Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori instructed two Cabinet ministers Friday to ensure that Japanese doctors and researchers do not participate in an international project to clone humans, government officials said.
"Although this is a concern of the other countries, it is undesirable from the viewpoint of upholding human dignity," Mori was quoted as telling Nobutaka Machimura, education, culture, sports, science and technology minister, and Takashi Sasagawa, state minister in charge of the Council for Science and Technology Policy.
At a news conference the same day, Machimura said his ministry plans to widely disseminate information to universities and hospitals on the law banning human cloning that was passed in November and takes effect in June.
Sasagawa told reporters he has requested cooperation from the Foreign Ministry and the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry to inform the public of the law via the Internet and other means.
"Once we learn the identity of the doctors at home who will be involved in the human cloning project, we would like to talk to them and ask that they disengage themselves from this project," he said.
British and U.S. newspapers have reported that Italian and U.S. doctors plan to clone humans to allow infertile couples to have children. The medical team reportedly includes Japanese experts.
According to Britain's Sunday Times, the team will conduct its first human-cloning operation at the end of the year in an unnamed Mediterranean country where authorities have given the procedure the green light.
Ten couples -- six from Italy and one each from Austria, Greece, Japan and the United States -- are on the waiting list, the paper said.