It must be acknowledged that Senator Sam Brownback, (R-KS), wants to be President: wants it, in fact, with roughly the same degree of intensity I feel about free pizza. He will smile with a fetching modesty when the subject of the Presidency is brought up-but if you do not bring it up, it may be necessary for him to remind you.



Now the Senator is not a mean person. He should absolutely be listened to when he talks about the suffering in Africa-there, he is right. Kindness should be nonpartisan, and we can all stand together when it comes to doing good.



He can also be spectacularly wrong.



When it comes to stem cells, he is resolutely and determinedly confused.



He either cannot or will not see the difference between living tissue (stem cells in a Petri dish) and a human being. He puts the "rights" of the invisible specks in the dish above the suffering of full-grown people.



Senator Brownback would literally send scientists to jail for doing SCNT research. He wants manslaughter penalties-- a ten year jail sentence and a one million dollar fine-for any patient, parent, scientist or doctor having anything to do with Somatic Cell Nuclear Transfer. 



He is deadly serious about this, having tried three times to pass legislation toward that end: that same law is waiting in the wings for Congress and the Senate right now.



If I understand him correctly, he has two main worries:



One is that SCNT techniques might be abused: perverted into human reproductive cloning. To prevent human reproductive cloning, the Senator wants to criminalize SCNT as well. His reasoning is that if we learn how to make stem cells efficiently, we may then decide to use those skills for bad purposes, and decide to clone children as well. To me, this is like criminalizing exercise, because strong bodies might be used to hurt people.



No one has succeeded in doing human reproductive cloning (it is not clear if anyone has even tried) and from all the science I have read, the nightmare will stay a fantasy.



As you know, reproductive cloning to make Dolly the sheep cost the lives of 276 "test animals" before her. Even trying to clone a child would put the life of both mother and infant at risk. We must never use babies or mothers as "test animals".



America should follow California's example. The Golden State's new stem cell law-Proposition 71, the California Stem Cells for Research and Cures Act-- puts a prohibition against human reproductive cloning directly into the State Constitution.



Human reproductive cloning is a crime against humanity, and must never be allowed.



The second objection is the eggs. People are worried (and some of their concerns are real) that even though the world has used egg-extraction procedures for a couple of decades, there are risks involved.



But what if we could do SCNT without using human eggs at all?



No eggs. No sperm. No womb. No pregnancy. Absolutely no possibility of a human child. 



How could we do it?



A couple ways.



One is that we could use already existing human embryonic stem cells to make an egg-like housing structure.  



Or, we could use rabbit eggs.



I know, that sounds weird, but consider:



We need a sheltering place for the bit of tissue from which personalized stem cells could derive.



Rabbit eggs are, to say the least, easily available. You want a few million rabbit eggs? Cost you about a dollar fifty. (I'm lying on that part, I have no idea what it would cost-but I suspect it would be extremely cheap.)



Too bizarre to be possible? It has already been done. 



Chinese scientists have made human stem cells using empty rabbit eggs as for housing. (Y.Chen et al, Cell Research 13, 251-263; 2003). "More than 100 of the hybrids, made by fusing human skin cells with rabbit eggs, were allowed to develop in laboratory dishes for several days before scientists destroyed them to retrieve embryonic stem cells from their interiors." 



It took them several years of painstaking hard work, led by Hui  Zhen Sheng of Shanghai Second Medical University. But they did it.



We could make personalized stem cells with all the good possibilities of healing-but with no human eggs, no human sperm, no possibility of human reproductive cloning. 



Surely, even Sam Brownback would approve.



Well, no.



He wants laws against that too: he wants to criminalize "chimeric" research. A chimera is a fictional animal/human monster-head of a lion, body of a man, tail of a dragon or a centipede, or something-Senator Brownback is very concerned about chimeras.



Chimeric research (the real stuff) is useful and important; personally, I would rather test a new drug or procedure on a rat or a rabbit than on a human being.



For example, human embryonic stem cells were injected into the anesthetized spines of paralyzed rats-as a result of which they walked again-bringing us a giant step closer to conquering paralysis.



Brownback's anti-chimera law would be a problem for people currently surviving with a transplanted pig's heart valve. They needed that operation to have a chance to stay alive; Brownback's law would of course make such operations illegal. It is unclear what the new edict would mean to those who already had the operation. Maybe they would need to have a reverse operation to have the now-illegal pig heart valve removed-- with the unfortunate side effect that they would die. 



I suspect Senator B. will never change his mind, unless someone he loves becomes ill with an incurable disease-- and then was cured by a technique derived from SCNT research.



If that happened, I predict, he would become our greatest booster.



In the meantime, he is the most effective spokesperson the anti-science brigade could want. He is an outstanding speaker, persuasive, smiling, personable, eloquent. He has the words, and the charm, and can turn on the thunder.



Can you imagine what he might say, if we ever got close to actually using rabbit egg cells for SCNT?



"We must stand firm against this chimeric abomination! The human body is sacred, pristine, pure-it must have nothing to do with loathsome human/animal interactions!"



 










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