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Health Talk: Human Cloning
Hosted by Abigail Trafford
Washington Post columnist
Tuesday, Dec. 4, 2001; 2 p.m. EST
Welcome to Second Opinion, a weekly column and Health Talk discussion with Post Health columnist Abigail Trafford.
The announcement of the first cloned human embryos made by Advanced Cell Technology, a small biotechnology company in Massachusetts, has created a wave of ethical hysteria. It turns out that the experiment was more a failure than a
success. Most important, the company's executives said that they had no intention of creating a human being. They were just trying to develop a technology that would trick cells into behaving like an embryo, in which
cells rapidly multiply, producing a source of master stem cells.
Stem cells hold great promise for designing treatments for a range of diseases from diabetes to Alzheimer's. The vast majority of Americans are against cloning
a human being. But there's a lot of support for "therapeutic cloning" and using stem cells to treat disease.
What do you think? To help us sort this
out is Tom Murray, an expert on cloning ethics and president of the Hastings Center in Garrison, N.Y.
The transcript follows.
Editor's Note: Washingtonpost.com moderators retain editorial control over Live Online discussions and choose the most relevant questions for guests and hosts; guests and hosts can decline to answer questions.
Abigail Trafford:
Hello everybody. How are you these days? We're going to discuss human cloning. You might not think this is worth worrying about with everything else going on. But it is a hot new technology. It holds promise for designing therapies for a range of diseases. It also has potential for making assisted reproductive technologies more successful. It also raises questions about the very beginnings of life and our values. Send us your questions and comments.
Abigail Trafford:
Hello and Welcome. Tell us about human cloning. Why is it so controversial?
Tom Murray: Human reproductive cloning is the creation of a human being with the same genetic makeup as an already living person. A similar technique, involving taking the genetic material from a person's cell and inserting it into an egg from which the nucleus has been removed, can also be used to try to create stem cells that will not be rejected by a transplant recipient.
Abigail Trafford:
How can you regulate researach to allow therapeutic cloning but ban reproductive cloning?
Tom Murray: You can't get a baby without a womb. You could ban developing any human embryo beyond a week or two of development, and you could also prohibit implanting such an embryo in a woman's womb.
McLean, Va.:
Why do people object to reproductive cloning? I find absolutely nothing wrong with it in theory, and I think it's kind of like space travel: something we should do simply because we can. I have not a single argument against it that is remotely convincing. The president may say it's "morally wrong," but doesn't explain why. Aside from some vague comments about "playing God," which I think are largely innapplicable, I don't understand why the "vast majority" of Americans have a problem with it.
Tom Murray: Some people believe that it is simply repugnant and would be wrong no matter what the consequences. I take a different perspective. Reproductive cloning today is so risky that it constitutes grossly immoral experimentation on human beings. If--a big it--it ever became safe and reliable, there are reasons to worry that it would not be a good thing for the children created by that method.
Abigail Trafford:
What are the ethical objections to cloning?
Tom Murray: Well, today it is unethical experimentation of any child created by it and also any woman bearing a cloned embryo. (Cattle moms have had plenty of problems with cloned calves, for example.)
Tomorrow, if it could be made to work reliably, my worries would turn towards concern that the children born from cloning would have an impossibly heavy burden of expectations placed on their shoulders from birth, expectations that would undermine their relationship with their parents.
Rockville, Md.:
I find most of the coverage of the recent cloning announcement simplistic. People need to remember that the ONLY way to create a human from a bunch of cells is to implant the cells in the uterus of a woman. You cannot as yet grow a person in a laboratory, and given the complexity of the task I suspect we are a long way away from doing that. Bottom line: those cloned cells aren't going anywhere unless a woman agrees to carry them. We can ban reproductive cloning easily, by banning IMPLANTATION in a woman.
As an aside, I find the omission of the key role a woman must play in the creation of a cloned human to be eerily similar to the statements of "pro-life" activists who discuss pregnancy as if the baby was growing in a test tube somewhere, with no reference to the fact that it is the MOTHER's body that is essential to create new life.
I think the press has been terribly negligent in acknowledging how human reproduction really works. Abigail Trafford:
Good points, Rockville. In all of these controversial technologies, women play a key role. Yet we are left out of the discussion. There's a gender problem, here. Mr. Murray can you talk about the gender issue some more? And, if the country doesn't want reproductive cloning, why not just ban the implantation of cloned cells?
Tom Murray: Right on! The President's Commission on which I sat acknowledged the inescapable role women would have to play and the risks they would have to endure.
Washington, DC:
What happened with the idea of using adult fat cells to clone? I remember reading an article that said that fat cells showed a remarkable ability to be used in the same way as stem cells, and it avoids all the ethical questions that come with embryonic stem cell research. Additionally, when cloning organs, an organ can be cloned from the same person's cells, reducing the chances of rejection? Since reading about it a year ago, I haven't heard anything.
