A victory for common sense

There is an obvious "yuk" factor in the idea of creating a human-animal hybrid. The Government's decision to give permission to scientists to create three new types of cell clusters will inevitably lead to headlines about Frankenstein embryos. The fact that one of the three types of somatic cell nuclear transfers is named after the chimera - the fire-breathing female monster of Greek mythology with a lion's head, a goat's body, and a serpent's tail - will hardly help.
But it is important to filter myth from fact in this debate. The general public's unease about the idea of a half-human/half-animal embryo being implanted in a womb and allowed to come to term would be utterly reasonable. But that is not what is being proposed.
What will now be permitted is the creation of three new cell clusters: a chimeric embryo made by injecting cells from an animal into a human embryo; a transgenic embryo which results from injecting animal DNA into a human embryo, and a cytoplasmic hybrid, in which the nuclei of human cells, such as skin cells, are planted in animal eggs from which almost all the genetic material has been removed.
The scientific benefits of this are clear. Three new kinds of research will be possible. Studies will be undertaken to try to understand the cause of disorders like Motor Neurone Disease. Other studies will look at how such diseases progress. And others will try to determine how stem cells develop into different tissues in the body. The result could be new treatments for diseases such as Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, cystic fibrosis and spinal muscular atrophy.
Those who take an absolutist position - insisting that from the moment of conception a new human being is brought into existence - will object. But to most of the population the right of an embryo to be considered a human being grows only as it develops into a foetus. That certainly cannot be said to happen before the primitive streak forms around the 14th day of existence, signalling the development of a unique potential human being. This new law pays respect to that by insisting that these new hybrid embryos must be destroyed after 14 days. And it forbids them ever being implanted in a human or animal womb.
It is to the credit of the government that it has listened to literally hundreds of submissions from scientists giving reasoned objections to its early decision not to allow such research. The result is a victory for common-sense ethics, for good science and for the tens of thousands of people suffering from diseases which have hitherto always been described as incurable - but for which there is now a new flicker of hope.