|
HOME
HUMOUR
CANCER
ARCHIVE
E-MAIL |
CLONING
OF HUMANS:
THE
UNTHINKABLE IS INEVITABLE
The proposal by American scientist Panayiotis Zavos and
Italian physician Severino Antinori to clone human beings proves
it is possible to be scientifically advanced and morally retarded
at the same time. Who will look after the "mistakes"
(The deformed babies that will inevitably result?) Will they
be discarded like human garbage?
It is important to understand that it took more than 200 failed
pregnancies in sheep before Dolly was successfully cloned. To
create animal clones scientists have made hundreds of failed
attempts to develop viable embryos. The failure rate in human
cloning is likely to be even higher. Medical ethicists have posed
the possibility of cruel failures in human cloning, where genetic
abnormalities result in grotesque fetuses unable to survive outside
the womb.
Antinori has sparked a furor in Italy by helping post-menopausal
women (Some in their sixties!) become "granny moms."
He has also pioneered a technique to help sterile men by "cultivating"
their nascent sperm cells inside the testicles of mice.
The claim that human cloning is to help childless couples have
children is an offensive pretext to justify the unjustifiable.
If infertile couples want children so badly they should adopt
one of the countless children waiting to be loved and cared for.
Both the risk and cost would be minimal compared to cloned babies.
In our world where 34,000 children die every day for a lack of
food and basic medical care which could be provided for as little
as one dollar a day per child, cloning a child at $200,000 a
copy is morally outrageous.
Human cloning contravenes established legal, ethical and
medical rules
Human cloning has already been outlawed by the European Convention
on Human Rights and Biomedicine, covering not just the EU but
all European states. The fact that Zavos and Antinori are prepared
to go "offshore" proves the extent to which human cloning
is regarded as professionally, medically and ethically unacceptable
in most of the world.
Ethically, there is widespread international agreement that to
clone a human being is wrong, because it gives scientists unprecedented
control over someone else's complete genetic makeup, yet without
any guarantees that such a lab baby will be physically and mentally
healthy.
However, Pavos and Antinori do have the support of the Canadian
cult known as Raelians who believe that humans are the result
of genetic experimentation by a race of extraterrestrial beings
called Elohim. But the Elohim in their wisdom have not shared
their cloning technology with their Raelian followers.This seems
to suggest the Elohim believe earthlings aren't ready for it....
Dr. Brigitte Boisselier, a chemical engineer by training and
the scientific director of the Raelians, said in an interview
with Reuters Health that she has hired a biochemist, a geneticist
and a physician, "all US-trained," to carry out their
cloning project. She said that the research is financed by a
"$1 million investment from an American couple who lost
their 10-month-old baby girl as the result of an accident."
Fifty young female Raelians have volunteered to be surrogate
mothers--supplying eggs and providing womb space for embryos.
Boisselier said the surrogate mother volunteers know "there
is a possibility of miscarriage, but as Raelians they don't smoke
or drink, they eat very healthy diets so we believe the miscarriage
rate will be lower than might be expected. And, because we will
be using the very best IVF (in vitro fertilization) technology,
we think we will have a success rate similar to the success rate
of IVF," she said. She predicted that "success rate"
to be about 30% of implantations.
In the meantime orders for cloned babies at $200,000 per copy
are pouring in to Raelian headquarters. What is the attraction
apart from having a designer baby? Raelians say: "Once we
can clone exact replicas of ourselves, the next step will be
to transfer our memory and personality into our newly cloned
brains, which will allow us to truly live forever. Since we will
be able to remember all our past, we will be able to accumulate
knowledge ad infinitum." Cult members apparently also believe
that cloned versions of themselves will be able to better communicate
with their extraterrestrial acquaintances.
BACK TO REALITY
Cloning is quite different from the randomness of identical twinning,
where an embryo of unique and so far unknown genetic type spontaneously
divides. Cloning takes the genetic material of an existing person
and uses it as the basis of a new person. For the first time,
a person would come into the world, however, who had had all
their genes preordained by someone else. This is intrinsically
wrong. We can "control" certain aspects of our upbringing,
such as education and social influences, but we cannot change
our genes.
It is medically unjustifiable and criminally irresponsible to
attempt a technique on humans which is known frequently to cause
deformities, large fetuses and premature deaths in sheep and
cattle. There are also unknown psychological factors. For example,
the genetic impact on personality.
Q. How would it be done?
A. The model is Dolly the sheep and although the technology
has been applied to several animals, it is still highly underdeveloped
and the mechanisms involved are poorly understood.
The scientists would remove the DNA from the nucleus of an egg
cell taken from the mother. This DNA would then be replaced by
the genetic material taken from one of the father's cells - perhaps
a skin cell. A trigger would be applied to the egg cell that
would then make it start to divide like any normal embryo. The
mother would have it implanted in her womb in a procedure which
is routinely performed in IVF clinics.
Q. What are the dangers?
A. Experience with the five mammal species that have been
cloned so far indicates that Zavos and Antinori have almost no
chance of success. The vast majority of pregnancies involving
clones have gone very badly. In most of them, the clone has died
and in almost all of them the lives of the mother and clone have
been put at risk. In many cases, the clone grows abnormally large,
often threatening to tear the womb that can also become swollen
with fluid. Almost all clone pregnancies spontaneously abort.
Dolly the sheep, the first mammal clone, was the only success
in 247 pregnancies. If a human clone is produced, the cost in
human suffering and the trail of failures will be huge. Of the
small number (little more than 1%) of animal clones that make
it to term, most have severe abnormalities: malfunctioning livers,
abnormal blood vessels and heart problems, underdeveloped lungs,
diabetes, immune system deficiencies and possibly hidden genetic
defects. Several cow clones had head deformities - none survived
very long.
Q. What about screening for quality control?
A. Screening for suitable embryos will not work. Normal babies
are made from the joining of genes from sperm and egg. Genes
are "imprinted" - a poorly understood process that
avoids any genetic confusion between similar maternal and paternal
genes. There is evidence that in clones this imprinting does
not work properly. There is no way to screen embryos to detect
this problem.
Q. What will happen if a clone grows up?
A. Very little is known about the long-term health of
clones. There is some evidence that they may not live as long
as conventional humans because of various health problems.
Q. Would the child be an exact copy of the genetic parent?
A. No. On the genetic level, the clone would be 99.9% identical
to its parent, but it would not be a complete copy, because there
are some important genes that would be contributed by the egg
donor. These genes reside outside the nucleus.
Also, the clone would be subject to different environmental factors
and a different upbringing by his/her genetic parent. This could
result in a changed appearance and personality. If the recent
research on the human genome has taught us anything, it is that
we are far more than just our genes.
Q. Is human cloning legal?
A. In most countries that carry out advanced biomedical research
human cloning is illegal. In less developed countries, including
some that offer test-tube baby programs, there are no laws against
it. So it is clear that the cloning of a human being is inevitable
and much closer than most people think. What is not clear is
the extent of the human cost that this procedure will exact.
For more information see Dr. Mercola's report: http://dr@mercola.com/2001/feb/10/human_clone.htm
The Raelian web site is: http://dr@mercola.com/2001/feb/10/child_clone.htm
HOME |
