When the President's Council on Bioethics failed to address the issue of cloning for biomedical research in its recent report to President Bush, Dean of the Faculty Michael Gazzaniga, a two-year member of the committee, submitted his own statement supporting the practice.
The council's full report, released Thursday, remained silent on the issues of biomedical cloning and stem cell research, while still recommending that restrictions be placed on reproductive cloning. In his attached statement, Gazzaniga wrote that he "reluctantly" concurred with the report despite its inability to address the issue of biomedical cloning.
"By inference, you could conclude that all members of the council were against reproductive cloning," Gazzaniga said.
Nor did all members share Gazzaniga's view on biomedical cloning, compelling him to issue a separate statement.
"By not explicitly allowing federal funding for biomedical cloning as well as new stem cell lines we are painting ourselves into yet another corner down the road," Gazzaniga wrote.
Gazzaniga's qualified support for the council's recommendations comes in the wake of a White House dismissal of two council members in February -- Elizabeth H. Blackburn, a cell biologist at the University of California San Francisco, and William F. May, a medical ethicist at Southern Methodist University -- who supported stem cell research.
According to Gazzaniga, the three new appointees have not yet had the opportunity to voice their views, but based on prior writings at least one is opposed to the practice.
Gazzaniga and several of his colleagues criticized the way the panel was made unbalanced by the recent appointments.
"We were not pleased," Gazzaniga said of his reaction to the president's decision.
Gazzaniga and three other council members considered resigning following this change, but decided to stay on the panel to have "more influence arguing for certain positions being there versus not being there," he said.
The panel voted on stem cell research two years ago, with 10 of 17 members in support of the practice. At that time, three of the 10 in favor of the practice advocated a temporary moratorium, which is now coming to an end, Gazzaniga said.
The council, which consists of biologists, lawyers, political scientists and others, serves in an advisory capacity to the president and Congress, as well as the public, which looks to the panel for guidance on bioethics.
"These things, too, are all just recommendations. Whether anyone picks up on them or not is always the $64,000 question," Gazzaniga said.
