Germany to ban therapeutic cloning "for now":
This article was originally published in Clinica
Executive Summary
Germany's national ethics council this week decide that cloning for research purposes must be put on hold for the present. However, 12 of the council's 25 members still believe that therapeutic cloning could be ethically defended and so the agreement represents a compromise after a year-long debate on the subject. Although only five members wanted a blanket ban on all forms of cloning, the compromise still represents a blow to tissue engineering companies in Germany, who were aiming to press ahead with harvesting stem cells from therapeutic clones. Research minister Edelgard Buhlman welcomed the council's ruling and said: "At this point we do not see any reason to alter the existing ban contained in the embryo protection law."