FRANKFURT, March 17, 2005 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Germans are expressing their disapproval at the choice of this year’s recipient of the prestigious Ehrlich prize – the UK’s embryonic research advocate and Dolly cloner, Ian Wilmut.
Germans are upset that someone involved in research that is illegal in Germany would be awarded the country’s top prize in medical research, including €100,000 in prize money, half of which is from German tax coffers. Wilmut was granted permission last month by UK health and research authorities to begin human cloning experiments. Wilmut told the BBC News that he intends to create cloned human embryos deliberately in order to study motor neuron disease.
The Marburger Bund physician’s organization said it is “more than strange when a British scientist whose cloning experiments would be punished here in Germany is rewarded with German tax money,” according to a biomedcentral.com report.
In a statement, German Research Foundation (DFG) President Ernst-Ludwig Winnacker added, “Concerning therapeutic cloning, our opinion is unchanged, that therapeutic procedures with humans is the wrong way.”
The Paul Ehrlich and Ludwig Darmstaedter Prize is associated with Frankfurt University.
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