| CLONING CATCH-22
By Rep. Diana DeGette (D-CO)
We live on the brink of a new revolution in medical science. The development of vaccines created a medical revolution that helped wipe out polio, smallpox and measles - all once common and fatal diseases in much of the world. Today, the combination of therapeutic cloning and stem cell research could offer the same hope for eliminating many of today's most feared diseases, including diabetes, Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, and even spinal cord injuries.
Next week, however, this important medical research will move out of the laboratory and into the halls of Congress. For while advances in therapeutic cloning hold significant promise for cures, a handful of scientists are attempting to use cloning to reproduce human beings. Reproductive cloning is almost universally opposed in Congress and we must move quickly to prohibit it. Unfortunately in our haste to ban reproductive cloning, some members of Congress also seek to close the door on an entire new field of critical medical research.
This is an instance where we do not have to throw the baby out with the bath water. That is why my colleagues Representatives Jim Greenwood (R-PA), Peter Deutsch (D-FL), Anna Eshoo (D-CA) and I have introduced legislation that would ban reproductive cloning but allow strictly regulated, privately funded therapeutic cloning.
It is important to understand the clear distinction between reproductive cloning and therapeutic cloning. Reproductive cloning, which we would ban completely, uses the product of human somatic cell nuclear transfer, more commonly known as cloning, to initiate a pregnancy.
Therapeutic cloning is a subset of stem cell research. In stem cell research, scientists have identified specific human cells that can be trained to help deliver cures for certain diseases or nerve injuries. Unfortunately, the stem cells currently used for these treatments do not match the genetic material of the patients receiving stem cell treatments. As a result, the patients must be put on dangerous immuno-suppressant drugs to prevent their immune system from rejecting the therapy.
For example, some people with diabetes can be cured if they undergo a therapy known as islet cell transplantation. Unfortunately, there is currently no way for the islet cells used in the transplants to match the genetic code of the patients receiving the therapy. As a result, the patients must be put on immuno-suppressant drugs that have side effects much worse than the diabetes they are trying to cure. And they must stay on these drugs for the rest of their lives.
This is where therapeutic cloning has the potential to be so important. Instead of delivering stem cell therapies via cells that could be rejected by the patients' immune systems, doctors hope to use therapeutic cloning to create delivery systems from the patients' own cells, genes, or tissue. By using cells that match the patients' DNA, this would eliminate the threat that the patient would reject the stem cell and require immuno-suppressant drugs. This would allow people suffering from serious injuries or diseases to use their own bodies to create cures that match their genetic code. Therapeutic cloning could lead to the development of new medications and vaccines, replication of skin for burn victims, allow for cartilage and tissue repair from a patient's own genes, and the development of cures for diabetes, Parkinson's Disease, Alzheimer's, and other health problems.
This research would proceed only under the strictest of government guidelines and oversight, using only private money at labs that confidentially register with the federal government. Both donors of human cells and individuals that conduct research to would also have to attest that the human cells they collect would only be used for therapeutic cloning research purposes. Anyone who violates these rigorous standards would face criminal penalties and prosecution. Most important, however, promising research would continue.
Research into cloning will continue regardless of Congress's actions. We can shut the door to promising new medical discoveries in the United States by banning all cloning. Or, we can ensure that America remains the leader in medical research by allowing therapeutic cloning to proceed under strict safety guidelines while banning reproductive cloning.
This column first ran in the Rocky Mountain News on February 22, 2003
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