Replicating Oregon Cloning in California: Views on the Legality

Oregon's stem cell cloning achievement has triggered some discussion about whether it could be replicated legally in California, which bans paying for eggs as was done in Oregon.

Stanford researcher Irv Weissman said it is “not true” that Oregon's stem cell research would be illegal in California. Leftovers from IVF clinics could be used, he said.

But in response Oregon researcher Shoukhrat Mitalipov said that “SCNT (the process he used) did not work with discarded human eggs.”

He added,

 “SCNT worked with eggs from healthy young volunteers (paid of course). IVF patients (whether paid or not) have reproductive health problems and may not provide acceptable quality eggs for SCNT.” 

Their comments came in emails to the California Stem Cell Report in connection with yesterday's item that said because the Oregon researchers used paid donors for eggs, the research would be illegal in the Golden State.

Weissman said,

 "Not true. They did it with nearly 40 percent efficiency, which does not require paying for eggs, just use leftovers from IVF clinics."

There is no question that it is illegal to pay donors for their eggs in California. The question is whether the research could be done properly without using paid donors. In recent years, researchers at Harvard and elsewhere have said they needed paid donors for stem cell research to properly perform their research and could not find them without providing compensation.