Munich

The European Parliament has ditched a report from one of its committees that would have called for tighter restrictions on genetics and biotechnology.

The action was welcomed by researchers and biotechnology companies, who opposed the report's recommendations and were concerned that the parliament might use its growing influence to restrain their work.

The report, prepared by a multiparty committee on human genetics and modern medicine, would have called for a ban on the cloning of human embryos for any purpose, and an end to the granting of gene patents. But on 29 November, the full parliament rejected the report by 316 votes to 37.

The 72-member committee's final report, produced after a year of expert hearings, was “very negative for science”, admits Robert Goebbels, a Social Democrat from Luxemburg. Goebbels chaired the committee and was obliged to bring the report to the full parliament, even though he disagreed with it.

Last-minute attempts to make the report more pro-science failed to rescue it. In a turbulent session last Thursday, the parliament adopted 230 amendments introduced by various groups. But the result was riddled with contradictions and, says Goebbels, was “simply not good enough to be supported”.

“It was not an hour of glory for the parliament,” he says. But he notes that scientists will be relieved at the report's demise, and says that it's better to have no report than a bad report. “I am not happy that we spent 11 months without getting a decent result,” he adds. “But there has been an evolution in the minds of many colleagues, who are now much better acquainted with the problems of modern biotechnology.”

Conservatives were also unhappy at the report's failure. “It is a shame that no clear view could be adopted,” says Peter Liese, a German Christian Democrat who strongly opposes cloning and human embryonic stem-cell research.

The European Parliament has already set out its stall on some biomedical research issues in its proposal for the next European Union (EU) Framework programme for research. That document said that EU funding should be used for stem-cell research, but that no human embryos should be cloned for research purposes (see Nature 414, 386; 2001).