Pre-empting resistence to hybrid embryos

Leading members of the scientific community are pre-empting, and presumably hoping to influence the HFEA’a attempts to regulate research around the creation of animal/human embryos.

Pre-empting any official decision by the HFEA (more usually credited as a permissive body and seen by scientists as making the right decision in allowing therapeutic cloning and in sourcing human eggs for research) - those applying for hybrid-embryo research licences, and other supporters, appear to be subjecting the HFEA to a trial by PR in an attempt to get permission for this kind of research through.

The early and unofficial indication that the HFEA might not agree to hybrid embryos is one of the first instances of resistance by the HFEA to a licence application - resulting in numerous simultaneous press releases and a letter to the media. The resulting headlines have focussed on the risk to patients that opposition to the research allegedly poses. Such hyperbolic imaginings seem rather exaggerated – the relationship between experiments of this kind and clinical trials is tenuous and the relationship to treatment and cures is beyond anyone’s experience - time lines for such hopeful futures are constantly moved beyond the horizon of the life time of current patients. Through these news stories the risk to an imagined future humanity is being figured as an immediate concern which should outweigh any other considerations. This doesn’t seem like the best way to understand or regulate science.

The ability of the HFEA to stand as an independent body is surely under question, when placed under such widely circulated and publicly mediated pressures to licence any proposals involving embryos.

These events have yet to fully unfold but if the licences are issued as a result of this aggressive PR it does not bode well for any claims that independent regulation can operate in the UK.

Other stories:
Scientists support hybrid embryos
Why are ministers opposed to hybrids?
Hybrid embryo work 'under threat'
Scientists attack plan to ban 'hybrid' embryos