A Chinese lawmaker on Monday called for legislation on the medical use of high technologies like clone to ensure that it benefits the human society.

"High technologies could produce marvelous result when used in medical treatment, but they could beget peril as well if not well-regulated, said Chen Haixiao, a deputy to the National People's Congress (NPC), China's top legislature.

Clone technology for example has been proved to be of great scientific value especially in clinical practice of organ transplant, but it would bring serious challenges to human dignity and morality once the technology was misused by extremists," said Chen, also dean of the Taizhou Hospital in Zhejiang Province, east China.

Debate over human cloning was triggered after the birth of the world's first cloned mammal "Dolly the sheep" in 1996. Apart from moral concerns, experts also divide over technological defects of cloning.

More than 30 countries have legislated to ban human cloning, but some approved embryonic stem-cell research.

Chinese scientists cloned two goats -- Yuanyuan and Yangyang --in June 2000. Yuanyuan died 36 hours after birth while Yangyang celebrated her sixth birthday last year.

A calf was later cloned in 2002 from frozen stem cells.

(Xinhua News Agency March 13, 2007)