Sydney

Hints that the Australian government is planning a national ban on the generation of new human embryonic stem-cell lines have drawn fire from biologists and their backers in some of the nation's state governments.

Kevin Andrews, the minister for ageing — who is responsible for stem-cell research and cloning policy — has given the cabinet a set of proposals which, according to reliable reports, include a ban on the use of human embryos to extract new stem-cell lines.

Andrews has refused to comment on his submission, but has made his opposition to embryo research clear in the past.

Although the government has not finalized its position, supporters of the research are angered by what they see as an attempt to overturn the findings of a two-year parliamentary inquiry into cloning and stem-cell research, completed last September. The inquiry committee — which Andrews chaired — was unanimous on all issues except the use of discarded embryos in stem-cell research, which was approved by a majority. Andrews was one of the minority opposed to such work.

Martin Pera, of the Monash Institute of Reproduction and Development, Melbourne, whose group was one of the first to isolate human embryonic stem-cell lines, argues that additional lines are crucial to offer more options to researchers, and to ensure that genetically diverse lines are available for clinical application.

Robert Jansen, a professor at the University of Sydney and head of Sydney IVF, an in-vitro fertilization clinic, says that restrictive laws in stem-cell research “will put Australia into a backwater” and force researchers abroad.

Under the Australian constitution, health-related matters normally fall under the jurisdiction of the states, not the federal government. The questions of whether federal or state governments will legislate, and of which stem-cell research and cloning technologies should be permitted, will be discussed at the next Council of Australian Governments' meeting in April.

The federal government and the states — several of which are governed by the opposition Labor Party — look set to clash on the issue, probably delaying implementation of the agreement reached last year to establish nationally consistent rules by June.