US Congress debates stemcell research

The controversy surrounding the recent harvesting and culture of human embryonic stem cells—the cells that form within days after fertilisation and transform into all other forms of human cells as a fetus develops—was debated last week by the US Congress.

The ban on federal funding for research using human embryos should be lifted, argued Arthur Caplan, director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania. He was giving …