Sponsors (4)
The bill creates a clearer legal framework to prohibit certain human-animal chimera research—improving enforceability and potential safety protections—but may chill biomedical research and slow development of treatments due to the risk of future criminal restrictions.
Researchers and research institutions gain a clear statutory location to implement and interpret prohibitions on certain human-animal chimera research, reducing legal uncertainty for scientists.
Patients and the general public gain clearer legal tools to protect research subjects and public safety because the statute enables explicit criminal prohibitions if harmful practices are later defined.
Scientists and research institutions could face new criminal restrictions that limit certain lines of biomedical research once substantive prohibitions are specified, increasing legal and compliance risk.
Patients with chronic or disabling conditions could experience slower biomedical innovation and fewer potential treatments if legal risk and reduced funding chill research into human-animal chimera techniques.
Based on analysis of 3 sections of legislative text.
Adds a placeholder chapter to the federal criminal code intended to prohibit certain human‑animal chimeras but contains no substantive prohibitions, definitions, or penalties.
Official title: To amend title 18, United States Code, to prohibit certain types of human-animal chimeras.
Introduced March 14, 2025 by Christopher Henry Smith · Last progress March 14, 2025
Creates a new, empty criminal chapter in Title 18 of the U.S. Code that is intended to prohibit certain human-animal chimera activities, but provides no actual statutory text, definitions, penalties, or effective date. As written the bill only adds a placeholder chapter heading and updates the table of chapters; it does not itself create enforceable prohibitions or requirements.