Following on from last week's news that Korean scientists have produced 30 cloned embryos and one embryonic stem cell line, a new cloning related controversy has emerged. Writing in New Scientist magazine, Professor Ian Wilmut, head of the team responsible for creating Dolly the cloned sheep, has suggested that the use of reproductive cloning could be ethically acceptable in some instances.
Professor Wilmut has always been careful to distance himself from reproductive cloning, saying that, besides the serious health implications, creating copies of existing people is ethically wrong because it would impose an intolerable psychological burden on the clone. With this in mind, his recent comments on the potential use of cloning technology to create a baby have been hailed by many as a dramatic U-turn. Donald Bruce of the Church of Scotland, said Professor Wilmut's suggestion was 'highly irresponsible'. He went on to say that 'it is already highly controversial to advocate the use of cloned human embryos in research, but I am shocked at the naivete of the suggestion to clone babies in the present climate of world opinion'.
So, what exactly did Professor Wilmut say? In the article, he describes very clearly the current state of cloning and stem cell research and outlines his own plans to study ALS (or Lou Gehrig's disease) by creating cloned embryos for research purposes. Wilmut also describes a number of other possible research avenues, such as understanding individual responses to drugs and developing cell-based treatments through therapeutic cloning. At the end of the article, Professor Wilmut suggests that the 'most radical use of human cloning technology' is in the treatment of certain genetic diseases. The cloning technology used to created Dolly could be used in humans, he suggests, not to create a copy of an existing child or adult, but to copy an embryo created through IVF. In order to treat the genetic disease in the embryo, stem cells could be derived from it and genetically engineered to correct the faulty gene. One of those cells could then be transplanted into an egg shell to create a copy of the original embryo, the same in every way except that the genetic disease is not present. Wilmut says that 'although such a child would be a human clone, it would be a clone of a new individual, not a clone of one of its parents. This form of cloning would not create the same ethical and social problems as reproductive cloning.'
The mere fact that Professor Wilmut has suggested this as a future application of cloning and stem cell research is worrying some commentators. Should scientists involved in cloning and stem cell research be talking about creating cloned babies, even in such a careful way? In countries such as the United States, where the pro-research lobby is keen to maintain a clear distinction between reproductive and therapeutic cloning in order to ban cloned baby-making whilst protecting cloning research, Wilmut's comments may be seen as rather unhelpful. This is presumably what Donald Bruce was hinting at when he called Ian Wilmut's comments naive.
But not mentioning potential scientific developments because they complicate matters or are politically unpopular isn't going to make them go away. In fact, if researchers were to develop procedures such as the one Wilmut describes without having mentioned their intentions in advance, they would be the first to be blamed for failing to be open and honest. Professor Wilmut has started an important debate which, as difficult as it might seem, should nonetheless continue.
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