Tom Murray: The evidence that stem cells from adults could be useful is still very slim. Adult cells are found in very small numbers, are not as flexible, and don't reproduce as rapidly as embryonic stem cells. Nevertheless, almost all scientists are in favor of studying them further.
Oakton, Va.:
What is the moral difference between cloning, in which a being is created in a lab using the dna of one person, and in vitro fertilization, in which a being is created in a lab using the dna of two persons? Also, don't the use of fertility drugs often produce many clones?
Tom Murray: Fertility drugs don't produce clones per se, but they can result in multiple births--often of non-identical twins, triplets, or even higher numbers.
IVF can be seen as a laboratory boost to a natural process--sexual reproduction, which in this case means gametes from two persons--one male, one female. Cloning is the replication of an existing genome.
Boston, MA:
A woman can abort pregnancy in the first trimester at will. She doesn't need to explain her reasons to anyone. It is her constitutionally protected right.
So why are we so morally torn about creating two-week old blastocysts for the purpose of harvesting stem cells? And if we need to clone to get genetically compatible cells, so what? In either case, the early embryo would be destroyed after two or so weeks, when it is far less developed -- not a single neural cell, for instance -- than the average aborted pregnancy.
Tom Murray: I think what troubles people is that in cloning we intentionally create the embryo. Now, the embryos from which stem cells are derived were created by couples hoping to have a child, but now having given up on those particular frozen embryos. In that case, I think your analogy is apt.
Chevy Chase, Maryland:
It seems disingenuous to me to say that cloning a human being for the purpose of delivering a full term baby versus for the purpose of extracting stem cells makes the former more a human being than the latter. Please comment.
Tom Murray: I am not sure what you want to get at with your question. As I wrote in my book The Worth of a Child, whatever your views are about when morally protectable human life begins, everyone agrees that a born child deserves full protection. So, we can agree that reproductive cloning, if it ever worked and made a live-born child, would require us to ask hard questions about the child's well being. There is not comparable agreement about how to think morally about, for example, a five-day-old embryo. Some folks think that embryo is a full person, many people would disagree--even some people who are opposed to abortion, including Senator Hatch.
Arlington, Va.:
I'd like to take issue with your statement in today's column that bringing something into the mainstream of "government sponsored-science" will help to make the research less problematic. I think this is untrue. The federal government has a political agenda, and thus does not want scientific studies with conclusion that contradict the government line. Nowhere is this clearer than in the case of medical marijuana. Researchers who conclude that marijuana has medicinal value (true) or is less harmful than alcohol or tobacco (also true) know they will not receive money for more grants, and thus they do not come up with those conclusions. Making research government-sponsored thus insures that most conclusions will be the ones the government wants to hear. Abigail Trafford:
There's always politics. But in an open society, everybody gets a chance to speak out. That doesn't always remove politics from science. but at least it's out in the open. Medical marijuana is a case in point. We talk about it. We question the government's decision. The advantage of government sponsored research for cutting edge is experiments is to shine a public light on what scientists are doing. Without government sponsorship, the experiments go ahead with nobody looking. That's the problem. Government sponsorship doesn't eliminate politics from science--but it gets science out in the open where it should be. Mr. Murray--what are your thoughts on government's role in frontier science like cloning and gene therapy?
Tom Murray: Government support for scientific research is important in many ways. Let me mention two. If attracts the very best researchers. And it gives us, the American people, some leverage over how the research is conducted, including very much the ethics of research. Are you aware that right now, people can do virtually anything they want with human embryos, as long as they do it with private funds?
Abigail Trafford:
We hear a lot about stem cells in umbilicle cord blood. Are these stem cells as "good" as those in embryos? Please explain.
Tom Murray: Umbilical cord stem cells may be very useful in the future. They have a handful of therapeutic uses today. Whether they will be as good overall as embryonic stem cells no one knows right now. That's why it is important to do research on all the kinds of stem cells scientists have been able to find.
Annapolis, Md.:
I recently saw a brief report on television on therapeutic cloning. This report stated that the technology is just around the corner for cloning organs (such as the kidney).
Is this true? How long would it take to clone a kidney? Do you see healthcare coverage as non-experimental? It seems that this technology could help a lot of people.
Abigail Trafford:
This technology is still very experimental. No one knows where it will lead. Mr. Murray--when do you think cloning organs will become an every-day possibility? And a second question: how does health insurance confront the issue of covering experimental treatments. Most plans at the moment do not cover treatments that are considered experimental. But as we all know, yesterday's experiments are today's treatments. Many patients want to try research strategies in hopes of benefiting from the latest therapies. What can be done to get health plans to cover these treatments?
Tom Murray: Abigail is correct: making cloned organs is somewhere off in the indeterminate and distant future. We don't know if or when we will get there.
