TORONTO - Almost half of Canadians would support Canada allowing scientists to create human-animal embryos for medical research, knowing that it might lead to cures for some of humanity's most devastating diseases, a poll released Tuesday suggests.
The Canadian Press Harris-Decima poll found that 47 per cent of respondents would favour human-animal embryo research when told it could help find treatments for conditions such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease.
Thirty-six per cent of respondents opposed such research and 17 per cent had no opinion.
When respondents were initially asked about Britain's recent decision to permit limited human-animal embryo experimentation, 58 per cent said Canada should maintain its current ban on such research, while 29 per cent said Canada should adopt a similar policy.
But when told that such research might help find cures for human disease, almost a third of those who at first opposed the idea said they would change their position.
"So that's why we come to the conclusion that looking at these two questions in combination, people are a little bit open to this, but somewhat significantly resistant as well," Harris-Decima president Bruce Anderson said from Ottawa.
The poll was conducted during the first week of September, after British regulators gave the green light for scientists to create hybrid embryos by inserting human DNA into animal eggs in a bid to extract stem cells. Embryonic stem cells produce all the different cells in the body, from heart to liver to skin.
Respondents were asked if Canada should follow suit.
Anderson said respondents who are practising members of a religion were more likely to oppose Canada allowing this type of scientific work than those who are not actively religious.
"I think that for some people, any initiative that has the potential to compromise or affect the human gene is something that there's a certain amount of dread about," he said. "The dread seems to stem either from a sense that something can go wrong and the extent of the problem may not be known for some considerable period of time, but the impact of the problem could be quite significant."
"But also I think this is particularly true of those who are more religious in society: there's a certain barrier between things that humans should do in the name of medical science and things that for these individuals, anyway, only God should be involved in."
"And transgenics involving human genes is certainly one of those areas."
The poll found that urban dwellers, younger respondents and the more affluent were more inclined to support the idea of hybrid embryo research. When the initial question was asked, men were more comfortable with the idea than women - and by a considerable margin. Thirty-eight per cent of men favoured allowing this type of research, compared to 20 per cent of women.
Anderson said the poll results illustrate that it is not just religious Canadians who are casting a wary eye at the notion of scientists tampering with what it means to be human.
"What we know is there really aren't hard lines that people draw here," he said. "We do know that transgenics is one of those areas where opinion is decidedly grey and muddy, rather than black and white. But it's not grey and muddy because people don't have strong feelings; it's grey and muddy because they have strong beliefs on both sides of the question."
Harris-Decima surveyed more than 1,000 Canadian adults for the poll, which has a margin of error of 3.1 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.
