ISSCR Letter to the United Nations General Assembly on Nuclear Transfer

February 16, 2005

To: Members of the United Nations General Assembly
From: ISSCR Board of Directors

Your Excellency:

On behalf of the International Society for Stem Cell Research (ISSCR), we write to express our grave concern that the United Nations will adopt a declaration on human cloning that will fail to clearly distinguish the difference between unethical reproductive cloning and ethical and valuable therapeutic cloning (nuclear transfer). Nuclear transfer (NT) research is a form of stem cell research that could lead to understanding, treatments and someday cures for medical conditions impacting millions of persons worldwide.

The ISSCR is opposed to any resolutions that declare a global ban on any use of the NT procedure with human cells. Practiced appropriately, nuclear transfer research is about saving and improving lives. It is fundamentally different from human reproductive cloning; appropriate uses of nuclear transfer research produce stem cells, not babies.

The ISSCR continues to support proposals that ban human reproductive cloning while preserving the use of human nuclear transfer for beneficial medical research.

We strongly urge that the United Nations not adopt any declaration, which could be construed as calling for a ban on nuclear transfer. Such a declaration would inhibit the search for new treatments for mankind's most devastating diseases.

Respectfully,

Leonard Zon, MD
Board of Directors, President

Posted: February 22, 2005