From the perspective of a health plan, do we want them to pay for all experimental therapies, or would we rather have them use their resources (that is, our premiums) to cover treatments that we know are effective and safe?
McMinnville, Ore.:
If researchers find a method of using monkey eggs to produce human stem cells, would this be morally acceptable to religious groups? Abigail Trafford:
How could human stem cells come from monkey eggs? But you've raised the issue of "zenotransplantation"--the using of organs and parts from animals in human patients. Some are successful. The pig's heart valve. Others like heart transplants have been dismal failures.
What are the ethical and scientific issues of mising animal and human parts?
Tom Murray: For better or worse, I know something about pig (also known as porcine) heart valves, having had one. In fact, those animal valves are treated and rebuilt. Biologically living organs and tissues from animals are another story. So far, they've usually been fiercely rejected by the human body, and many scientists worry that they might be the vector that carries animal viruses, including retroviruses like HIV, into human populations. Right now the research is very preliminary and being pursued with great caution.
Washington, D.C.:
As with just about everything scientist (in any field) do, small advancements and inventions become major, i.e. the telephone is not what it originally was, television is now digital, flat, you name it. This advancement in cloning will lead to, you guessed it, cloning actual individuals. All can think of if Frankenstein and this will surely turn on those conducting such activities.
Tom Murray: Well, Frankenstein was a story about human arrogance, which has not gone out of style. Having met several of the people boasting that they are going to clone a human baby, it seems very much in fashion at the moment.
Chapel Hill, N.C.:
Mr Murray,
As a scientist and a physician, I think your characterization of adult stem cell research is inaccurate. We have been continually suprised at the pliability of these cells. And as you said, research is ongoing. As for this "therapeutic cloning", don't forget that precisely because an ambryonic stem cell is totipotent, it carries with it risks of differentiating (once the stem cell is implanted in the patient as in treatment for Parkinson's) into anything (like a germ cell tumor or teratoma).
My question, much is made in the US about the right to life groups being against cloning, as if only those opposed to abortion could be against cloning. Yet in Europe, bans on cloning are all but universal. How did the debate get shaped this way? And is it good to have the debate this way (right to lifer's vs science)? How could the debate better be framed?
Tom Murray: We disagree about the assessment of adult stem cell research. Even the scientists most involved in research on adult stem cells admit their limitations and urge that work on embryonic stem cells should be funded and pursued.
Europeans, like most Americans, oppose reproductive cloning. But several countries in Europe permit nuclear transplantation for stem cell research.
Chapel Hill, N.C.:
Can you imagine an instance or a circumstance in which "reproductive cloning" should be allowed? For the life of me, I cannot see why it should ever be used. There are certainly no medical indications for cloning. Abigail Trafford:
I can see where it would help infertile couples have a child. In other words, good medical reasons to use cloning technology. Mr. Murray, your thoughts on this?
Tom Murray: This is a crucial question. It is very difficult for me to imagine a circumstance in which cloning is the only or the best option for having a child. On the other hand, it is very easy to see a multitude of ways it could go wrong. So I agree with the questioner from Chapel Hill.
Abigail Trafford:
Here's a scientific question posed by a reader: will the recipient of embryonic stem cells be more likely to reject the stem cell graft if it is from his own clone or from one of the 64 existing stem cell groups?
Tom Murray: Terrific question! Our immune systems are designed to distinguish self from stranger. They do it by recognizing markers, flags if you like, on the outside of the cell. My own cells have the "safe" and familiar flags. Unless some way can be found to knock off the flags from transplanted stem cells, or trick the body into seeing them as familiar, there is the possibility that they will be rejected.
With only a few dozen sets of flags, at most, to choose from, odds are that plenty of people will not find good matches in the current set of stem cells permitted for federal funding.
Abigail Trafford:
Thank you Tom Murray. You have got us started. But everybody: don't go away. We have more questions and comments and will continue until our time is up.
Abigail Trafford:
Thank you Tom Murray. You have got us started. But everybody: don't go away. We have more questions and comments and will continue until our time is up.
Lexington, Va.:
You seem to say that it should incumbent upon those who argue that we, as a nation, should not pursue or allow cloning human beings to justify why it SHOULDN'T be allowed. Shouldn't it be the other way around? Shouldn't you have to justify why we should do it? And shouldn't YOU defend the morality of cloning, instead of demanding for an ethical reason not to?
Abigail Trafford: You are absolutely right. We should talk about why this is morally wise to do this research. How the technology and purpose of the research meets our highest ethical standards. We also need to talk about those areas of uncertainty. I'm for having a real dialog on ethical issues in science.
Chapel Hill, N.C.:
Ms. Trafford,
A monkey egg, if used in cloning with human cells, would have all of it's DNA removed ("enucleated") so that all of the DNA (with the exception of the mitochondrial DNA) would be human. Just the cellular machinery would be monkey....
