Canada and the Race to Clone for Stem Cell Research

The recent South Korean announcement of a major advance in stem cell cloning has brought into sharper focus the legal status of such work in several countries. Given the immediate and critical response from the US President to the South Korean event, the conventional wisdom would have it that the legal framework for stem cell research in the US is falling behind that in comparable Western countries. However, as reported by a medical science writer in The Globe and Mail, in fact Canada's own legal backdrop may leave much to be desired in this area. In Canada, therapeutic cloning in humans can be a criminal offence, not just activity that is regulated or for which government funding may be withheld, as is the case in the US. This is so even though Canadians, in general, are apparently not opposed to therapeutic cloning if it could lead to advances in medicine. As asserted in an article by Prof A Singer of the University of Toronto Centre for Bioethics in the National Post, there is another irony:

"… in Canada we have some of the best stem cell researchers in the world and they can do research on stem cells using spare embryos from in-vitro fertilization clinics. But they likely will not be able to take that research from the laboratory bench to the patient's bedside because they cannot create stem cell lines, as did the Koreans".

Further, even within the US, the interplay of federal and State regulation in the field sets up strong competition for human and financial resources between academic and scientific communities on the East Coast and the West Coast. For a general backgrounder article on the Canadian situation, visit: http://makeashorterlink.com/?E5702442B For a news article on the South Korean development, see: http://makeashorterlink.com/?W2901242B The article by Prof Singer in the National Post can be found at: http://makeashorterlink.com/?P2A04242B For an article from The New York Times ("Stem Cell Researchers Feel the Pull of the Golden State"), see: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/22/national/22stem.html Summary by: The Editor