Washington, DC — The Department of Health and Human Services will investigate why a company devoted to cloning a human being got federal funding, according pro-life Rep. Joe Pitts (R-PA), a leading Congressional opponent of human cloning.
Advanced Cell Technology (ACT) announced Thanksgiving weekend that it had cloned a human embryo. A month prior to that announcement, according to Pitts, the company had received grants from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), courtesy of American taxpayers.
According to a Dec. 20 letter Pitts received from HHS Secretary Tommy Thompson, the secretary has “asked the National Institutes of Health to inform me whether ACT had received any federal grants which might have been involved in this human cloning research.”
“As you know, the Bush Administration is opposed to any activities intended to clone a human being,” Thompson wrote. HHS “supports the proposed Human Cloning Prohibition Act of 2001, H.R. 2505, which would make it unlawful for any person knowingly to clone or attempt to clone a human being.”
“There is an overwhelming consensus in this country that cloning human beings is wrong,” said Pitts. “Federal money should not be supporting unethical science, directly or indirectly.”
A postscript document file of Secretary Thompson's letter is posted on Pitts' Web site at http://www.house.gov/pitts/press/releases/011221r-acthhs.htm.
(This article courtesy of Steven Ertelt and the Pro-Life Infonet email newsletter. For more information or to subscribe go to www.prolifeinfo.org or email infonet@prolifeinfo.org.)