FYI
Abigail Trafford: Thanks for the info. Interesting idea. . . . But would it work scientifically? There's also something repugnant about this kind of cellular cross-breeding.
Lakewood, Colo.:
On the moral front here of a whole cloned human, I wonder what the possibilities are for the most negative ways to use this technology. For instance, parents genetically engineering their children before birth? I think that's obivously sickening. How outlandish is it to believe that despots may see clones as expendable humans to attempt to train them for selfish agenda?
Are their any natural disturbances that you can think of that result from cloned humans being introduced to societies?
Do you believe it's possible and worthwhile to police organ cloning for disease control (et. al. - positive ethics) vs. flat-out human cloning (negative ethics)?
Abigail Trafford: I wish there were clear answers. . . You raise basic questions about human motives and people's potential for good and evil. The question is, would a technology like this encourage people to do evil--or to do good? The other question is this: how can we get people off their selfish agenda right now?
Bethesda, Md.:
Do you think it is more morally right to conceive and carry a child to term in order to provide (potentially) donor cells for a sibling or to clone an embryo, harvest its stem cells, and provide donor cells by differentiating the stem cells in the test tube?
Abigail Trafford: Bingo. Some couples have had their embryos screened and brought to term a baby whose cells could be used to treat a sibling's leukemia. This is very rare. And you can argue that the parents are using science for two goods: to create a human being and to treat a sibling. Creating embryos to harvent stem cells is different. There is just one good. It's still a good. But to some people, it also creates a bad--the destruction of an embryo that has the potential to become a human being. This is why we're talking about it.
McMinnville, Ore.:
From what I have read, I believe it would be possible to replace the DNA of a monkey embryo with that of Human DNA, and get it to divide to blastocyst stage.
It would seem that that method would not involve any destruction of human life.
Abigail Trafford: Thanks again.
Bay City, Mich.:
Hello Abigail Trafford,
Once upon a time there was a little curious kid that recieved a biology book as a gift from a grandparent at the age of 7.. After reading about cells and nuclei, and the reproduction of cells. I really am that young man in this story. I read the book because I was interested in science. I was quite the character after finishing the studies in the book. I even tried the experiments as the figures outlined a wonderful guide. I could say that I was more interested in science than life. Since then there have been many more cells, bacteria, and reproducing cells breaking headlines. It is as though there are many new people trying new experiments and so on. But the problem is ...everytime you experiment with new things there is a likely hood that your hypothesis could be way off. But there is only one way to find out whether or not there is a reason for conducting those experiments in the first place. So my question is ... What kind of an experiment with life leads to better expected results? When is the whole world of people going to look beyond ethics and look at the possibilites? Where is the ethics of life anyways? How can the cloning of cells create a new science to be looked at by curious children with biology books? Who could be so wise to invite such a sciece to be studied in schools around the world? Why is the cloning of humans being put aside like an experiment not tried? or has it been done already.. truly the media has ways of not sharing the whole truth with the honest people in the world. Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do do it with thy might for there is no wisdom nor knowledge wither thou goest. Ecclesiates 9:10 .. For the people that combine the realism of science and the faith of god... I hold true the advancements of science in this new century can lead to longer life and better healthy life. I am pro-life. Whether it takes a few to find the answers, I would like to live longer in each one of them.
Abigail Trafford: I hope every little boy and every little girl reads a biology book and gets excited about making life better. Thank you for your story.
New Brunswick, Canada:
I believe if they could do it for a lamb, then why not a human being.
I hope this work is banned.
Linda
Abigail Trafford: One point about Dolly, the first cloned sheep. The science is really crude and there are many more failures than successes. The science is even more difficult for human cloning. And some believe that it may not be possible. There may be a species barrier to this technology. So I don't think there's any immediate danger of cloning a human being.
Chapel Hill, N.C.:
Europe has almost universally banned human cloning, either therapeutic or reproductive. Yet in the US, the debate is caricatured as one of the right to lifer's versus everyone else (as if there could be no other--other than religious-- concerns about the ethics of cloning). What is the debate that we should be having?
Abigail Trafford: Britain, I think, allows therapuetic cloning but not human cloning. I think the debate should embrace the scientific and ethical questions in a formal dialog. We should be asking: where is the presidential panel to debate and monitor this research as it evolves? What are the guidelines for research? How will it be regulated? By whom. What measures will be taken if scientific or ethical rules are not followed? Let's get it all out in the open.
Abigail Trafford: Our time is up. Thank you all for you questions and comments. Next week, we'll talk about the holidays. This is a different kind of season. The war is going on. People are hurting, people are dying. We'll talk about how to heal in the holidays.
Abigail Trafford:
That wraps up today's show. Thanks to everyone who joined the
discussion.
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