in Edinburgh, Scotland, and Guy's Hospital in London were the first two facilities to receive authorization to create embryonic stem cell lines, according to The Scotsman. Neither center reportedly will clone new human beings for research, but will use currently existing embryos.

However, Professor Austin Smith, ...