The Pope's strong opposition to human embryo research seems to be influencing the Italian biomedical science community. The country's laws at present forbid any kind of human embryo research, and lobbying efforts to change this have declined dramatically since the Pope's personal intervention at a meeting of the International Society of Transplantation in Rome where he endorsed organ donation and adult stem cell research, but condemned human cloning and embryo research.

Before the transplant meeting, some leading Italian scientists were campaigning for public understanding of the potential therapeutic benefits that embryonic stem cells could provide. Speaking to Italy's leading daily newspaper Il Corriere della Sera, prominent Italian geneticist and scientific director of the Istituto Scientifico San Raffaele in Milan Claudio Bordignon stated, “we need to explain to people that the frozen embryos left over from fertilization clinics cannot be considered human life, instead they are of great value for research.” Headlines proclaimed his support for the use of embryonic stem cells derived from aborted fetuses.

Bordignon made his remarks in defence of the Italian health minister Umberto Veronesi, who was sharply criticized by the Vatican for publicly endorsing a report by a UK expert panel that calls for an expansion of research on human embryos to accommodate stem cell techniques (Nature Med. 6, 950; 2000). However, Bordignon refused to reaffirm his views after the Pope had spoken, and other scientists are now loudly embracing alternative methods of research focused on adult stem cells and umbilical cord blood.

Veronesi has appointed a committee of experts to draw up guidelines for legislation on stem cell research, a draft of which was due to be presented to the European Union last month but has been postponed because of the controversy. One of the few remaining advocates of embryo research, Nobel Laureate Renato Dulbecco, president of the expert panel, says “Whatever the ethical uncertainties, Italy has to make clear in its public debate that embryonic stem cells can serve the entire community better than stem cells from alternative sources.”