Since 2004, research protocols involving embryos or embryonic stem cells have been monitored and controlled by the Biomedicine Agency (ABM). This does not prevent some of them from being challenged in court. With “a single applicant, the Jérôme-Lejeune Foundation”says Samuel Arrabal, head of the international relations and research department at the ABM. “Some fifty protocols have already been the subject of a request for cancellation. Two were actually», he details. Sixteen procedures are in progress.
Ensure compliance with legislation
“The foundation has made it its mission to ensure compliance with the legislation surrounding these areas of research. The observation that we make is that the current regulations are very liberal and contravene the dignity of the embryo”, explains Mariette Guerrien, the legal manager of the Lejeune Foundation (recognized as being of public utility and specialized in research on Down’s syndrome).
“The appeals, which we have been filing since 2008, are always motivated by substantive arguments”, points out the lawyer. To be validated by the ABM, a protocol must meet certain criteria: the scientific relevance of the research project, its medical purpose, the absence of an alternative, among others. “When the foundation challenged protocols concerning embryonic stem cells, we showed, for example, on several occasions, that this third condition was not met and that induced pluripotent stem cells (obtained from the reprogramming of adult cells) could precisely have served as alternatives”, continues Mariette Guerrien.
Another example of decisions that the foundation is delighted with: having obtained from the Council of State, in a decision of 2020, that it cancel a search, considering that the ABM had not ensured the “conditions under which the consent (couples donating their embryo) would be obtained”or more recently, in July, having once again obtained the cancellation of an authorization to import human embryonic stem cells for lack of an address indicating the source of these cells.
Pressure and blockage
“The Jérôme-Lejeune Foundation seeks to block research on the embryo and embryonic stem cells”, lamented, in a column published in The world in March 2017 a group of doctors and researchers. “The appeals are not suspensive, the researchers can therefore continue their work”, defends Mariette Guerrien, for whom it is unthinkable to rely on self-regulation by researchers without binding legislation. “We need other safeguards because the ethical issue is too important. Embryo research results in the destruction of the human embryo. If we add to this the question of international competitiveness between researchers with countries with even more transgressive legislation than ours, vigilance is still necessary. »