National health legislation, due to be signed into law by President Thabo Mbeki, will prohibit the manipulation of any human genetic material for the purpose of reproductive cloning.
At a briefing on the National Health Bill — passed by Parliament’s two chambers last year and expected to be signed into law soon by the president — Minister of Health Manto Tshabalala-Msimang said the legislation does permit her to allow ”therapeutic cloning using adult or umbilical-cord stem cells under prescribed conditions”.
”Research on stem cells and zygotes which are not more than 14 days old may be conducted with the permission of the minister and on certain conditions,” she told journalists on Thursday.
”We are still busy drafting regulations to deal with the complex subject of human cloning and organ transplant as well as the migration of some regulations from the current Tissue Act to this Act,” she said.
”This is going to take a bit of time; we foresee that this Section [of the Bill] will be implemented around the middle of next year.” — I-Net Bridge