Cloning

[Charles Vane]

What do you think about cloning? Is it good or bad?
I'm not going to go this topic too much right now because I'm in school but I think it's a grey area. I like the idea that if you're fataly ill you can have another heart, or liver, or whatever made for you. I don't like the idea of cloning or making whole people. We shouldn't have the power to do that.

[Brian]

It's hard for me to say "for" or "against." I'm for correcting generic mistakes, but I've read too many creepy sci-fi stories to be completely for cloning.

[ŘỠßëřŦ]

Cloning.... I want a twin. 8-)But anyways, I think it would be creepy to clone a whole perosn, but to help people with illness, cloning a healthy orgin is a great idea.

[BSam]

cloning isn't good
then again it isn't bad

but it has to potential to be used for good and/or bad purposes...

like in agent under fire there's an evil zoe clone who was made just to get information of james bond...
but anyway...

yeah...it all depends on how the cloning technology is used...

[ŘỠßëřŦ]

Exactly.It all depends on how cloning technoligy is used.If you use it to make a whole other person, as I said before, is CREEPY!... AND WRONG!

[Pester, Rumormonger]

Would it be wrong to clone a set of dodos?

[ŘỠßëřŦ]

Oh, I've never thought of that, Pester. We can save endangered animals, and ressurrect exctint ones. I love animals, so I want a dodo for a pet. And a T-Rex!

[negativenine]

Why does that sound like a silly idea?

Anyway, I agree with all those who said that cloning can go each way, but it depends how it's used. For example, I think that we should be able to experiment with cloning as we know nothing about it, but I think there should also be some sort of governmental control over that (for example, if only government approved organizations could do cloning research), just so that cloning doesn't get out of control.

I don't think we should try to clone whole humans yet... but I think we should do stem cell research.

Anyone here pro-life, by the way? 'Cause then we get into that whole "cloning messes with fetuses" thing...

[ŘỠßëřŦ]

It would be a great idea to ressurrect extint animals. (not T- rex's, I was just kidding) But like dodos, for instance. And we can increase the population of a certain animal that is endangered.

[Pester, Rumormonger]

I'm pro-life, but I don't know enough about stem-cell research to feel qualified to debate about it.

I think that the main argument against cloning extinct animals would be that it is playing god or messing with the natural order or things or turning over survivaly of the fittest or something.

[timartwonis]

i think it sound cool but im not really good at knowing what right

[Celinra]

I'm against it, it brings up a lot of issues that confuse relationships and whatnot (i.e. if a woman clones herself and gives birth to that baby, is her father the baby's father or grandfather? is her husband the baby's father or husband? what is the baby later falls in love with the husband? etc).

I wrote a term paper on this topic for school. If anyone is interested, I'll post it here.

[Celinra]

It's kinda long, but for anyone who wants to read it, here it is:

Cloning: Is it Worth the Risk?

"Celinra" (no, I did not turn it in under that name, but I'm not gonna post my full real name)
March 13, 2003

