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Human embryo created through cloning
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Scientists at a technology company said Sunday they have created human embryos through cloning, drawing criticism from President Bush and lawmakers and raising new ethical questions. Advanced Cell Technology Inc. of Worcester, Massachusetts, said the experiment was aimed not at creating a human being but at mining the embryo for stem cells used to treat disease. Stem cells are a kind of master cell that can grow into any kind of cell in the body. The company's study was also published in an online scientific journal. "I'm just trying to help people who are sick, and really that's our focus," said Dr. Michael West, the company's president and CEO. He called the development "the first, halting steps" toward a new area of medicine. Speaking on CNN's "Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer," West disputed the suggestion the work amounted to the creation of a human being. "We're talking about making human cellular life, not a human life," West said.
"A human life, we know scientifically, begins upwards, even into two weeks, of human development, where this little ball of cells decides, 'I'm going to become one person or I am going to be two persons.' It hasn't decided yet." West said the breakthrough in what he called "therapeutic cloning" could lead to advances in fighting a variety of ailments, including Parkinson's disease and diabetes. He said his company was not interested in cloning human beings and did not create the embryos for reproductive purposes. Immediate criticismThe news drew immediate criticism from some lawmakers. "I think that people are concerned about the ethical problems here," Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Alabama, said on NBC's "Meet the Press." He said he expected lawmakers would soon take up the issue. "I believe it will be a big debate, but at end of day I don't believe we'll let cloning of human embryos," Shelby said. "I find it very, very troubling, and I think most of Congress would," Sen. Patrick Leahy, Democrat of Vermont, said on NBC. A White House spokeswoman reaffirmed President Bush's opposition to human cloning. "The president has made it clear that he is 100 percent opposed to any type of cloning of human embryos," said spokeswoman Jennifer Millerwise. "The president supported the House legislation to ban human cloning which passed overwhelmingly." Last summer, the House of Representatives voted to ban human cloning and set penalties of up to 10 years in prison and a $1 million fine for those convicted of attempting to clone humans. The measure was never taken up by the Senate, so it never became law. Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Illinois, said he hoped the Senate could find a compromise that would allow some cloning research to continue, without opening the door to the creation of human beings through clones. "We in the Senate have to draw that line so it's a reasonable line, so we can continue medical science and breakthroughs, without crossing that line into something none of us want to see," he said on CNN's "Late Edition." 'Lifesaving therapies'In the study, published in the online Journal of Regenerative Medicine, scientists removed the DNA from human egg cells and replaced it with DNA from a human body cell. The egg cells began to develop "to an embryonic state," according to a press release from the company. Of the eight eggs, two divided to form early embryos of four cells and one progressed to a six-cell stage before it stopped dividing.
"These are exciting preliminary developments," said Robert P. Lanza, vice president of medical and scientific development at ACT and one of the authors of the paper. "This work sets the stage for human therapeutic cloning as a potentially limitless source of immune-compatible cells for tissue engineering and transplantation medicine. "Our intention is not to create cloned human beings," Lanza said, "but rather to make lifesaving therapies for a wide range of human disease conditions including diabetes, strokes, cancer, AIDS and neurodegenerative disorders such as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's disease." Though he described the advance as a "very primitive development," the director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania deemed it a "significant" one. "When you get to the point where you've made a human embryo, even for research purposes ... it's a line that's crossed," Arthur Caplan told CNN. The medical ethicist said an argument could be made for using the technology to create cells that could be used to treat diseases. "If you could make cell lines from these creations and turn them into something that the body wouldn't reject ... that would be a wonderful breakthrough in terms of being able to offer cures to people." Earlier this year, Italian fertility doctor Severino Antinori and U.S. researcher Panos Zavos announced plans to clone humans. They said hundreds of couples had volunteered for controversial procedure. The announcement was criticized by officials in several countries, and Italian authorities threatened to ban Antinori from practicing medicine if he goes ahead with the experiment. Another organization, Clonaid, moved its research into human cloning outside of the United States after being investigated by the federal government. Clonaid was founded by members of a religion called the Raelian movement, which believes extraterrestrial scientists created life on Earth and that cloning is a way of achieving eternal life. The Food and Drug Administration investigated the company after its research director, Brigitte Boisselier, told a congressional hearing the company wanted to clone a human in the United States. ![]() |
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RELATED STORIES:
Doctor challenges UK cloning ban
November 5, 2001 Stem cell, cloning bills dropped November 2, 2001 Cloning doesn't run a place in Australia November 2, 2001 Elizabeth Cohen: Cloning humans vs. animals August 15, 2001 International opposition to cloning August 29, 2001 Bid to outlaw human cloning August 8, 2001 Bioethicist says human cloning is scary August 7, 2001 RELATED SITES:
Advanced Cell Technology Inc.
E-biomed: The Journal of Regenerative Medicine Note: Pages will open in a new browser window
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