Posted on 05/16/2002 9:02:15 AM PDT by alancarp
Introduction:
As a physician who still sees patients on a regular basis I have a keen interest in developing cures for diseases that plague so many of my patients. We all have family members who suffer from disease and we all hope for a cure. I have remained an avid supporter of the NIH and am pleased to have taken an active role in doubling the funding for the NIH so that we can find cures.
Scientists have announced that they are working to clone human beings. Today, you will hear testimony from one such researcher. The complete ban on human cloning that passed the House last July, was supported by a wide bipartisan margin, 265-162. It was supported by liberals, progressives, conservatives, pro-life and pro-choice members, and many supporters of embryo stem cell research. Clearly, the support for a complete ban on human cloning has had broad support. Why is this so?
Because human cloning is a threat to society. Human cloning moved from science fiction to reality when researchers in 1997 cloned Dolly the sheep. For the first time we have the power to redesign human beings at a basic level. Human cloning is not about procreation, it is about baby manufacture. It does not produce a child with two parents, it creates a duplicate of a human being. Human cloning is not a reproductive right, it is about eugenics and depriving children of their genetic individuality. No one has the right to alter the human species in such a fundamental way. No one has the right to turn human procreation into baby manufacture, and no one has the right to create children to their own specifications.
Some have been making highly inflated claims about the cures that will come and creating hope in those suffering from disease. About nine years ago, when I was practicing medicine full-time we heard from many of these same advocates, at that time they were telling us of the great cures that are just around the corner if we only use aborted fetuses. Hopes were raised so high in so many of these patients and their families, only to be let down when those experiments proved dismal failures. We are, I am afraid, repeating history with the cloning debate. Many scientists are again using these patients in a public relations battle to garner approval for research that most Americans find objectionable. As a doctor who has, and still treats, many patients suffering from these diseases I am outraged about how these patients have been used.
How does cloning work?
Human cloning is asexual, and does not use a sperm to fertilization an egg thus joining the DNA from male and female. Rather, it involves a process called somatic cell nuclear transfer or nuclear transplantation, which has been used to clone sheep, mice, goats, cows, and cats. This occurs by removing the nucleus from a human body (or somatic) cell such as a skin cell and inserting it into a woman’s egg that has had its nucleus removed. The nucleus contains the DNA or genes that defines what makes us each genetically unique. By putting this somatic cell nucleus into the egg and stimulating it, we are thus making a cloned embryo, a genetic copy of the DNA donor.
Some want to create cloned embryos to generate cloned babies, whereas others want to clone embryos for experimental research. The goal may vary, but the cloning procedure no matter the purpose, produces a human embryo. As President Clinton’s National Bioethics Advisory Commission explicitly stated in its 1997 Cloning Human Beings:
“The Commission began its discussions fully recognizing that any effort in humans to transfer a somatic cell nucleus into an enucleated egg involves the creation of an embryo, with the apparent potential to be implanted in utero and developed to term.”
Animal cloning remains subject to serious safety problems that have resulted in the deaths of clones and even pregnant females. Most scientists believe that attempts to clone humans will result in even higher failure rates. Human cloning poses a serious risk of producing children who are stillborn, unhealthy, severely malformed or disabled.
All animal clones have problems, causing genetic abnormalities which result from faulty reprogramming of the genome in the egg. One researcher who has attempted to clone monkeys called the resulting cloned embryos a “gallery of horrors.” Some want to turn these researchers loose on the human race, either now or a few years down the road. These problems could affect cloning embryos for research, for the genetic abnormalities in the developing embryo would exist in the stem cells from which they were derived. A recent mouse cloning study in the journal Cell stated, "Our results raise the provocative possibility that even genetically matched cells derived by therapeutic cloning may still face barriers to effective transplantation for some disorders." (Nuclear Transplantation Therapy with Gene Repair.” Rideout et al. Cell Published Online March 8, 2002.)
Scientists do not know what benefits from cloning will be, so predictions of curing millions is mere speculation. There are currently no animal models where research cloning has cured any diseases. The National Academies of Science report on reproductive cloning cited potential benefits from cloning and cited the previous report on stem cells and regenerative medicine which discussed why cloning could offer benefits. However, of all the stem cell studies cited in that report’s appendix, not one study involved therapeutic cloning in animal models. Clearly, such research even in animals remains highly speculative.
