They have done it – make an extraordinary “xerox machine”
that could virtually produce copies of real humans – with flesh and bones and
all internal organs!
US scientists have taken the first step towards making
human clones!
In a development that could rock the foundations of
morality, ethics,
religion and science, scientists in California have announced
that they have produced five human embryos that are
clones of two men.
Their work was published online on Jan. 17, 2008 by the
journal “Stem Cells.”
If verified, the team at Stemagen Corp. of La Jolla,
California, would be the first to prove they have cloned human beings as a
source of stem cells, the master cells of the body — which scientists hope to
harness to repair devastating injuries and cure diseases.
Dr. Samuel Wood, a co-author of the new paper and chief
executive of Stemagen Corp., said he and his colleagues are now attempting to
produce stem cell lines from the embryos.
The scientists say stem cells from cloned embryos could
provide a valuable tool for studying diseases, screening drugs and, perhaps
someday, creating transplant material to treat conditions like diabetes and
Parkinson’s disease.
But critics are raising hell. The process “involves
creating human lives in the laboratory solely to destroy them for alleged
benefit to others,” said Richard Doerflinger, spokesman for the U.S. Conference
of Catholic Bishops.
Other critics worry about the
health risks and the
exploitation of large numbers of women who would be asked to provide eggs for
the embryos.
As to be expected, the Catholic Church wasted no time in
condemning the
cloning of human embryos, calling it the “worst type of
exploitation of the human being.”
“This ranks among the most morally illicit acts,
ethically speaking,” said Monsignor Elio Sgreccia, president of the Pontifical
Academy for Life, the Vatican department that helps oversee the Church’s
position on bioethics issues.
Sgreccia said the cloning research was unjustifiable and
unnecessary, given advances in similar research that bypasses the controversial
use of embryos.
“There isn’t even — I won’t say the justification,
because it’s never justified — but not even the pretext of finding something
(new),” he told Vatican radio.
There are several types of stem cells. Embryonic stem
cells, made from days-old embryos, are considered the most powerful because
they can give rise to all the cell types in the body.
Other teams have made stem cells they believe are similar
to embryonic cells using a variety of techniques, including reprogramming
ordinary skin cells into what are called induced pluripotent stem cells.
Sgreccia said, given the alternatives, he could not
understand why scientists wanted to use human embryos — which the Roman
Catholic Church believes should be protected.
Stemagen Corp. said it used a technique called somatic
cell nuclear transfer, or SCNT, which involves hollowing out an egg cell and
injecting the nucleus of a cell from the donor to be copied — in this case, the
skin cells from the two US scientists.
It is the same technique used to make Dolly the sheep in
1996, the first mammal to be cloned from an adult.
Scientists are justifying cloning as a way to create a
“human repair kit.” In other words, scientists could clone our cells and fix
mutated genes that cause diseases.
With cloned human embryos, scientists can grow
replacement organs, such as hearts, livers and skin. They can also be used to
grow neurons to cure those who suffer from Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s or Rett
Syndrome.
Others see cloning as a way to aid couples with
infertility problems, with the conceived child being a carbon copy of the
husband. The procedure would involve injecting cloned cells from an infertile
male into an egg, which would be inserted into the wife’s uterus.
Another use for human cloning could be to bring deceased
relatives back to life. One family could clone their deceased daughter or son
or any another member using preserved skin cells.
But as in all things that look too good to be true, human
cloning has lots of dangerous loopholes.
For all the good things cloning may accomplish, opponents
say that it will do just as much harm.
The dangers posed by human cloning are such that,
although there’s no federal law banning cloning in the United States, several
states have passed their own laws to ban the practice. In Japan, human cloning
is a crime that is punishable by up to 10 years in prison. The United Kingdom
has allowed cloning human embryos but is working to pass legislation to stop
total human cloning.
Ian Wilmut, one of co-creators of Dolly, has even said
that human cloning projects would be criminally irresponsible. Cloning
technology is still in its early stages, and nearly 98 percent of cloning
efforts end in failure. The embryos are either not suitable for implanting into
the uterus or they die sometime during gestation or shortly after birth.
Those clones that do survive suffer from genetic
abnormalities. Some clones have been born with defective hearts, lung problems,
diabetes, blood vessel problems and malfunctioning immune systems.
With the latest development on human cloning, expect the
debate on the issue to intensify.
More abstracts about the Cloning of First Human Embryos