To direct the Secretary of Health and Human Services to establish and maintain a panel to provide expert scientific recommendations in the field of cell development.

September 6, 2001

Mr. MCDERMOTT (for himself and Mr. EVANS) introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on Energy and Commerce

To direct the Secretary of Health and Human Services to establish and maintain a panel to provide expert scientific recommendations in the field of cell development.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

This Act may be cited as the `Cell Development Research Act of 2001'.

SEC. 2. FINDINGS.

The Congress finds the following:

(1) Embryonic stem cell research and therapeutic cloning offer tremendous promise for developing cures for some of life's most devastating diseases and disabilities, including Parkinson's disease, Lou Gehrig's disease, Huntington's chorea, paralysis, blindness, diabetes, and spinal cord injury.

(2) Studying the first days and the first cell divisions of a human embryo would lead to a greater understanding of normal and abnormal human development and of the potential for developing therapies for congenital abnormalities.

(3) Techniques such as preimplantation genetic diagnosis can identify embryos that are destined to develop devastating recessive diseases, such as Fanconi's anemia and Tay-Sachs disease.

(4) The Food and Drug Administration has jurisdiction over certain human tissue transplantation and cloning.

SEC. 3. ESTABLISHMENT OF CELL DEVELOPMENT ADVISORY PANEL.

Subsection (n) of section 505 of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (21 U.S.C. 355(n)) is amended by adding at the end the following:

`(9) CELL DEVELOPMENT ADVISORY PANEL-

`(A) ESTABLISHMENT- The Secretary shall establish and maintain under this subsection a single panel in the Food and Drug Administration to provide expert scientific advice and recommendations to the Secretary in the field of cell development, including advice and recommendations regarding any clinical investigation of a drug developed as a result of research in the field of embryology and any approval for marketing of such a drug under this section or section 351 of the Public Health Service Act.

`(B) PROMOTION OF RESEARCH- Such panel shall make policy recommendations with the goal of promoting research in the field of cell development.

`(C) PROHIBITION- Such panel shall not make any recommendation regarding the practice of fertility medicine.

`(D) FIELD OF CELL DEVELOPMENT- For purposes of this paragraph, the term `field of cell development' includes embryonic stem cell research, therapeutic cloning, preimplantation genetic diagnosis, and early developmental biology.'.

END