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White House: No to human cloning
By JOHN BALZ
© St. Petersburg Times, WASHINGTON -- A top official at the Department of Health and Human Services told lawmakers Wednesday that the Bush administration opposes all forms of human cloning, even those that health experts think could lead to major breakthroughs in disease research. Claude Allen, the department's deputy secretary, barely two weeks into his job, testified before the House subcommittee on health, which is led by Rep. Michael Bilirakis, R-Palm Harbor. Allen's statement was the most detailed description of President Bush's position yet, and he expressed serious reservations that today's medical research would become tomorrow's human baby. "Any attempt to clone a human being not only would present a grave risk to the mother and the child, but would also pose deeply troubling moral and ethical issues for humankind," he said. Allen's comments come at a tricky phase in the cloning discussion as members of religious, social and political communities debate how to achieve health benefits from the process without allowing exact copies of humans to be made. In Congress, the bill closest to the administration's position is one offered by Reps. Dave Weldon, R-Palm Bay, and Bart Stupak, D-Mich., which bans all forms of human cloning. Allen did not endorse the bill, saying the administration had some problems with its language. Animal cloning fails 98 percent of the time. The organisms that do survive often suffer from heart problems and poor immune systems. Bush and Weldon have plenty of critics in Congress, some on the Republican side of the aisle, who say health research on human embryos could lead to new treatments for diseases such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and diabetes. In what is known as therapeutic cloning, scientists use human embryos to regenerate healthy cells to replace damaged ones. "Is it more important to enact a broad ban and thereby prohibit promising research, or should we expend a little effort to enforce a narrow ban on reproductive cloning while allowing life-saving research to continue?" asked Rep. Peter Deutsch, D-Fort Lauderdale. Deutsch has offered a bill along with Rep. Jim Greenwood, R-Pa., that would allow the cloning of human embryos as long as they are destroyed and not implanted. After the hearing, Bilirakis said the issue is a tough one that he is still learning about. He has not endorsed either of the bills banning human cloning but hopes to find a way to continue research without using human embryos. Scientists already are trying to clone human tissues and organs from other cells in the body. "If we can help people who need to be helped by virtue of what's already out there, why should we continue to delve into this controversial area?" he asked.
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From the Times wire desk
From the AP |
