Human cloning ban urged

PARIS The World Medical Association, an umbrella group of medical professional groups from around the world, yesterday urged …

PARIS The World Medical Association, an umbrella group of medical professional groups from around the world, yesterday urged doctors and researchers to refrain voluntarily from attempts to clone humans.

Cloning, once the stuff of science fiction, was brought closer to reality this year when geneticists in Scotland cloned a sheep, which they named Dolly, from a single cell of another sheep. The association, which groups nearly 70 medical associations from around the world, issued the appeal at the close of a four day meeting of its executive council in Ferney Voltaire, eastern France, an association spokesman said.