States reject Howard's request for longer stem cell ban

State premiers have apparent rebuffed Prime Minister John Howard's request for a 12-month extension to the current restriction on creating new embryonic stem cell lines, which is due to expire on April 5.

The Prime Minister wrote to the states on January 26 requesting the extension. A spokesman for the New South Wales Minister for Science and Medical Research, Frank Sartor said that the states had collectively rejected the request.

Yesterday, NSW Premier Bob Carr wrote back to Howard, saying that NSW does not believe an extension to the three-year moratorium is warranted.

News of the PM's attempt to move the 'sunset' date for the restriction on ES cell research has caused dismay in the stem cell research community. Even if the states reject the PM's request, the Commonwealth could still extend the moratorium by maintaining the restrictive National Health and Medical Research Council guidelines applying to permission to create new embryonic stem cell lines from surplus IVF embryos. Currently, researchers are not permitted to derive embryonic stem cells from embryos created after April 5, 2002.

Prof Bob Williamson, emeritus professor of medical genetics at the University of Melbourne, described the PM's move as "a pity", given that Australian stem cell research already operated under the most restrictive legislative regime of any industrialised nation.

Prof Martin Pera, director of embryonic stem cell research at Monash University and the National Stem Cell Research Centre, said there was "no reason" not to let the sunset clause expire on April 5.

"It implies we are going to be revisiting the whole issue of deriving embryonic stem cells," Pera said. "It's a retrograde step, and unnecessary -- we need to get on with new stem-cell derivation work, and there are very compelling arguments to go forward with research on a limited basis. We don't need any more delays."

A spokesman for Victoria's health minister, Bronwyn Pike, confirmed that the PM had written to the Victorian government seeking an extension of the moratorium.

The spokesman said the problem appeared to be that the federal government had not even announced the membership of an expert committee that is to review the Commonwealth Human Cloning and Other Prohibited Practices Act 2002 and Research Involving Human Embryos Act 2002, even though the review was scheduled to begin in December last year, and be completed by December 2005.

According to Sartor's spokesman, at no stage was the moratorium or its sunset provision linked to the review of the Commonwealth legislation, which was passed in April, 2005 after the Council of Australian Governments struck a compromise, after extensive, often heated debate on the issue.

The NSW spokesman said State's agreement at COAG was predicated, in part, on the automatic sunsetting of the moratorium provided for in the Commonwealth legislation, and complementary state legislation.

Williamson, who retired last year as director of the Murdoch Children's Research Institute, which studies inherited genetic disorders, said it would be a pity if the review of the legislation was further delayed.

"There have been many scientific and medical developments [in stem cell research] in the past three years," he said.

"In particular, many Australian couples are now using IVF for pre-natal diagnosis of diseases like cystic fibrosis, thalassaemia, and choosing not to use embryos that would result in a child being affected by one of these diseases.

"Because the current rules are so inflexible, it isn't possible to use this extremely important material to try to develop stem cell techniques that could lead to therapies for serious inherited diseases.

"It's also is a pity that Australia is one of the only first world countries where stem cells cannot be made using nuclear transfer.

"I have no problem with any strict law to prevent the implantation of genetically engineered stem cells in a woman, because consider reproductive cloning is unethical.

"But I believe nuclear transfer can give cells that would be extremely useful in the laboratory, since cells from a patient would not be immunologically rejected if they were used for therapy."