Health

Human Cloning: Should Uncle Sam Be Involved?

By CBSNews.com staff CBSNews.com staff

January 31, 2002 / 8:41 AM EST / CBS

Since 1997, when the first cloned mammal--Dolly the sheep--was born, scientists have raised the possibility of cloning human beings. Two groups have publicly stated their intention to clone a human, which begs the question: Should the federal government play a role in regulating or even preventing such an effort?

The House Energy and Commerce 's Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations is hearing arguments on the emotionally charged issue of cloning today. Two of the experts scheduled to testify before Congress joined the CBS Early Show by satellite.

Gregory Pence is a professor of philosophy at the University of Alabama in Birmingham. Art Caplan is the director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania.

Both experts say the human race is not ready for cloning.

"You'd have to be crazy to launch trials on humans right now," says Caplan, noting that such research has so far come up with too many dead and deformed animals.

A recent New York Times article reported that clones have developed lung problems, heart defects, developmental delays, and malfunctioning immune systems.

Scientists say the problems with cloning are unpredictable and cannot be narrowed down to one problem within the process. For example, in a University of Hawaii study, some cloned mice that had appeared normal suddenly grew severely obese as young adults (equivalent human age: 30 years).

Pence says it's still too early to conduct human trials, but he does not think the technology should be ruled out altogether. He notes that the same people who once opposed test tube babies are now coming out against cloning.

"Back then when we were all upset about test tube babies, Congress banned embryonic research, and it took 20 years to get rid of that," says Pence. "Once you react emotionally, the history of medical ethics says it's very hard to undo. Let the scientists figure out."

Yet even if cloning were safe, Caplan says there could be some serious psychological burdens for the cloned children.

"You know what you will look like, but you [also] know what diseases you're prone to," says Caplan. "I might say to you, 'You'll get breast cancer when your 45. You'll be ugly by 50.' It's tough in that sense."

Some people may want to know this information ahead of time, he says, but others may not care to. The cloned child would know about his or her future health regardless of his or her preference.

Two groups have announced their plans to clone humans. Dr. Panayiotis Zavos of the Andology Institute in Lexington, Kentucky, and his partner Dr. Severino Antinori are working with international scientists on such a project. Another organization, a religious cult called the Raelians, has vowed to clone the dead child of parents who have given the group $500,000 to fund the project.

In February of 1997, then-president Clinton asked the National Bioethics Advisory Commission (NBAC) to addres the legal and ethical issues associated with human cloning. The next month, the president released a statement prohibiting the use of federal funds for cloning of human beings. Since the ban did not cover non-federally funded research the president also requested a voluntary moratorium on human cloning by privately funded researchers.

To date, mice, sheep, cows, goats, pigs, and a wild ox have been cloned, but not primates. In 1998, a scientist at a biotechnology company took a human somatic cell, inserted it into a cow egg, and started the egg dividing. He voluntarily stopped the experiment after several cell divisions. In 1999, a scientific team in South Korea claimed it had created an embryonic adult human clone before it halted the experiment.

In the United States, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has issued a statement addressing its jurisdiction over human cloning. The FDA concluded that the somatic cell clone produced for the purpose of creating a cloned human bing is a "product" subject to regulation by the government. The basis for the agency's jurisdiction derives from its classification of the somatic cell clone as a "biological product" under section 351(a) of the Public Health Service Act and as a "drug" under section 2019(g) of the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act (FD&C Act).

Some legal scholars have questioned whether the FDA's assertion of jurisdiction over human cloning is legally supportable.