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CAMBRIDGE, Mass.
Harvard University scientists have asked the university's ethical review board for permission to produce cloned human embryos for disease research, potentially becoming the first researchers in the nation to wade into a divisive area of study that has become a presidential campaign issue.
"We want to find new ways to study and hopefully cure diseases," said Harvard biologist Douglas Melton, a senior researcher who, along with a colleague, has applied for permission to do the work.
Embryonic stem cells are master cells that can form into any tissue of the body. Many scientists believe harnessing them might one day allow tissue regeneration to treat numerous diseases.
Harvesting stem cells from embryos kills the embryo, and some argue that it is tantamount to taking a life. President Bush has signed an executive order limiting federal help to all but existing stem cell lines.
Democratic challenger John Kerry supports widespread stem cell research.
The research group asking for a green light to advance its work is one of two teams affiliated with the Harvard Stem Cell Institute, a facility set up earlier this year to fund such research.
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The scientists who cloned Dolly the sheep have formally applied for a licence to clone human embryos to find a cure for motor neurone disease.
If granted, Professor Ian Wilmut's team at Edinburgh's Roslin Institute would clone cells from MND patients to see how the illness develops in an embryo.
The licensing body, the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, granted a similar licence in August.
The application has provoked criticism from pro-life campaigners.
Therapeutic cloning for research has been legal in the UK since 2001.
In August this year, scientists at the University of Newcastle were given permission to perform therapeutic cloning using human embryos for the first time.
They wanted to duplicate early stage embryos and extract stem cells from them which can be used for radical new treatments for a host of diseases such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and diabetes.
In comparison, Professor Wilmut wants to create cloned embryos with MND.
Professor Wilmut has stressed that his team has no intention of producing cloned babies, and said the diseased embryos would be destroyed after experimentation.
Professor Wilmut said: "I would emphasise that, at this time, our objective is to understand the disease. Knowledge often does have two edges to it.
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By KEITH BRADSHER and LAWRENCE K. ALTMAN
BANGKOK - A 9-year-old girl in northern Thailand made an innocent mistake late in September, a show of industriousness that should have impressed her family but killed her instead.
Eleven of her family's 13 chickens had fallen sick and died of avian influenza, so the girl's mother and grandmother killed the last two as a precaution, Thai health officials said. Not realizing that the healthy-looking birds could still be infectious, the girl plucked the chickens and prepared them for cooking. She died at a Thai provincial hospital on Oct. 3.
In communes in Vietnam, small chicken farms in Thailand and the jungles of northern Malaysia, health officials, scientists and farm workers are fighting an increasingly menacing yet little-understood foe: the A(H5N1) strain that causes avian influenza, or more popularly, bird flu.
A spate of recent deaths, including the first possible case of human-to-human transmission, has stirred fears of a broader outbreak among people and raised the possibility of a human pandemic.
Tamiflu, a powerful antiviral drug that might slow the early stages of an outbreak, is in extremely short supply, according to the World Health Organization. And a vaccine - the only thing that could stop the global spread of the disease - will not be available for months, at the earliest: the Chiron Corporation, one of two manufacturers trying to develop a human bird flu vaccine, last week had its license to make conventional flu vaccine temporarily suspended by the British government.
The suspension created a severe shortage of the flu vaccine in the United States. Whether it will affect the testing of the company's experimental human avian influenza vaccine remains to be seen.
Bird flu is uncommonly lethal, having killed 31 of the 43 people confirmed to have caught it in the last year, all in Thailand and Vietnam. More than 200 million chickens and other domesticated fowl have been culled or died of infection. The virus has shown a surprising ability to jump species, infecting cats, pigs and a clouded leopard as well as, in the laboratory, ferrets and mice.
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By James Tressler The Times-Standard
EUREKA -- The group that authored an initiative banning genetically modified organisms in Humboldt County is now urging voters to defeat the measure in November.
The Humboldt Green Genes, a coalition of organic farmers and environmentalists, easily gathered the 4,400 signatures to qualify the proposed ban for the November ballot. But the group is pulling the plug on its support after learning that the measure's language had some potentially fatal legal flaws.
"We're basically admitting we made some big mistakes in the (wording) of the ordinance," said Green Genes Co-Chairwoman Martha Devine. "The best thing to do is rewrite it and make it a much better ordinance."
