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French Senate backs embryonic stem cell, and embryo research

The French Senate voted 8 April to explicitly allow research on embryonic stem cells (ESCs) and embryos, amending part of a bill revising the country’s bioethics law. The vote goes against the government’s original bill, passed by the parliament in a vote in February, which would have maintained the status quo of a partial ban on such research. The bill will now go to second readings in both parliament and the Senate over the coming year, so the final outcome remains unclear.

The legal status of such research in France can be confusing. Here’s some excerpts from an article I published in Nature in January – “”https://www.nature.com/news/2011/110118/full/469277a.html “>France mulls embryo research reform” – which summarizes this:

“Officially, research on human ESCs and embryos is banned in France. But under a 2004 amendment to the country’s bioethics law, scientists can obtain dispensation for research that could lead to “major therapeutic progress” for serious diseases that resist other approaches. Those whose research fits the bill — about 30 research groups and 40 projects so far — can carry out research on whole embryos, or on cell lines derived from embryos left over from in vitro fertilization (IVF). Creating embryos for research purposes is illegal in the country, a position that enjoys a broad consensus among scientists, politicians and public alike.

Scientists concede that the 2004 compromise has been a great improvement on the previous outright ban. But it still left uncertainty over the regulatory status of ESCs in France. This uncertainty is a deterrent to foreign researchers and investment by companies, says Marc Peschanski, a neuroscientist working for INSERM, the national biomedical research agency, and head of the Institute for Stem Cell Therapy and Exploration of Monogenic Diseases in Evry, outside Paris. Axel Kahn, a renowned INSERM geneticist and president of the University of Paris-Descartes, calls the current law “an intellectual absurdity and a legal quirk”.

A broad consensus of researchers and clinicians is now urging the government to overturn the ban, and to explicitly authorize research on ESCs and whole embryos without the need for any special dispensation."

The Senate backed the researchers and clinicians’ demands, and proposed that such research be explicitly authorized, with projects nonetheless being tightly regulated by the national Biomedical Agency. Peschanski told me this morning that he welcomes the Senate vote:

“By its vote in favor of authorizing embryonic stem cell research under the control of the Agence de la Biomédecine, the French Senate has wished to ‘send a positive message to French scientists’, as stated by the Senator in charge of the proposal, Alain Milon. Well beyond the specific issue, the Senate is thus promoting the contract that normally binds society and its scientists, where freedom of research is given in return for active exploration of unknown territories and unrestricted reporting of findings. It is very encouraging to see that, despite disagreeing with some other parts of the law proposed by Milon, many senators have decided to vote for it altogether, explicitly because of the positive move in favour of research. One may hope now that a sufficient number of representatives in the National Assembly will wish to do the same.”

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