Medical Ethics: Rules for Fetal Research Adopted

Abstract

Australia'a National Health and Medical Research Council has adopted a recommendation by its new Medical Research Ethics Committee to approve experimentation on "previable" fetuses. The committee report added special stipulations to the Council's existing general guidelines on human experimentation, including a requirement that the mother and, where practicable, the father, give specific consent to fetal tissue culture and transplantation. The report also stressed that the responsibilities of the clinician and the researcher should not be vested in the same individual. (KIE abstract)