WASHINGTON -- It's been seven months since the House of Representatives voted to ban cloning, and the Senate is deciding whether to follow suit.
This week, the Senate Judiciary committee met to decide whether to ban human embryo cloning completely, or to prohibit only the reproductive cloning of human beings while still allowing "therapeutic" cloning for experimental research.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-California) seemed to prefer the second approach. "There is good cloning and bad cloning.... There is broad agreement across our society, in Congress, and in the scientific, medical and religious communities that we should ban human cloning," Feinstein said. "However, it is also clear, at least to the overwhelming majority of the scientific and medical community, that we should not ban nuclear transplantation to produce stem cells or what is often called therapeutic cloning."
Last July, in a 265-162 vote, the House of Representatives approved H.R. 2505, a bill that would ban human embryo cloning not only for human reproduction, but for experimental research, too.
The measure says, "It shall be unlawful for any person or entity ... to perform or attempt to perform human cloning" or import a cloned human embryo -- with penalties up to 10 years in prison and a $1 million fine.
Rep. Dave Weldon (R-Florida), a fan of H.R. 2505, called on senators to support a complete ban. "I think the important point I would like to underscore about this is when we use the terms 'enormous potential' and 'tremendous breakthrough' (to describe cloning), we can lead some people who are suffering from diseases to develop false hopes."
The hearing came a day after Pope John Paul II questioned the morality of advances in biotechnology, such as stem-cell research that uses human embryos and cloning. "Not everything that is technically possible is morally permissible," he said.
Patent thicket: The Federal Trade Commission and the Justice Department's antitrust division met this week to talk about whether patents are becoming so broad and so burdensome that they're hurting competition.
In the last few years, the number of patents issued by the U.S. Patent and Trade Office has increased steadily. A March 2001 study (PDF) by University of California at Berkeley professor Carl Shapiro describes a "patent thicket" that retards innovation and hinders new product development.
"Admittedly, we will hear from critics who have expressed concern that too many patents are inappropriate or overly broad and that patent law today errs on excessive protection of (intellectual property)," FTC Chairman Timothy Muris said during Wednesday's meeting. "On the other hand, we will also hear responses from IP experts who are staunch defenders of existing patent rules and who strongly (oppose) any perceived weakening of the system."
Charles James, the Justice Department's assistant attorney general for antitrust, added: "Antitrust law certainly attempts to promote competition by preventing artificial restraints on the competitive process. Intellectual property law attempts to promote competition by celebrating and rewarding innovation through the creation of property rights and making sure that those rights have durability by preventing certain forms of imitation or inappropriate use."
James Rogan, the current Patent Office director, said the perceived opposition between antitrust and intellectual property law arises from a misunderstanding. "The supposed tension between intellectual property law and antitrust law arises, I suspect, from a misunderstanding of patents as a form of monopoly," he said. "Although a patent allows an inventor to exclude others from using or selling the invention without permission, it is not a monopoly in the antitrust sense."
Future sessions in this series of hearings will address the role of competition and intellectual property in spurring innovation, and the effects of patent standards and procedures and antitrust rules on consumer welfare.
USA Patriot update: The ACLU is asking Congress to hold quarterly oversight hearings devoted to scrutinizing a controversial anti-terrorism law.
"There is a great deal that deeply concerns us about the way the Bush administration has handled the war on terrorism," ACLU executive director Anthony Romero said at the National Press Club this week.
After limited debate, Congress approved the USA Patriot law last fall.
"We are not challenging the need to be safe," Romero said. "Instead we are insisting on the need to be both safe and free."
Romero also said he was looking for an independent commission of prominent academics and national leaders to monitor and analyze the impact of the law, and the immediate removal of regulations that permit the monitoring of attorney-client conversations. He also wants a complete account of all detainees nabbed after Sept. 11 -- to ensure that everyone is being held on legitimate charges and has access to adequate legal counsel.
Robert Zarate contributed to this report.
