This is another of Murray's articles - which gives the scientific
opinions on both sides of the issue.
Linda

The Denver Post
Scientists divided over human cloning
By Allison Sherry
Denver Post Medical Writer
Sunday, December 02, 2001 -

Curt Freed has studied cloned cow embryos before. He has
taken the tiniest of samples and successfully injected them
into mice with Parkinson's disease.

And the only thing keeping Freed from acquiring cloned
human embryos in his quest to stamp out the crippling
disease is a ban on using federal money for human-cloning
research.

But just a building away, most of Freed's colleagues who
are working on stem-cell research are distancing themselves
from human cloning, which returned to the limelight last week
with the announcement by Massachusetts-based Advanced
Cell Technology that it had cloned a couple of dozen human
embryos.

The announcement clearly rekindled the division within the
worldwide scientific community about the supposed benefits
of cloning human beings.

"I don't think society should be afraid of research," said Freed,
a professor of pharmacology at the University of Colorado
Health Sciences Center.

But Ronald Gill, director of the University of Colorado Hospital's
transplant immunology program, says he knows precisely where
he'd "draw the line in the sand."

"You can't create a human being for science," he said.

Some see cloning as a step toward finding an alternative to
organ transplants. Transplants work when a patient can find
an organ that matches, but that happens only 20 percent of
the time.

If patients with chronic heart disease could receive a cloned
heart made from cells with their own DNA, scientists like Freed
say that would be ideal. No chance of rejection. No more long
waits for a donor.

Others see cloning as a dangerous road to a mad-science world
where babies are spawned just for the parts.

Clones fatally flawed
Some researchers argue that no one yet knows whether cloning
will benefit science and medicine. So far, cloned pigs, cows, mice
and sheep are fatally flawed. Some scientists ask that since
humans are more complicated, genetically, than other animals,
what is the likelihood of hatching a healthy human clone?
Wouldn't energy and private money be better served in another
arena?

The U.S. Senate, meantime, is under growing pressure to
consider legislation, similar to a bill passed by the House in
July, that would ban human cloning either for reproduction
or to create tissue for treating disease.

Congress has barred all federal funding for any research that
involves the destruction of human embryos, including cloning.

For Gill, last week's announcement by Advanced Cell
Technology was scary, he said.

Gill is trying to discover a cure for diabetes from embryonic
stem cells as part of his work at CU's Barbara Davis Center
for Childhood Diabetes. He hopes that someday healthy
insulin cells taken from a stem-cell line could be given to
diabetics, curing them of the disease.

Cloning hurts his cause, he said. "I don't think the average
person can differentiate between stem-cell research and
cloning. The danger is it gets lumped together, and people
will think we have all these amoral scientists getting together
doing their thing and they don't care.

"That is not the case."

Research shows promise
Stem-cell research shows promise in helping most
degenerative diseases. President Bush gave a limited nod
to it in August, declaring federal funds can be spent only
o study 64 existing lines.

Researchers hope that an embryonic stem cell could produce
endless healthy cells for whatever the malady - Parkinson's,
diabetes, burn victims.

All cells have different jobs. For the stem-cell research to
work, the necessary cells - like ones in charge of skin
production - would have to be isolated, replicated and injected
into the patient.

But what stem cells don't have is the capability to match the
DNA of the patient, which is troublesome if that person
needs a whole heart or a large sheet of skin. With no DNA
match, the patient could reject an organ grown from an
embryonic stem cell.

With cloning, however, the organ would be genetically
tailored to fit the patient.

None of this has happened yet. Which is why Ian McNiece,
director of research for the bone-marrow transplant program
at CU, shies away even from embryonic stem-cell research.
His alternative is mining bone marrow from healthy donor
adults, and giving it to his patients.

"(Cloning) is a big step," McNiece said. "It will not solve
all our problems. Are you going to have factories where
we make people and take what you need and throw the rest
away? I don't think that should happen."

"Baby factories'
Neither does Freed.
He doesn't believe that anyone thinks "baby factories" are
the answer, which is why he is not afraid of what the
Massachusetts scientists have done so far. Often, he argues,
biological innovations make politicians and the public squirm
before they become mainstream. And often it is private
money - like that given to cloning and embryonic stem-cell
research - that is spent for the initial breakthroughs, he said.

Even the first kidney taken from a cadaver 40 years ago for
transplant was greeted with shock and ire, and now organ
transplants are mainstream. Artificial insemination and in-vitro
fertilization suffered the same mad-science reputation at one
time. Now the discipline of helping infertile couples reproduce
is well respected.

But cloning crosses the line, said Susan Klock, a professor of
obstetrics, gynecology and psychology at Northwestern
University.

The controversy surrounding in-vitro fertilization 20 years ago
existed only because people didn't understand the benefits,
she said.

"People were worried: Would these moms be OK? Would
these parents be OK?" she said. "Once people found out
everyone was OK, it was fine."

SOURCE: The Denver Post
http://www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,1002,53%257E248951,00.html

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