Many people are considering cloning as an alternative to regular reproduction. It is sometimes seen as a way around old problems, such as infertility or recessive diseases. However, human cloning should not be performed because there are too many physical and psychological risks involved.
Cloning is done by a method called gene transfer. An egg without a nucleus, called an enucleated egg cell, is fused with a cell from an animal. Since the egg has no DNA pattern, it uses the DNA from the animal cell, thereby forming a copy of the animal the cell was taken from. Some researchers claim to have a more advanced, safer method of cloning. One of them, a fertility expert named Panos Zavos, expresses this when he states, "If you are [cloning] the way of the animal cloners, yes, there is a risk... We have the science of maternal fetal medicine, and we will be monitoring the pregnancies very carefully."1
The most popular of these researchers is Clonaid, which claimed to have cloned a human on December 26, 2002. The company has been run by Brigitte Boisselier, a French chemist and Raelian bishop, for the past two and a half years. She states that it was founded by Rael, in 1991, to show that cloning could be beneficial to people. She also makes it clear that Clonaid is separate from the Raelian movement.2
The Raelians are a religious sect that contains 55,000 members worldwide. It was founded by Claude Vorilhan, now known as Rael, in 1973.3 Rael claims that an alien race created life on Earth through genetic engineering. He adds that the race's name, Elohim, has been mistranslated as "god." Their goal is to directly clone an adult, with no period of growth needed, and then transfer memories to the new body, so people will be able to live forever.4
Though the goal of cloning a human has not yet been successfully reached, many animals have been cloned already. Tadpoles were among the first to be cloned, in about 1967 in England.5 In 1996, Dolly the sheep was cloned. Since then, animals such as cattle, pigs, and goats have been cloned successfully, as well as mice and rabbits.
These successes may not be as good as they sound. Often overlooked is the high rate of failure. In the batch which produced Dolly, there were 277 egg and cell fusions, but only 30 that developed into embryos, and only one, Dolly, was carried to term. Scientists agree that in cases where gene transfer is done, only one to two percent of attempts leads to a live birth, and only 20% of these births appear normal.6 In mammals in particular, cloning is difficult: more than 90% of embryos never implant, or die before or shortly after birth.7 Advanced Cell Technology of Worcester, Massachusetts, a group which clones humans for research, has found that only one attempt of a human clone has reached the six cell stage, and it had genetic abnormalities.8 Says Dr. Arthur Caplan, chairman of the Department of Medical Ethics at the University of Pennsylvania Medical School, "The best, most experienced people fail 99 times out of 100."9
Many people have fears as to reasons clones will be produced. Some people think clones will be used as spare parts for organ transplants, or to replace a dead or dying child
or spouse. Multiple clones would be useful in science, such as determining an answer to the "nature versus nurture" debate, or they could be trained to do special missions for the military. One of the most frightening prospects is that cloning will be used to create a master race, created from clones of talented or smart people.
Leon R. Kass, an Addie Clark Harding Professor at the College and the Committee on Social Thought at the University of Chicago, claims, "Almost no one finds any of the suggested reasons for human cloning compelling; almost everyone anticipates its possible misuses and abuses."10 If the feared abuses are cast aside, there remain some rational reasons for cloning. In cases where both parents carry a recessive gene for a disease, such as cystic fibrosis, a clone of one of the parents would not get the disease. Infertile couples, as well as homosexual couples, could have a child through cloning that would be related to at least one of them. According to Clonaid, of 20 people they've cloned, six or seven were infertile, 11 were parents of a deceased child, two were single women, one was a lesbian couple, and one was a homosexual male.11 Pre-embryos could be created for therapeutic cloning, in which they would be used for stem cell research. These could help cure cancer, diabetes, Parkinson's, and Lou Gehrig's disease. Some people also point out that other treatments that were thought risky have proven to be beneficial, and that the same may be true of cloning.12
However, the given reasons for reproductive cloning have alternatives. Instead of cloning to get around infertility, an egg could simply be fertilized in vitro with the woman's spouse's sperm. Another alternative would be to adopt. In cases of a genetic defect in a parent, they could use a sperm bank, or ask a relative to donate sperm or an egg, so the child would still be related to them. Dr. Gregory Stock, author of the book Redesigning Humans, thinks reproductive cloning will be popular, but that the interest in it will wear out quickly. He states, "I think it will become a technology not many people would be interested in, as soon as you have a few babies, then people would see that they were just-babies."13 With these factors taken into account, it is shown that cloning is not a development that needs to be done.
Many risks are associated with cloning, most of which are physical. Tanja Dominko, who conducted primate cloning research at the Oregon Regional Primate Research Center in Beaverton, says of her research that "of particular concern are embryos that appear healthy but at the genetic level are a ‘gallery of horrors.'"14 Adds Hans Scholer, director of the University of Pennsylvania's Center for Animal Transgenesis and Germ Cell Research in Philadelphia, "Even if you show us the face of a beautiful baby, behind the face there might be a terrible problem."15 Rudolf Jaenison, biologist at the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, says the cloning process doesn't adequately reprogram genes for development, which causes genetic defects to occur. His team studied mice, and found that out of 10,000 genes, hundreds of them weren't correctly expressed in the clones. One of every 25 genes was incorrectly expressed in the placenta, and the same was true at a lower rate in the liver.16 Also, clones age faster and get diseases of old age sooner than regular animals. Dolly the sheep, for example, developed arthritis at age six, even though it rarely appears in sheep before age ten. Many animals cloned since Dolly have also shown signs of premature aging and death.
Arthur Beaudet, professor of genetics at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, points out that defects in clones are similar to those caused by genetic imprinting, a condition which occurs when the genes of the parents don't line up correctly for embryonic development. In these scenarios, the financial burden will likely be high for the parents. In cases of genetic imprinting, it can cost $1-20 million over the child's lifetime.17 Studies suggest that feeding tubes will be necessary for clones after birth, as brain damage will prevent them from being able to suckle. A respirator will be needed to keep them alive, since their hearts and lungs will likely be deformed. Extensive physical abnormalities will be present, and the child will likely develop a weak immune system, epilepsy, and autism. Gerald Schatten, vice chairman of obstetrics, gynecology, and reproductive science at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, agrees that risks are too high. He states:
All of the data on animal cloning demonstrates exceptionally high rates of fetal loss, abortion, (and) neonatal deaths, and many cloned animals have devastating birth defects... When people are working with farm animals or laboratory mice and there is a newborn that is suffering, veterinarians can euthanize the animal. Are people who are attempting to clone humans going to euthanize suffering children?18

