September 2006

IGNORE THE HYPE IN THE CLONING DEBATE

An edited version of an article written by Nicholas Toni-Filipina, senior lecturer (bioethics), at the John Paul II Institute.

Editors comment: We realise that this subject is fairly technical and difficult for non medical people to come to grips with. It is however a subject of enormous implication for this and future generations so for those seeking to gain a better understanding of the issues involved we have sought to edit this article to make it more understandable for the medically untrained.

“When politicians and scientists make inflated claims about treating diseases such as Alzheimer’s or motor neurone disease by stem cell transplant from cloned embryos, the groans from those engaged in neurological research are loud but largely unreported and politically unnoticed. The embryo hype obscures real scientific advances. Cultured stem cells (whether taken from the body or embryonic) have the capacity for enormous benefit if their growth and differentiation can be controlled, but they also have significant capacity for harm if that growth and differentiation is not controlled. Embryonic stem cells are less controllable. There have already been some deaths of people who received stem cells that then proliferated in an uncontrolled way.

Cultured stem cells often perform badly under test conditions. Scientific focus is thus shifting towards stimulating activity in the natural stem cells that are already in a person’s body (adult stem cells). Those cells are already of course, compatible, being the patient’s own cells. They require no culturing and thus have none of the problems associated with cell cultures.

A major area of concern is that stem cell lines, once created, are not subject to regulation in Australia because they are not considered human tissue and the couple whose embryos were the source lose all control once the stem cells are harvested. There is nothing to stop a private IF service investing in and sharing its embryonic stem cell lines with, for instance, a cosmetic company to make rejuvenating face creams.

Cloned embryos also involve the problem of obtaining large quantities of eggs and it is unlikely that women would be volunteering themselves for surgical harvesting of eggs. It was this problem that seemed to trigger the events that exposed fraud at the Seoul University human cloning program. They were apparently obtaining human eggs for their cloning experiments from young women research staff. The lack of available human eggs has also led to some teams experimenting with human cloning using animal eggs. That practice is currently unlawful in Australia, but has been recommended by the Lockhart review. The ethical problem is that it involves crossing a cultural and moral barrier between human and animal reproduction.

The Lockhart inquiry shows the error in appointing a committee on the basis that they support a technology, rather than on the basis of representing community interests. Victoria’s Loaned Skene, for instance, belongs to an international stem cell lobby group. It was an odd committee, a creature of the Council of Australian Governments in which each of the state premiers (many of whom support embryonic stem cell research) and the Prime Minister were able to nominate candidates, and no one applied criteria for balance in the overall composition.

Source: An article edited by the APN

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