June 6, 2023

Alan Trounson lobbies for therapeutic cloning at UN

United Nations building in New York

Australia’s most prominent stem cell scientist,Alan Trounson, has joined other scientific luminaries in an attempt to sway a vote on human cloning in the United Nations later this year. Although reproduction cloning has been condemned by nearly everyone, a debate last year showed that the UN is split between countries championing therapeutic cloning and countries which want all forms of cloning banned. A Florida lawyer, Bernard Siegel, has marshalled a number of scientists, research institutes, biotechnology groups, venture capitalists and lawyers to form the Genetics Policy Institute.

Siegel and his associates contend that “therapeutic [cloning] research, which is not reproductive cloning, will lead to breakthrough cures such as creating replacement tissue that the human body won’t reject”. Before leaving for a conference for UN delegates, Trounson spoke to ABC radio and complained that the cloning projects of the lunatic Raelian sect were being confused with legitimate scientific research.