Medical specialists and scholars yesterday urged the government to prepare more up-to-date and specific guidelines regarding medical and reproductive cloning, saying the absence of such regulations is threatening research.
A public hearing yesterday on reproductive cloning and cloning for medical and clinical purposes in Taiwan, hosted by Legislator Chien Chao-tong (簡肇東), was attended by doctors, research scientists, lawyers and government officials from the Department of Health.
Medical and biotech specialists said that cloning technology had become a major worldwide trend and that the government needed to take notice.
PHOTO: CHU YU-PIN, TAIPEI TIMES
"However, because of fear and misunderstanding among the general public, and the lack of proper regulations covering cloning, Taiwan's development in this field has fallen behind the UK, China and many other countries," Dr. Lee Mao-sheng (
If proper guidelines were established, the government could better control controversial research, such as human cloning, while giving researchers rules to follow when conducting cloning-related medical research, Lee said.
"Cloning technologies and skills are already well-developed in Taiwan. We need to have guidelines to follow in directing our future studies to avoid going too far," said Chen Hsing-fu (
The attending specialists agreed that unregulated human cloning should be banned, but they called for therapeutic cloning research for medical purposes to be allowed.
Therapeutic research is conducted by cloning embryos so that stem cells can be harvested from them. Stem cells are useful in curing a number of diseases, growing organ tissues and killing viruses.
In response to the request, Tan Kai-yuan (譚開元), director general of the Bureau of Medical Affairs in the Executive Yuan's Department of Health (行政院衛生署醫政處), said that the bureau had already organized public hearings and conferences, inviting experts in the fields of medicine, sociology, ethics and religion to give their opinions regarding the rapid development of cloning technology.
The bureau confirmed that studies of embryonic stem cells conducted for the development of human cloning were not permitted.
However, as for the research and application of therapeutic cloning for medical purposes or the acquisition of embryonic stem cells, more specific regulations would be set after "careful examination and discussion" within the bureau, Tan said.
"The establishment of regulations covering embryonic stem-cell research is highly possible in the near future," Tan said.
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