Will Brazil be the new bio-tech powerhouse? While most of the attention on Brazil's new Biosecurity law has been on granting of permission to sell genetically modified organisms (bio-tech seeds), there is another far-reaching provision. Tucked inside the bill is a provision to legalize stem-cell research using leftover frozen embryos. According to AP:
Reversing an earlier decision, the lower house of Congress voted 352 to 60 late Wednesday to permit research with embryos resulting from in-vitro fertilization and frozen for at least three years.
The topic was the subject of fierce debate in the Brazilian Chamber of Deputies:
The vote took more than five hours, and, after the basic text was approved, the Deputies rejected three amendments that proposed eliminating the authorization for research using embryonic stem cells and introducing changes in the way transgenics cultivation is supervised in the country.
The project retains the text approved last year by the Federal Senate. And it permits research use of embryos that have been frozen for more than three years in fertility clinics, while banning human cloning and cloning embryonic stem cells for therapeutic applications.
In the first vote taken in the Chamber, the Deputies opposed authorizing the use of embryonic stem cells for research. March 2, they decided to reject the amendment that proposed removing this authorization from the text.
The next step will be to see if research firms rush to Brazil to set up operations -- and how they are welcomed by the Brazilian government.
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