Czech Science Czech Republic prepares legislation on stem cell research
The government is working on a bill on the scientific and therapeutic use of human embryos and stem cells: that is blank cells that can develop into virtually any kind of cell in the human body. If parliament approves the bill, stem cells extracted from embryos left over from fertility treatment, that would otherwise be discarded, could be used for scientific experiments and the treatment of such diseases as diabetes, Parkinson's disease or heart attacks. The parents of those embryos would have to give their consent. The proposed bill will not allow scientists to create human embryos specifically to harvest stem cells for particular research or to use stem cells to clone human beings.
Stem cells
At present, doctors in the Czech Republic are using stem cells to treat
heart attacks, for example, but they use cells extracted from the
patient's own bone marrow. They plant the stem cells back to the patient's
blood stream where they will find the damaged tissue which they then
repair. The Czech Republic currently has no legislation on human cells
research but studies in this field must comply with the Council of
Europe's Convention on Human Rights and Biomedicine.
