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Cloning ban threatens cures, says bioethicist Moral debate centers on when life begins, but cloning foes also fear mass production of humans. By MARILYN H. KARFELD Staff Reporter In both therapeutic cloning and embryonic stem cell technologies, harvesting potentially life-saving stem cells requires the destruction of an early-stage human embryo. But cloning takes the ethical quagmire of embryonic stem cells one giant step further. The deeper dread surrounding cloning results from a "stereotypical fear" about the mass production of humans, says Dr. Ronald Green, a Dartmouth ethicist who spoke recently at The Temple-Tifereth Israel. Therapeutic cloning promises to provide new therapies or even cures for diseases such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's, diabetes, cancer and stroke, he points out. Scientists would clone an early-stage embryo from one of an individual's cells to produce the stem cells needed for medical treatment or transplantation. These stem cells can be induced to become different tissues-heart, blood, bone, pancreas, kidney, neurons - even miniature organs, says Green, the first Jewish president of the scholarly Society of Christian Ethics. There will be no worry that the body will reject these tissues because they would perfectly match the donor's DNA. The moral debate exists because scientists must destroy the tiny pre-embryo or blastocyst to obtain these pluripotent stem cells. Opponents, who believe life begins at conception, say these pre-embryos are human beings; advocates say blastocysts are not babies. For cloning opponents, the nightmare scenarios are even darker, says Green, the unpaid chairman of the ethical advisory committee at Advanced Cell Technology. The Massachusetts company was heavily criticized last fall when it announced the cloning of a human pre-embryo, which lived only briefly. These foes envision dictators like Saddam Hussein cloning an army of superior slave warriors. Parents of dying children may produce a DNA-matched clone for the life-saving body parts. Donald Trump could replicate himself out of misplaced ego. Or a plain Jane may order clones of Brad Pitt and Cindy Crawford to impress the neighbors with her children's movie star looks. Those harboring such fears include the members of the U.S. House of Representatives, who overwhelmingly passed a bill last year to ban all human cloning. The bill made it a crime to participate in cloning, punishable by a fine of at least $1 million and/or 10 years in prison. It would be illegal to import a cloned human embryo or any product derived from a cloned embryo. A parent, for example, could take his sick child to Edinburgh for new insulin-producing cells. Within weeks, the child is well, and the two return to the U.S. They could then be arrested for importing a product obtained from cloning, Green says. The House passed this "ludicrous" legislation, which makes no distinction between reproductive and therapeutic cloning, after only two hours of debate, he says. The Senate will take up the bill within the next two months. Their decision will "set the stage for the future of American medicine," says Green, who predicts the U.S. will become a "medical backwater" if therapeutic cloning is banned. All scientists in the field will move to Great Britain, where such cloning is allowed. Therapeutic cloning bears little resemblance to reproductive cloning, he says. Today's technology, which has cloned animals starting with the famous sheep, Dolly, cannot guarantee the safe production of a human clone, admits Green, who would support a five-year ban on reproductive cloning. "But within five or 10 years (reproductive) cloning will be a reasonably safe technology," he says. Even if some renegade scientist did clone a baby, that child will have the same rights as any other person, says Green, who also chairs the Dartmouth department of religion. The fear that people will create clones for spare parts for themselves or their children is totally unfounded, he says. "It's preposterous that society will allow a cloned child to be cannibalized." Cloning a human also "does not produce an instant replica tomorrow," he says. "At best, it produces an infant who takes 20 years to reach maturity. Saddam Hussein doesn't need cloning. He can do it (more easily) with breeding." In addition, Green says, "we are not our genes." Humans are products of their environment and other random factors. Identical twins, even though they share the same genetic material, do not have the same fingerprints. Their disease histories are not identical. Even when parents try to enforce similarity, their temperaments differ. Just as the white and black coat of C.C. (Carbon Copy), the recently cloned calico cat, did not match the markings of her mother, so, too, cloned humans will not duplicate their parent. Random genetic mutations are responsible for such things as the folds in our kidneys and in our brains, Green says. The related issues of stem cells and cloning speak to our society's belief in individual freedom, Green adds. "The burden of proof lies on those who would ban a technology. Liberty is privileged. Society must produce a recognized harm to offspring" before banning the medical technology. Furthermore, he says, it's a mistake to legally prohibit everything we believe is wrong. Just because we disapprove of a childless couple choosing cloning over adoption doesn't mean it should be against the law. Such thinking would outlaw already proven technologies, such as test-tube babies, in vitro fertilization, surrogate mothers and pre-implantation genetic diagnosis, which allows those carrying a gene for a life-ending disease to have a healthy baby. Within 10 years, Green believes, someone will clone a child. That child will "probably be no more or less harmed" than one conceived through in vitro fertilization or through natural conception. Cloning will not replace natural reproduction, he says, but will be used by a small number of people for a variety of reasons. "Let's not panic. It's not the most urgent problem in our society," he says. Bob Martone [log in to unmask] http://www.samlink.com/~bmartone ---------------------------------------------------------------------- To sign-off Parkinsn send a message to: mailto:[log in to unmask] In the body of the message put: signoff parkinsn