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Hyman OK's Cloning of Cells

Hyman said that even though there are deep moral questions involved in Melton and Eggan’s proposed research, he felt that it was important to move forward.

“We have an obligation to do this research in order to give children and adults with diseases the very best chance of life,” he said.

However, Romney and others have argued that the destruction of embryos at any stage is morally wrong, and Romney has called for a ban on research involving the cloning of human embryos.

A Boston Globe poll of 501 Massachusetts adults conducted at the beginning of the month found that 66 percent of those polled said they support stem cell research using human embryos. Twenty-three percent said they opposed the research and 11 percent said they were not sure.

However, 46 percent of those polled said they opposed research using cloned embryos, with only 42 percent supporting such research. This was a statistical tie, due to the 4.4 percent margin of error for the poll.

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-—Staff writer Evan H. Jacobs can be reached at ehjacobs@fas.harvard.edu.

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