Canadians support cloning of human organs, new survey suggests

Thursday, February 22, 2001
Source: http://www.canada.com/cgi-bin/cp.asp?f=/news/cp/stories/20010221/health-698028.html

TORONTO (CP) - Although the vast majority of Canadians who were surveyed oppose cloning humans, most say they support the cloning of human organs to treat medical conditions.

Three-quarters of respondents to the PricewaterhouseCoopers survey, released Tuesday, said it was acceptable to clone human organs for transplants or for tissue required to treat health problems. Sixty-two per cent supported using stem cells from human embryos to produce these organs, and 60 per cent supported using human embryos for research in this area.

The survey polled almost 2,600 Canadians aged 15 and older. The margin of error was 1.8 per cent 19 times out of 20, said Dale McMurchy, healthcare consultant at PricewaterhouseCoopers.

Results of the survey appear in the latest issue of the company's HealthInsider report. Subscribers to the report include government departments such as Health Canada, pharmaceutical companies, professional organizations and research groups.

The survey also looked at issues related to genetic testing, such as who would have access to the information.

The vast majority of respondents said they would give their genetic information to their family doctor, but few would give it to their employers or government.

"In principle, there is support for cloning human organs for transplantation and conducting medical research using stem cells from embryos," said McMurchy.

"However, there are a number of outstanding legal and ethical issues that need to be addressed, and legislation that addresses these genetic and reproductive technologies is required."

Other survey highlights:

• 64 per cent of respondents said that when genetic testing becomes available, they would want to be tested to see if they were at risk of getting certain diseases, but this fell to 49 per cent when they were asked about being tested for predisposition to a genetic disease for which there is no cure.

• 86 per cent said it should be illegal to discriminate on the basis of a genetic condition or the risk of a genetic condition.