Sir, Not satisfied with their recently gained right to create human-animal hybrids, scientists and those who lobby on their behalf are now pushing for a system of presumed consent with respect to the use in cloning of previously obtained tissue (letters, Jan 21). This is an outrageous presumption that should not be permitted. Those who donated tissue for medical research, and naturally those from whom tissue was taken without consent, cannot have envisaged that it would be used to create human or animal-human embryos for destructive research, and might understandably have been repulsed at the prospect.

There is plenty of evidence that research using adult stem cells will realise true therapeutic benefits, possibly surpassing the potential of embryonic stem cells without posing any of the ethical dilemmas. How edifying it would be if scientists were to declare a respect for human life, from the time of its conception, as did their medical colleagues in the Declaration of Geneva in 1948.

Dr Paul King
School of Biological and Chemical Sciences, Birkbeck, University of London

Sir, As a middle-aged man experiencing muscular dystrophy I would like to add my support to the plea of the leading scientists for the Government to be more flexible in its application of proposed new controls on embryonic stem-cell research. The academics argue that the proposals will result in major delays and unnecessary cost. Yet stem-cell research has given new hope to people who suffer from many genetic disorders. The majority of the UK’s 30,000-plus muscular dystrophy patients are children and young people who usually suffer from severe muscle wasting and premature death. Should these children (and their families) be made to wait even longer before a cure is found?

Steven Childs
Shirland, Derbyshire

Sir, The memory of some scientists in this country is very short. The Alder Hey scandal involved the retention of organs from children without consent and the public was rightly outraged; the proposals by Lord Patel and others to bypass proper consent in order to use human tissue to create cloned human or animal-human embryos contravenes every protocol put in place post Alder Hey. Informed consent remains a fundamental pillar of medical ethics, one which the stem-cell imperative cannot overturn.

Josephine Quintavalle
Director, Comment on Reproductive Ethics

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