Word: clones
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...comes word that it might be easier to clone humans than was previously believed. According to research at Duke University, people have a genetic quirk that might prevent some of the developmental deformities associated with animal cloning. "That doesn't mean there aren't other things that could go wrong," says Randy Jirtle, a professor of radiation oncology at Duke and one of the study's authors (who hastens to add that he has no intention to try such cloning). "But humans may be less susceptible to these kinds of [mishaps...
Members of Congress said they felt "humbled" last week as they rose to debate the Human Cloning Prohibition Act, and that was an entirely appropriate response to their assignment. The goal was simple: stop anyone from trying to clone a human, a prospect that strikes just about everyone as medically dangerous and morally repugnant. The problem was how to do it in a way that did not also outlaw all kinds of other promising research that relies on some of the same techniques. The stakes could not be much higher--Will we or will we not allow the custom-creation...
...also about the limits of law. What good is a partial ban on cloning if it cannot be enforced? Once embryos are produced for research and stockpiled in labs, lawmakers warned, it's hard to control how they are used. Even under Greenwood, which would subject private labs to some government oversight, there would be no knowing for certain whether scientists were violating the law against actually implanting a cloned embryo in a surrogate mother. And if someone found out? "No government agency is going to compel a woman to abort the clone," argued University of Chicago medical ethicist Leon...
...worried about upsetting). The three weren't having much luck to begin with, but last week the opposing sides dug in. The announcement that the Virginia institute had created embryos just to get their stem cells--and news the very next day that a Massachusetts company was trying to clone embryos for the same reason--got everyone's blood up. "The blast faxes have been going all morning," said a pro-lifer who was lobbying the White House. There were many fevered comparisons to W.'s one-term dad. Conservatives hold it to be gospel truth that...
...other reassurance my side had been giving is that stem-cell research is not about cloning. A day after the news from Norfolk we learned that a laboratory in Worcester, Mass. (the very same lab that three years ago produced a hybrid human-cow embryo) is trying to grow cloned human embryos to produce stem cells--but could be used to produce a full or (even more ghastly) partial human clone. What other monstrosities are going on that we don't know about...