Embryos, cloning, and controversy: A comparative analysis of research policy in the United States and Great Britain

Legislative and regulatory environments fundamentally affect society's ability to assimilate and regulate controversial scientific research effectively.; External regulation of research and near-term clinical benefits were factors that proved essential to legitimizing recombinant DNA experiments in both the United States and United Kingdom in the late 1970s. In the United Kingdom, legitimizing recombinant DNA research has translated into comparable acceptance of embryo science and nuclear transfer research; the same is not true for the United States.; The United Kingdom's Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) has developed regulatory legitimacy, as indicated by information from interviews with British scientists and transcripts of parliamentary debates on embryo research. The HFEA guarantees that whatever embryo research is done is "necessary," much as the RAC assured Congress that recombinant DNA research was "well regulated."; Interviews indicate that British pro-life lobbies feel that disorganization and limited resources have reduced their effectiveness. The importance of organized lobbying is highlighted by the successes of the United States' Coalition for the Advancement of Medical Research (CAMR) in acquiring federal funding for embryonic stem cell research and preventing passage of a universal ban on human cloning.; The centralized nature of the British Government enabled regulatory changes to be enacted quickly once it was decided that embryo research should be allowed for the purpose of developing treatments for serious disease. Multiple levels of governance in the United States and a tradition of regulating public sector research more tightly than private sector research means that---despite vociferous objections by the pro-life lobby---controversial experiments will continue in the United States' private sector.