[Celinra]

Part 2 (it was too long to do in one post):

Not to be forgotten are the risks that are more psychological in nature. As mentioned earlier, there is a possibility that clones will be treated more as commodities than humans, and be used for spare parts or scientific research. Another fear is that, since they are a copy of someone else, they will be robbed of their distinct identity. Due to that, relationships may be confused. A woman's clone may be attracted to the woman's spouse, or look to the woman's father as her father rather than her grandfather. Another valid risk that isn't thought of as much is that the parents will sue the cloners over a genetically deformed child, and have strong grounds on which to sue for malpractice or negligence. Says Scott McMillen of McMillen, Reinhart and Voght, malpractice attorneys in Orlando, "People will forgive a health care provider for making a mistake as long as enough basic information was provided in advance, and the alternative to a treatment was death or a miserable life. But in cloning we're not trying to save a life, we're trying to create a life from scratch, and to do that with negligence would be actionable."19
When everything is considered, the risks of cloning are too high to clone humans, and it is not a necessity to find a better way to do it. Ian Wilmut, the scientist who created Dolly the sheep, expresses the same sentiment when he states, "If there was a reason to copy a human being, we would do it, but there isn't."20

NOTES
1Tim Friend, "The Clones are Coming," USA Today, January 16, 2003, n.p. Reprinted in SIRS, 2003, p. 2.

2Kate Silver, "Not Cloning Around," Las Vegas Weekly, October 9, 2002, n.p. Reprinted in SIRS, n.d., p. 1.

3Richard Jerome, "Maybe Baby," People (January 13, 2003), pp. 59-60.

4"Just Who Exactly are the Raelians?" MSNBC, December 27, 2002, n.p. Reprinted in SIRS, p. 1.

5Leon R. Kass, "Human Cloning Should be Banned," in Cloning, ed. by Paul A. Winters (San Diego, Greenhaven Press, Inc., 1998), p. 27.

6Friend, p. 2.

7Nancy Gibbs, "Abducting the Cloning Debate," Time, January 13, 2003, pp. 46- 49. Reprinted in SIRS, 2003, p. 2.

8Friend, p. 1.

9Jerome, p. 59.

10Kass, p. 32.

11Silver, p. 1.

12"Cloning Should Not Be Banned Out of Fear," in Cloning, ed. by Paul A. Winters (San Diego, Greenhaven Press, Inc., 1998), p. 63.

13Jerome, p. 61.

14Friend, p. 1.

15Steve Mitchell, "Genetic Defects Found in Cloned Animals," United Press International, September 10, 2002, n.p. Reprinted in SIRS, n.d., p. 1.

16Mitchell, p. 1.

17Friend, pp. 3-4.

18Friend, p. 1.

19Friend, p. 3.

20Ian Wilmut, "Animal Cloning Experiments Will Be Beneficial to Humans," in Cloning, ed. by Paul A. Winters (San Diego, Greenhaven Press, Inc., 1998), p. 50.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Anderson, Alun M. "Cloning Can Be an Ethical Form of Human Reproduction." Cloning. Edited by Paul A. Winters. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, Inc., 1998.

"Cloning Should Not Be Banned Out of Fear." Cloning. Edited by Paul A. Winters. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, Inc., 1998.

Friend, Tim. "The Clones are Coming." USA Today, January 16, 2003, n.p. Reprinted in SIRS, 2003, pp. 1-4.

Gibbs, Nancy. "Abducting the Cloning Debate." Time, January 13, 2003, pp. 46-49. Reprinted in SIRS, 2003, pp. 1-2.

Jerome, Richard et al. "Maybe Baby." People (January 13, 2003), pp. 58-61.

"Just Who Exactly Are the Raelians?" MSNBC, December 27, 2002, n.p. Reprinted in SIRS, n.d., pp. 1-2.

