The US House of Representatives is wading into the debate over whether human embryos should be modified to introduce heritable changes. Its fiscal year 2016 spending bill for the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) would prohibit the agency from spending money to evaluate research or clinical applications for such products.
In an unusual twist, the bill—introduced on June 17—would also direct the FDA to create a committee that includes religious experts to review a forthcoming report from the US Institute of Medicine (IOM). The IOM's analysis, which considers the ethics of creating embryos that have three genetic parents, was commissioned by the FDA.
The House legislation comes during a time of intense debate on such matters, sparked by the announcement in April that researchers in China had edited the genomes of human embryos. The US National Institutes of Health (NIH) moved quickly to remind the public that a 1996 law prevents the federal government from funding work that destroys human embryos or creates them for research purposes.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/u-s-congress-moves-to-block-human-embryo-editing/
[Source]: http://www.nature.com/news/us-congress-moves-to-block-human-embryo-editing-1.17858
We covered a related story, Three-Person Babies Could Be Possible in Two Years just over a year ago.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by kaszz on Tuesday June 30 2015, @04:58PM
Great now other countries can a have a field day exploring research in this area at state funded universities. Dunno if the USA will be left behind but it sure doesn't help.
Something similar is already approved in the UK:
UK Approves "3 Parent Baby" Technique [iflscience.com]
And China tend to have no problem with testing ethically questionable procedures so they aren't likely to have any problem with this. Can do, will do idiom?