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House strike against cloning boosts scientists' concern about research

Researchers say a ban on therapeutic cloning would hamper clinical advances. The push is on to educate senators about benefits before they debate the issue.

By Tanya Albert, amednews staff. Aug. 20, 2001.

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While the Bush administration touts House approval of a bill that would completely ban human cloning as a moral victory for America, many scientists and researchers cringe.

If the bill passes the Senate and is signed into law, scientists fear the quest to find cures for Parkinson's, diabetes, Alzheimer's and other diseases will suffer a huge blow.

"This is a political issue and a highly charged issue," said geneticist Edward McCabe, MD, PhD, physician in chief at Mattel Children's Hospital at the University of California, Los Angeles. "But it's important to look at the scientific issues."

Some researchers don't believe that scientific review happened before the House approved the all-out ban by a 265-162 vote just before its August recess. The bill would prohibit pregnancies from cloned cells and prohibit cloning cells for therapeutic research.

It's that last part that worries scientists most. The potential ban comes at a time when they hold out great hope that stem cells could eventually provide cures for diseases.

Embryonic and adult stem cells have shown promise for molding themselves into new cells that a diseased body could use to cure itself. But, as in organ transplants, scientists are concerned that a patient's immune system could reject foreign stem cells.

That's where therapeutic cloning would come into play.

If scientists were to clone a person's own cells to harvest the stem cells, the rejection problem could theoretically be eliminated because the cells would be genetically identical. [...]