There are additional problems. An increasing number of scientists think that research cloning would be too inefficient and too expensive to provide treatments for millions of people as proponents have claimed. [James Thomson quote from his paper: "[T]he poor availability of human oocytes, the low efficiency of the nuclear transfer procedure, and the long population-doubling time of human ES cells make it difficult to envision this [therapeutic cloning] becoming a routine clinical procedure…" (Odorico JS, Kaufman DS, Thomson JA, "Multilineage differentiation from human embryonic stem cell lines," Stem Cells 19, 193-204; 2001.)] The fact is research cloning is not necessary for embryo stem cell research, for researchers feel there are ways around immune rejection problems, and cloned embryos would require immune suppression as well because of genetic material from the woman’s egg.
Thankfully there are ethical and promising scientific alternatives some already being used in human trials to cure humans of disease: Adult stem cells from bone marrow, brain or the pancreas are already being used successfully in over 45 human clinical trials. A bone marrow cell generated by researchers at the Univ. of Minnesota called “multipotent adult progenitor cells” MAPCs, grow “indefinitely”, are “versatile,” and they do not form cancerous masses when transplanted like EScells. And recent research indicates there are ways to reprogram body cells without human cloning. You will hear testimony today on such alternatives.
Ethics:
The ban on all human cloning as passed in the House and which is now before the Senate would not ban embryo stem cell research, DNA cloning or cellular cloning to regenerate organs. Many supporters of such research voted to ban all human cloning. Regardless of what one thinks about “personhood”, biologically the result of cloning is a human embryo that most people think should not be created specifically for the purpose of destructive experimental research. Those who supported embryo stem cell research proposed using “excess” embryos leftover from in vitro fertility clinics, and they drew the ethical line at “creating embryos solely for the purpose of research.” Because therapeutic cloning involves creating cloned embryos for the sole purpose of research, it violates this principle that so many embraced just one year ago.
Furthermore, treating millions of patients with research cloning would require creating cloned embryos for each patient, and this would require obtaining millions of women’s eggs. You will hear testimony on how research cloning would pose serious risks to women not for the purpose of having babies as in IVF clinics, but solely for money.
Once cloned human embryos are mass produced in labs for research, where will we draw the line? Cloned embryo stem cells can cause cancers. The study I mentioned involved cloning mice, correcting the genetic defects in the stem cells, using these to create a cloned adult mouse, and using bone marrow stem cells to cure the original defective mice. Should we grow human clones to the fetal stage so that we can harvest their body parts? Researchers at Johns Hopkins use fetal germ (sex) cells because they are less susceptible to tumor formation than embryo stem cells. Would we support growing the cloned embryo to the fetal stage to obtain fetal germ cells or cells from organs that could be used for transplantation? If science shouldn't be prohibited for medical progress, why should we oppose this?
Throughout the history of the United States we have led the world in medical research but we have also lead the world in drawing ethical lines of where research should be restrained because it would devalue humanity. From the supporters of human research cloning we hear the mantra that we should not restrain scientific progress, but in the same sentence they call on us to stop Dr. Zavos from pursuing his scientific research—attempts to create an actual cloned human child.
Medicine and the biotech revolution have come far in the recent decades with truly incredible capacity to treat diseases, save lives, and improve the quality of life. Vaccines, organ transplants, artificial limbs, and many new drugs are available to us. We must and will continue to pursue promising research, but not those that would alter the human species.
There are two approaches to ban the creation of cloned babies. One is to allow the cloning of human embryos for research, but to attempt to ban implantation of these embryos into a woman's womb. Because cloning would take place within the privacy of a doctor-patient relationship; because the transfer of embryos to begin a pregnancy is a relatively simple procedure; and because any government effort to prevent transfer of an existing embryo, or to prevent birth once transfer has occurred, would raise substantial moral, legal, and practical issues, it will be nearly impossible to prevent attempts at "reproductive cloning" once cloned human embryos are available in laboratories across this nation. Thus the only effective ban on human cloning is one that stops the process at the beginning, with the creation of cloned human embryos.
Because reproductive cloning threatens human dignity, and renews the fight against human eugenics, this is no time for half-measures as is proposed by Senator’s Kennedy and Fienstein. We must pass an effective ban. Both the House-passed bill and its Senate companion introduced by Senator Sam Brownback and pro-choice Senator Mary Landrieu would prevent the cloning of human babies in the United States.
I look forward to hearing from our panelists on this profound issue.
Yes... but nowhere as good as I had hoped it would be.
Review coming later today.
"Our results raise the provocative possibility that even genetically matched cells derived by therapeutic cloning may still face barriers to effective transplantation for some disorders."
And that is why one does the research. To find out. It should proceed.
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