November 20, 1998
Dear Mr. President:
I am responding to your letter of November 14, 1998 requesting that
the National Bioethics Advisory Commission discuss at its meeting in
Miami this week the ethical, medical, and legal concerns arising from
the fusion of a human cell with a cow egg.
The Commission shares your view that this development raises
important ethical and potentially controversial issues that need to
be considered, including concerns about crossing species boundaries
and exercising excessive control over nature, which need further
careful discussion. This is especially the case if the product
resulting from the fusion of a human cell and the egg from a
non-human animal is transferred into a woman's uterus and, in a
different manner, if the fusion products are embryos even if no
attempt is made to bring them to term. In particular, we believe
that any attempt to create a child through the fusion of a human cell
and a non-human egg would raise profound ethical concerns and should
not be permitted.
We devoted time at our meeting to discussing various aspects of this
issue, benefiting not only from the expertise of the Commissioners,
but from our consultation (via telephone) with Dr. Ralph Brinster, a
recognized expert in the field of embryology, from the University of
Pennsylvania. Also in attendance at our meeting was Dr. Michael
West, of Advanced Cell Technology, who was given an opportunity to
answer questions from Commission members. As you know, however, the
design and results of this experiment are not yet publicly available,
and as a consequence the Commission was unable to evaluate fully its
implications.
As a framework for our initial disussion, we found it helpful to
consider three questions:
1. Can the product of fusing a human cell with the egg of a
non-human animal, if transferred into a woman's uterus, develop into
a child?
At this time, there is insufficient scientific evidence to answer
this question. What little evidence exits, based on other fusions of
non-human eggs with non-human cells from a different species,
suggests that a pregnancy cannot be maintained. If it were possible,
however, for a child to develop from these fused cells, then profound
ethical issues would be raised. An attempt to develop a child from
these fused cells should not be permitted.
Ths objection is consistent with our views expressed in "Cloning
Human Beings," in which we concluded that:
"...a this time it is morally unacceptable for anyone in the public
or private sector, whether in a research or clinical setting, to
attempt to create a child using somatic cell nuclear transfer
cloning."
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