Leading Bioethics Think-tank Concerned By Embryo Research

A leading bioethics think-tank has voiced deep concern over the plans of British scientists to create embryos by combining rabbit eggs with human DNA.

|TOP|Scientists plan to fuse human cells with rabbit eggs, if permission is granted, in order to find cures for incurable diseases by advancing stem cell research, reports The Good News.

The plans, however, have been met with controversy, with the Centre for Bioethics and Public Policy (CBPP) warning of the ambiguous consequences of such developments.

Nigel Cameron, chairman of CBPP, said: "This would neatly take us out of the frying-pan and into the fire.

"Creating human-rabbit hybrids for our embryo experiments is worse - and establishes British leadership in the depressing journey towards the Brave New World."

|QUOTE|Professor Ian Wilmut, who led scientists in creating Dolly the Sheep, the first cloned mammal, has advocated the method of using rabbit eggs, saying it is needed because of the practical and ethical difficulty of obtaining women’s eggs.

The ethical issues have only been exacerbated by the recent findings of an investigation panel that a South Korean scientist, Dr Hwang-suk, made fraudulent claims that he had created a line of stem cells from cloned human embryos.

Dr Cameron added: "The unmasking of the Korean cloning fiasco represents a climax for stem-cell hype.

"Dr Hwang's hubris is merely a concrete reflection of the fraudulent promises that many scientists have used to grab public funding for their work.

|AD|"The fact that he lied about his results, and was believed by the science establishment, demonstrates the power of wishful thinking."

A U.S. Christian group expressed its shock and horror last month after one of the U.S. leading research institutes, the Salk Institute in California, created a man-mouse chimera.

Scientists at the Salk Institute created the man-mouse chimeras by injecting the brains of mice with human embryonic stem cells obtained by killing live human embryos.

Cheryl Sullenger, spokesperson for Operation Rescue and author of a number of published articles decrying human experimentation, said: “Human embryonic stem cells are harvested by killing live and developing human embryos before cell differentiation has begun. This alone should present problems for ethicists. “

She said: “We have no idea of the consequences of such actions. Creating a new breed of man-mice should be shocking and unacceptable to anyone who values and respects human life. Just a decade ago, it would have been.

Ms. Sullenger said that there is “more promise with research that does not harm innocent life”, adding that the latest man-mouse chimeras are “an indicator that the ethics of the medical research community have eroded to the point where they apparently can no longer see why the degradation of life through these appalling experiments is wrong”.