Twin Freaks

Should Human Cloning be Banned? Maybe.

Ronald Bailey | February 7, 2001

(Page 2 of 2)

While we wait for reproductive cloning to mature, there's no reason not to pursue therapeutic human cloning as rapidly as possible. Therapeutic cloning produces immunologically compatible tissues to treat patientes, not babies. Both Britain and Italy recently approved therapeutic cloning to create human embryonic stem cells. The stem cells would be produced using nuclei taken from a patient which would be inserted in enucleated human eggs. The pre-embryos would be allowed to develop to the blastocyst stage (no more than 14 days in Britain) at which point cells would be harvested and hopefully grown into tissues that would match the patient's immune system perfectly. Say, for example, the stem cells might be transformed into brain cells that could be used to treat a patient's Parkinson's disease.

By the way, the production of clones using pig eggs was done by researchers to see if such eggs can be used to create largely human stem cells for therapeutic use. The genes in these stem cells, and thus the tissues created using pig eggs, would be 97 percent human since most genes would be in the inserted human nuclei, while the remaining 3 percent would be pig genes found in the mitochondria which are the energy producing centers found outside a cell's nucleus. Producing human embryonic stem cells is currently limited by the availability of scarce human eggs. It's much easier to obtain pig eggs. Tissues produced this way might be good enough to use as replacement tissues in human patients. One other advantage could be that using pig eggs to produce such tissues might mollify prolife advocates who oppose using human embryonic stem cell research since the cells are not wholly human in origin.

Cloning to make human embryonic stem cells for therapeutic purposes is likely to become an issue sooner rather than later for the Bush Administration. Last year, the National Institutes of Health issued guidelines that would allow federal funding of research using (though not creating) human embryonic stem cells. Bush's anti-abortion allies mistake embryonic stem cells for babies, and thus oppose stem cell research (see " Petri Dish Politics"). However, proponents of stem cell research may have an advocate inside the Bush Administration inasmuch as Secretary of Health and Human Services, Tommy Thompson, although himself prolife, has, in the past, come out in favor of human embryonic stem cell research.

In addition, scores of patient advocate lobbying groups in Washington strongly support human stem research because of the enormous potential health benefits it offers to people suffering from diabetes, heart failure, Parkinson's, spinal cord injuries, Alzheimer's, and many more devastating diseases. So look later this year for a huge battle between the patient advocates and the prolife lobby later this year in Congress.