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To: johnsto1 who wrote (32311)	8/17/2000 9:12:25 AM
From: johnsto1	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 57584

August 17, 2000 U.S. Unlikely to Follow Britain's Human Clone Lead By REUTERS -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Related Articles • Cloning Produces Sheep With Modified Cells (June 29, 2000) • Company Says It Cloned Pig in Effort to Aid Transplants (March 15, 2000) • Japan Scientists Produce Clone of a Cloned Bull (Jan. 25, 2000) • Scientists Use Skin Cells in Advance in Cloning (Jan. 5, 2000) • Scientist Reports First Cloning Ever of Adult Mammal (Feb. 23, 1997) ADD YOUR THOUGHTS Human Cloning What are the implications of cloning a human being? Predict the uses humankind will find for this proceedure. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ASHINGTON -- British doctors recommended Wednesday that so-called therapeutic human cloning be allowed -- not to produce identical people but for medical research. The United States, however, is more divided on the issue. The idea behind therapeutic cloning is to produce tiny masses of cells, called pre-embryos by many scientists, which could be mined for their stem cells. These master cells can produce any kind of cell in the body and doctors hope they one day can be used for grow-your-own organ transplants and tissue for use in treating medical conditions ranging from paralysis to diabetes. Britain's chief medical officer, Dr. Liam Donaldson, recommended that British scientists be allowed to clone human embryos for use in stem cell and related research. Now Britain's Parliament will vote on the issue. But because the creation and then destruction of a human embryo is involved, many groups in the United States oppose it. Currently, such work can be conducted by private U.S. corporations but federally funded scientists may not use cloning technology to make human cells. The U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) wants to change the law to make therapeutic cloning legal for government-funded scientists, and plans to issue revised guidelines later this year. But Congress also has weighed in. Conservatives such as Republican Sen. Sam Brownback of Kansas say there are no circumstances under which a human embryo should be destroyed -- not even when those embryos are left over from IVF (test-tube baby) fertility efforts. Brownback and others have threatened legislation to outlaw even the use of private funds for such research. "Clearly we must continue to fight to help cure disease and alleviate suffering. However, it is never acceptable to deliberately kill one innocent human being in order to help another," Brownback told a hearing in April. On the other side of the issue are scientists who perform the research, including the NIH, and the president's National Bioethics Advisory Commission, which has said scientists who want to use leftover IVF embryos for stem cells should be able to do so with the mothers' consent. Republican Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania has sponsored a bill that would allow this. Elections Could Play Role November's U.S. elections further complicate the situation and could play an important role in deciding which bill gets through, said John Gearhart, a leading stem cell researcher at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. "If there was not a political election going on, not only for president but the congressional things, I think we would be in a pretty good position," Gearhart said in a telephone interview. "If there is a President (George W.) Bush, by executive order he could stop these things." Bush opposes abortion, and anti-abortion groups have lined up against the use of human stem cells from embryos. Instead, they think another source of stem cells, from adults, should be exploited. Research suggests that these adult stem cells, which until recently were believed to have predetermined fates, can by manipulated to produce a wide range of tissues. A group called Do No Harm seized on a study published Monday that suggested human bone marrow stem cells called stromal stem cells could be tricked into becoming nerve cells. The report "confirms that proposed federal guidelines for destroying human embryos for their stem cells are not only immoral and contrary to the will of Congress, but also quite unnecessary," the group, which includes a former director of the Food and Drug Administration, Dr. Frank Young, said in a statement. But Gearhart said it is too early to tell whether adult stem cells are a good source. "We don't know how far we can go with this," he said. "There is no evidence that (adult stem cell) transplants work or can get enough cells. In both of these areas we still have a lot of work to do, and we should go forward in both these areas." Stem cell researcher James Robl of the University of Massachusetts said he was not sure the congressional debate reflected the feelings of U.S. society in general. "I think it is the legislators (who) are squeamish," Robl said in a telephone interview. The biggest barrier will be cloning humans in the first place, he said. Sheep, cattle, goats, mice and now pigs have been cloned. But pigs and mice were considered very hard to clone. "It looks like primates will be more difficult to clone than people had anticipated," Robl said. One big barrier is the lack of human eggs available. Cloning is done by putting the nucleus of an adult cell into a hollowed-out egg. This is easy to do in cattle, with eggs available from slaughterhouses, but more difficult in people.