Washington D.C., Jun 4, 2019 / 14:16 pm
The House Appropriations Committee has reinstated a condition in 2020 spending bills which prohibit embryonic gene editing. The amendment was passed in a vote of the full House Appropriations Committee on Tuesday afternoon.
Without the amendment, U.S. scientists would be able to approve and conduct clinical trials that would involve the creation or modification of human embryos.
Almost a week and a half after a congressional subcommittee passed a draft of the annual appropriations bill omitting the rider, an amendment to reinsert the ban passed with near unanimous consent Tuesday afternoon.
Since 2016, the appropriations bill has contained language that bans the Food and Drug Administration from performing research in clinical trials "in which a human embryo is intentionally created or modified to include a heritable genetic modification."