The news around the world is full of reports that a team of scientists at a small California private company have claimed to be the first to have created three mature cloned human embryos, using DNA taken from single adult skin cells. The report from Stemagen Corp in La Jolla, California, says one of the cloned embryos carries DNA donated by Dr. Samuel Wood, a fertility doctor who is the California-based company's founder.
Despite the research world's insistence that a cloned embryo is not genuinely a human being, Dr. Wood inadvertently admitted that scientists know this is not true. He is quoted in the Times saying, "[O]nce I saw the blastocyst and I looked at it and realised that I may well have looked something like that a long time ago, it was quite an interesting experience."
But pro-life advocates and the Vatican have denounced the work as a form of slavery that will further the ongoing devaluation of human life.
Monsignor Elio Sgreccia, president of the Pontifical Academy for Life, called the work, the "worst type of exploitation of the human being". "This ranks among the most morally illicit acts, ethically speaking," he said.
"As for the possible justification that this would be used to provide therapy, up to now there's been no success at this, and even if there were, it would not be permissible to use the human being as a medicine," Bishop Sgreccia added.
The clones were created by the somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT) technique, in which the nucleus of a human oocyte (ovum) is removed and replaced with the mature nucleus obtained from a somatic (body) cell of a donor; in this case, skin cells.
The La Jolla company gives the usual explanation that the cloned embryos can provide embryonic stem cells for use in research on Parkinson's and Alzheimer's diseases and spinal cord injuries. The embryos were allowed to develop to the blastocyst stage at which the inner cell mass forms. These cells are the embryonic stem cells so prized by researchers.
The report was published in the scientific journal, Stem Cell, and has been called by the journal "painstakingly" documented and verified. This caution comes after the 2004 scandals in which the world was shocked to discover that the Korean maverick cloning researcher Dr. Hwang Woo Suk, had faked his results in which he claimed to have created cloned human embryos and viable stem cell lines from them.
Although the scientific community's reception of this most recent announcement has been somewhat cautious, it has been received with the expected enthusiasm. Robin Lovell-Badge of Britain's Medical Research Council's division of stem cell biology, responded to the news saying, "This is the most successful description so far of the use of the cloning techniques with purely human material. However, it is still a long way from achieving the goal of obtaining embryonic stem cells."
Britain's Dr. Ian Wilmut commented: "I hope that the authors have the opportunity to continue their work and derive embryo stem cell lines." Wilmut, perhaps the world's most famous cloning researcher, who led the team that cloned Dolly the sheep, recently announced that he will be discontinuing his efforts to clone human beings in favour of a new technique that may not involve the creation of cloned embryos.
Other voices have been added to that of the Vatican condemning the work of the California team. Paul Danon, media spokesman for the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children said, "Whatever the truth may be of the claim, it's appalling that scientists are competing in a race in which ethics and human lives are the first casualties."
