Tuesday 27 November, 2001
Brave new cloning world
Leaders in the fields of politics, science and religion have been giving their reaction to the announcement that the biotechnology company Advanced Cell Technology has created a cloned human embryo.
Despite the company's insistence that it is not interested in reproductive cloning - i.e. in creating cloned humans - there has been criticism from several directions. BBC Science reports.
Opposition
The first people to give their reactions to the creation of a cloned human embryo were the political chiefs of the United States.
President George W Bush's office said he is 100% opposed to any form of human cloning.
Furthermore, Richard Shelby, one of several US Senators, has predicted that the US Congress would pass a series of laws banning all cloning research.
Their views were echoed by many religious figures, with a Vatican spokesman condemning the creation of any cloned human embryo.
Uses of cloning
Senate majority leader Tom Daschle however was more equivocal, suggesting that Congress should and would make a distinction between reproductive and therapeutic cloning.
Michael West, president of Advanced Cell Technology Inc., referred to that distinction at a recent news conference. The aim of the company's research, he said, was to examine cloning techniques for medical treatments and regenerative medicine.
Dr. Ian Wilmut, one of the scientists who created Dolly, the sheep clone, has been a fierce critic of moves to clone a human being. Recently, however, he said he would support research on the application of cloning technology on treating Parkinson's disease and spinal cord injury.
He also observed that Advanced Cell Technology's announcement may be related to commercial rather than scientific considerations, suggesting that the company may be looking for new investment.
In fact, he downplayed the achievement saying that, scientifically, creating a cloned human embryo was a minor development.
| "He called it a milestone - I think in those terms, it's a yardstone. You know, they've taken a very small preliminary step forward, and it's not a very great advance at all." |
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Hype?
Dr Wilmut's view was backed up by Glenn McGee, a bioethicist from the University of Pennsylvania who has previously worked with Advanced Cell Technology.
He dismissed the company's announcement as "nothing but hype", and said many vital details had not been made public.
Brigitte Boisellier of the company Clonaid, meanwhile, claimed her company is cloning embryos every day.
Ms Boisellier is a collaborator of Severino Antinori and Panos Zavos, who earlier this year declared they will shortly produce a human clone.
Given that her company's parent organisation is currently building an embassy to receive extra-terrestrial beings, her claims will be treated with some scepticism.
|  |  | | | Supermodel Clones? |  |
| | Some suggest that supermodels could one day have a whole new human cloning career, selling cells from their bodies to make hundreds of 'perfect' human clones for tomorrow's parents.
It is suggested that soon a supermodel could even be cloned without her knowledge or consent - from a drop of saliva or blood. |
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