Demetrio Neri
Stem cell science and policies: the Italian debate and legislation in a European perspective.

Introductory remarks.
My presentation consists of two sections. In the first section I’ll try to answer to the question which is the issue of this session. Perhaps my answer will sound a bit pessimistic, but what happened at the level of European institutions during the last five or six years is not very encouraging: anyway, I’ll try to formulate some considerations on the conditions and limits of a European legislation on stem cells research.
In the second section I’ll tell the “biopolitical” story of the debate on stem cells in Italy, which perhaps is not very well known out of Italy. I do not know if I’ll have the time to tell you the whole story, so I think I had better anticipate some general information.
Roughly speaking, the current legislative framework on stem cells research in Italy could be summarised in the following points: a) research on adult stem cells (from cord blood and from aborted foetuses included) is legally permitted; b) research involving the derivation of stem cells from human embryos is legally prohibited; c) research on embryonic stem cells already derived and imported from abroad is not legally prohibited; d) this last kind of research, however, is strongly discouraged and it has not access to public funds allocated by the National Program on stem cells.
This legislative framework is the outcome of a public debate which began around the spring 2000 and had two distinct phases. The first one ended in the spring 2001, and it was characterised by three relevant documents: a) the Pontificia Accademia per la vita’s Declaration on the production and scientific and therapeutic use of human embryonic stem cells (August 2000); b) the National Bioethics Committee’s Opinion on the therapeutic use of stem cells (October 2000); c) the Report of an Ad Hoc Commission appointed by the former Minister of Health Umberto Veronesi, known as Dulbecco’s Report, on the use of stem cells for therapeutic purposes (December 2000).
The second phase of the debate developed during 2003 and it intertwined with the European discussion on the VI Framework Program. This phase ended in mars 2004, with the approval of the Italian law on Medical Assisted Procreation. You will find further information below, together with some considerations on the vexata quaestio of the scientific and therapeutic equivalence of adult and embryonic stem cells, which was at the centre of the debate in Italy too.