Measure M, which would have followed on the heels of a similar ban passed in Mendocino County in March, called on the county agricultural commissioner to arrest anyone caught growing or possessing genetically modified seeds or crops. Such enforcement measures drew criticism from District Attorney Paul Gallegos, who argued the county commissioner doesn't have the authority to arrest people.
Some of the scientific language in the ordinance was also criticized as inaccurate by some area scientists. For instance, Humboldt State University biology professor Milt Boyd noted that the proponents had even provided an incorrect definition of DNA.
Devine said that after voters hopefully defeat Measure M in November, the Green Genes will go back to the drawing board. Along with addressing the flaws in the current measure, the new measure would also have what's known as a "severability clause." That means if flaws were found in the new measure, the problems could be addressed without killing the overall measure. The new measure also would call for a 10-year halt on allowing genetically modified crops in the county, rather than the permanent ban called for in the existing measure. Devine said the 10-year period could be a better idea because it could allow the ordinance to be revisited if at some point some genetically modified organisms are found to have benefits.
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By Mike Ivey
Biotech farming is under attack in California and the reverberations are being felt here in Wisconsin.
A measure on the Nov. 2 ballot in Humboldt County would make it illegal to grow genetically-engineered crops such as corn or soybeans. Three other California counties are attempting to pass similar measures to ban genetically-engineered plants and animals.
Supporters of the ballot initiatives argue that biotech crops pose a risk to human health and the environment, charges strongly disputed by the industry.
Organizers in several more California counties are collecting signatures in hopes of qualifying their own anti-biotech measures in early 2005.
Activists in Hawaii, Vermont and elsewhere also are circulating local petitions and urging politicians to pass similar legislation.
"It wouldn't be surprised if we eventually see the same thing here," said Tom Thieding of the Wisconsin Farm Bureau.
Critics of biotech crops say the bans are needed to ensure that organic crops aren't inadvertently cross-pollinated by biotech varieties. So-called "gene flow" is an increasing concern among organic farmers, who fear such cross-pollination could ruin their crops.
Moreover, consumers in Japan, Europe and elsewhere are demanding all their crops be grown conventionally. Farmers who can't make those guarantees risk losing those markets.
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Local initiatives target genetic engineering
By Robert Mullins
When voters in the Northern California county of Mendocino passed an initiative this spring banning the cultivation of genetically engineered crops, there were celebrations 3,000 miles away in Vermont.
That same day, March 2, nine town councils in Vermont passed resolutions calling for a state moratorium on genetically engineered farming, bringing to 79 the number of townships there that have taken such a stand.
ÒWe were thrilled in Vermont after the Mendocino County vote passed the same day as our town vote. This is a huge boost for our campaign,Ó said Amy Shollenberger, an organizer of GE-Free Vermont, an advocacy group opposed to genetically engineered crops.
On the heels of these successes, and buoyed by widespread disapproval of genetically modified foods in Europe, municipalities around the U.S. are presenting their own versions of the ban to voters this November.
But activists may be trying to close the barn door after the horses have already fled. Many food crops worldwide are already being grown with genetically modified seed, and the agribusiness lobby, perhaps caught off guard by the Mendocino vote, is refocusing its well-funded lobbying machine.
Anti-Biotech camaign links:
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Iowa farmers harvest plenty
By ANNE FITZGERALD
U.S. farmers are harvesting whopper crops, pummeling prices.
Everyone knew 2004 corn and soybean crops would be big, but no one expected the super-sized projections released Tuesday. Farmers will harvest 11.6 billion bushels of corn, 15 percent more than in 2003, and 3.1 billion bushels of soybeans, up 27 percent, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said. Both would be records.
"They were huge numbers. . . . They just are eye-popping," said Don Roose, president of U.S. Commodities Inc. in West Des Moines.
Iowa farmers are expected to bank more corn than any other state: 2.2 billion bushels, or 19 percent of the U.S. total. Iowans will harvest 477 million bushels of soybeans, second to Illinois and 15 percent of the U.S. total.
Soybean prices tumbled Tuesday, and corn fell slightly. Analysts expect little effect on consumers because corn and soybean products are a small percentage of the cost of making food.
Big crops and lower prices favor livestock feeders, ethanol producers and other grain processors, analysts said, and could boost exports.
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