Vote on stem cells expected next week

Debate on Senator Kay Patterson's private member's bill to allow therapeutic cloning for stem cell research will begin in the Senate next week, with a vote to be taken by Friday, 10 November.

Senators have been allowed a conscience vote on the bill, which is expected to be supported by the majority in the house.

The Senate community affairs committee yesterday tabled a report recommending the overturn of the 2002 ban on therapeutic cloning following an inquiry into the Lockhart Review, handed down early this year.

The report said the committee was divided on acceptance of the two private member's bills, one tabled by Patterson and the other by Democrats Senator Natasha Stott Despoja. Five members of the committee supported the recommendations while three were opposed.

"However a majority of the committee agreed emphatically to support, and to recommend that Senators vote for, the Patterson Bill," the report said.

The report rejected as inappropriate claims that reputable scientists were hyping the potential of the research.

"An overwhelming number of scientific contributors stressed that before we could expect to develop therapies we needed to understand how cells develop and differentiate and how disease processes occur at a cellular level," it said.

"They also argued while this research remained prohibited any hope of finding therapies would be delayed and that stem cells derived by this technique would assist in our understanding of cell biology and in developing therapies for genetic disease.

"Many also argued that this knowledge would also provide greater potential for identifying adult stem cell treatments."

The report said Sir Gustav Nossal encapsulated the argument in support of lifting the prohibition on therapeutic cloning.

"Stem cell science has advanced to the point where it is pushing against the boundaries of current legislation," Nossal wrote. "It is time for the next step."

It also rejected claims by Professor Jack Martin, "one of the few respected scientists who objected to this research", that there was no proof of concept to justify lifting the ban.

The minority report opposing a change to legislation listed a number of reasons why it supported the status quo.

These include a lack of scientific evidence regarding the potential benefits of human embryonic stem cell research and the dangers (such as cancer formation) inherent in the research and clinical application of human embryonic stem cells.

It also said the Lockhart Review relied on work by disgraced Korean researcher Professor Hwang Woo-suk and that there were a significant number of clinical trials already underway around the world using adult stem cells, which negated the need for embryonic stem cell research.

It also cited "the ethical boundary, long recognised in medical research codes, that would be crossed in legislating to allow the creation of cloned human life exclusively for the purpose of it being destroyed in the pursuit of knowledge."

The full report is at www.aph.gov.au/Senate/reports.htm