PANEL APPROVES CONTROVERSIAL EMBRYO RESEARCH

A federal advisory panel called on the National Institutes of Health to lift its 15-year ban on embryo research -- a suggestion that's sure to anger the religious right. The panel stated that embryos "do not have the same moral status as infants and children," and that scientists should be allowed to conduct federally funded experiments on them -- albeit with strict controls. One of these, the panel recommends, is to limit research to embryos that are no older than 14 days, the time when a fetus begins to develop a nervous system. The NIH is expected to make a final decision this December. Today's announcement was nothing less than testing the murky waters of public opinion on this kind of research, said TIME Washington correspondent Dick Thompson. "The NIH will be watching the November congressional elections," he says. "If a superconservative majority is elected, you won't see any more of this."