Kass, Leon R. "Human Cloning Should Be Banned." Cloning. Edited by Paul A. Winters. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, Inc., 1998.

Kate, Silver. "Not Cloning Around." Las Vegas Weekly, October 9, 2002, n.p. Reprinted in SIRS, n.d., pp. 1-2.

Macklin, Ruth. "Human Cloning Has Not Been Proven Harmful." Cloning. Edited by Paul A. Winters. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, Inc., 1998.

Mitchell, Steve. "Genetic Defects Found in Cloned Animals." United Press International, September 10, 2002, n.p. Reprinted in SIRS, n.d., pp. 1-2

O'Connor, John. "Human Cloning Would Be Unethical." Cloning. Edited by Paul A. Winters. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, Inc., 1998.

Wiese, Elizabeth. "Stanford Plans Controversial Stem-Cell Work." USA Today, December 10, 2002, n.p. Reprinted in SIRS, n.d., p. 1.

Wilmut, Ian. "Animal Cloning Experiments Will Be Beneficial to Humans." Cloning. Edited by Paul A. Winters. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, Inc., 1998.

Winters, Paul A. "Introduction." Cloning. Edited by Paul A. Winters. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, Inc., 1998.

[Celinra]

swans said:

What class was this for, Celinra?

You probably answered these questions in your essay but I'm stupid so..

You stated that when using an animal cell to clone there are risks-- what are those risks? Are those the risks you addressed when talking about Dolly developing arthritis at the age of six when the average sheep does so after the age of ten?

Did you address what process "maternal fetal medicine" uses? Panos said there was risk when using animal cells.. but he said he had a safer more advanced method. What does that method involve and would the clones face the risks you listed? Deformed heart and lungs, weak immune system, epilepsy, and autism?


And you seemed to cover all the cases that had these awful risks.. were there any cases when there was a healthy clone? Or is the study not progressed far enough to produce such a result?

It was for English class, 12th grade.

The risks with animal cells are genetic abnormalities and that sort of thing, and the low rate of success...
These successes may not be as good as they sound. Often overlooked is the high rate of failure. In the batch which produced Dolly, there were 277 egg and cell fusions, but only 30 that developed into embryos, and only one, Dolly, was carried to term. Scientists agree that in cases where gene transfer is done, only one to two percent of attempts leads to a live birth, and only 20% of these births appear normal.6 In mammals in particular, cloning is difficult: more than 90% of embryos never implant, or die before or shortly after birth.7 Advanced Cell Technology of Worcester, Massachusetts, a group which clones humans for research, has found that only one attempt of a human clone has reached the six cell stage, and it had genetic abnormalities.8 Says Dr. Arthur Caplan, chairman of the Department of Medical Ethics at the University of Pennsylvania Medical School, "The best, most experienced people fail 99 times out of 100."9...
...Many risks are associated with cloning, most of which are physical. Tanja Dominko, who conducted primate cloning research at the Oregon Regional Primate Research Center in Beaverton, says of her research that "of particular concern are embryos that appear healthy but at the genetic level are a ‘gallery of horrors.'"14 Adds Hans Scholer, director of the University of Pennsylvania's Center for Animal Transgenesis and Germ Cell Research in Philadelphia, "Even if you show us the face of a beautiful baby, behind the face there might be a terrible problem."15 Rudolf Jaenison, biologist at the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, says the cloning process doesn't adequately reprogram genes for development, which causes genetic defects to occur. His team studied mice, and found that out of 10,000 genes, hundreds of them weren't correctly expressed in the clones. One of every 25 genes was incorrectly expressed in the placenta, and the same was true at a lower rate in the liver.16 Also, clones age faster and get diseases of old age sooner than regular animals. Dolly the sheep, for example, developed arthritis at age six, even though it rarely appears in sheep before age ten. Many animals cloned since Dolly have also shown signs of premature aging and death.

I'm not sure about the method used by Panos... I think it was prettymuch a secret what he was doing, so no one is sure whether the same risks were involved (or at least weren't when I wrote the essay, and I haven't heard of any developments since). On the same token, I don't know what the 'maternal fetal medicine' is that he's talking about.

As for healthy results, as I already said in the first quoted passage above, only one human clone reached the 6-cell stage, and it had genetic abnormalities. So, for humans at least, there has not yet been any proven successes (unless you count last year when that lady who was working with the Raelians said she'd given birth to a clone of herself, but they never came forward with the proof they said they'd have).