Editorial
Human cloning news came far too soon
The Massachusetts scientists who announced this week that they have created the world's first cloned human embryos may have set back this important science rather than advancing it in any significant way.
The work, using some of the cloning science developed at the University of Hawai'i under the direction of Dr. Ryuzo Yanagimachi, is very preliminary.
In fact, many scientists said the effort described this week is more failure than success.
Only a few cloned embryonic cells survived long enough to divide a few times, and none lasted long enough to produce the holy grail of human stem cells.
But by announcing that they had cloned a human embryo — true only in the most technical of terms — the scientists at Advanced Cell Technology set off an immediate political fire storm.
The cry for a ban on all such research is now at full fury.
There is a possibility that Congress, acting at the behest of President Bush, will pass a law flatly banning such cloning experiments. Such a law has already passed the House.
This would be a tremendous loss for science and for the possibility that we may one day find a cure for serious human disease.
Almost everyone has an innate revulsion toward the idea that scientists in a laboratory can "clone" a human being.
Even Dr. Yanagimachi, who is conducting his own work on stem cells, has stated his clear opposition to human cloning.
But the research being conducted here is not aimed at producing a human being. The scientists at Advanced Cell are the first to say that.
Rather, it is aimed at producing a certain kind of human cell that has the remarkable ability to reproduce itself as many different kinds of human tissue.
Such research offers far too great a prize to be stifled. If it is outlawed in the United States, it will proceed elsewhere with less public access to the process or the results. Human knowledge will move forward; the best we can do is to move not in secrecy but with the fullest possible light on the ethical and social questions involved.
There is no question that huge ethical and medical issues are presented here. With its very early announcement, Advanced Cell Technology is forcing us to a decision point on those issues before we are ready.
