France Oks domestic stem cells

Earlier this month, France passed a decree specifying the conditions under which researchers will be able to work on stem cell lines derived domestically from unused embryos from in vitro fertilization, a decision French scientists say they hope will enable France to catch up on some other countries in stem cell research."It's been a year and a half that we've been waiting for this ?and we've been pushing hard," Marc Peschanski from the National Institute for Health and Medical Research (INSERM) told The Scientist. "Now we can start working seriously and stop feeling like we are constantly on the fringe of illegality."The French government has banned any sort of human cloning. Bioethics laws established in August, 2004 authorized human embryonic stem cell research, but only under certain constraints. While the government debated the nature of those constraints, researchers could only use stem cell lines imported from abroad.The delay...