I learned about the first successful human cloning last Monday, but couldn’t write about it until Wednesday because of a news embargo. The peer reviewed paper in Cell was rushed to print because is a huge deal. But, much to my surprise, it only made mild news. There were two reasons for that I think. First, we just went through a very busy news week. But I think the primary reason is that the scientists and media pretended that this wasn’t really human cloning for political reasons; just a step in that general direction.

But human cloning it was, and that is a huge deal, opening up the possibility of genetic engineering of embryos, creating custom made fetuses as organ farms, and the birth of a cloned baby. News stories often acted as if the experiment merely turned “unfertilized eggs” and skin cells into embryonic stem cells. Not true: The act of cloning creates an embryo. After that, the cloning is over.

Just like Dolly the cloned sheep was a cloned sheep embryo before she was a born lamb, these human embryos were nascent human beings created through asexual means. They were not implanted into a uterus, as Dolly’s embryo was, but destroyed for their stem cells. Indeed, they were created precisely to be destroyed. That is a very big moral deal.

Even though it is off to a slow start due to advocacy obfuscation, the reality of human cloning will soon create white-hot public controversies, a few of which I discuss elsewhere. These include:

• Whether Human SCNT Cloning should be outlawed;
• Whether the federal government should fund human cloning research;
• How — and whether — to protect women from being exploited for their eggs — the essential ingredient in human cloning, one egg per try — since egg extraction can cause significant harm and even death to suppliers.

I conclude with a warning. From, “The Arrival of Human Cloning:”

The fact that human beings can be cloned is a scientific triumph, but it is also an ethical earthquake. Because these experiments offer the potential to advance scientific knowledge, they will tempt us — always for “the best” reasons — to set aside our convictions about the intrinsic dignity of all human life.

The next decade may well decide if Huxley was right about the coming of Brave New World.

The Los Angeles Times has waded in to the junk biology game, assuring us that no embryos are threatened in human cloning — WHEN THE WHOLE POINT OF HUMAN CLONING IS TO CREATE AN EMBRYO! From the editorial, “The Specter of Human Cloning:”

The team at OHSU, which disclosed its work in a paper published online by Cell, created embryonic stem cells by replacing the nucleus in an unfertilized human egg with the nucleus from a skin cell, then harvesting the resulting stem cells. This long-sought technique may eventually let doctors create replacement cells for a wide variety of tissues from bits of a patient’s own skin. One advantage to this approach is that, unlike much of the initial work on stem cells, it doesn’t require the destruction of human embryos. That practice drew fierce opposition from some religious leaders and right-to-life groups, although their criticism has faded as researchers switched to adult stem cells and, more recently, regular cells reprogrammed into stem cells through genetic engineering.

Some critics continue to argue that it’s unethical to manipulate the genetic makeup of human eggs even if they’re unfertilized, and others warn about potential harm to egg donors. The biggest ethical issue for the OHSU team, though, is that it artificially created a human embryo, albeit one that was missing the components needed for implantation and development as a fetus.

So it isn’t an embryo, but it is?

Pay close attention: Dolly came from an “unfertilized egg” and became a sheep. Before that, she was a sheep embryo and a sheep fetus. The act of cloning does not get the egg to create stem cells, it produces an embryo. After that, the cloning is over and the question becomes what to do with the embryo, NOT WHAT TO DO WITH THE UNFERTILIZED EGG!

As to the question of reproductive cloning: The researchers haven’t tried to bring a human baby to birth. They note that they have also not been able yet to bring a cloned monkey embryo to birth. That doesn’t mean they won’t. It’s all just a matter of technology now. Indeed, until lately, you couldn’t make human cloned embryos. Now scientists can.

The Times argues in favor of a ban on reproductive cloning, but permitting research cloning to proceed:

Still, the federal government needs to set rules that would stop researchers in this country from crossing the line between generating stem cells and trying to bring a cloned embryo to life. Adding a clear prohibition would help assure the public that stem cell research should be embraced, not feared.

AAUGH! The cloned embryo is already alive!

Here’s the strategy: Big Biotech is always willing to prohibit that which they cannot yet do. But they want authority to conduct the research they can do, which will eventually lead to being able to do what they can’t, at which point the prohibition is revoked because now “society is ready.”

Bottom line: If you want to prevent the eventual birth of a cloned human baby, the only way to do that is prohibit human SCNT.

Now that human cloning is upon us, look for many scientists and their camp followers (or ignorant reporters) to mislead about what the technology entails. Human SCNT creates human embryos through asexual means. It does not create stem cells. To obtain cloned stem cells, the embryos have to be nurtured and maintained in a dish for about 10 days, destroyed, and the stem cell lines derived.

But don’t look for the embryo part to make many stories. Early case in point, a story by Loren Grush on Fox:

In a major medical breakthrough, researchers at the Oregon National Primate Research Center (ONPRC) have for the first time ever successfully converted human skin cells into embryonic stem cells — via a technique called nuclear transfer. The research has major implications for the future of medical treatments, as many believe embryonic stem cells are the key to treating damaged cells lost through injury or illness. According to various medical researchers, stem cell therapy has the potential to treat anything from heart disease and spinal cord injuries to major neurological diseases, like Parkinson’s disease and multiple sclerosis.

Through a common laboratory method known as somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT), ONPRC scientists, along with researchers at Oregon Health & Science University, essentially swapped the genetic codes of an unfertilized egg and a human skin cell to create their new embryonic stem cells . . . The combination of the egg’s cytoplasm and the skin cell’s nucleus eventually grows and develops into the embryonic stem cell.

False! Repeat after me: The unfertilized egg is not turned into stem cells. Rather, in the same cloning process as resulted in Dolly the sheep, it becomes an embryo, which is destroyed to obtain the cells. Moreover, the process is hardly common. In fact, this is the first time SCNT has worked in humans. That’s why it’ a big story!

The human cloning issue is going go be a Mt. Everest of ethical contention. If we are going to discuss this rationally, we need accurate information from the scientists and the media. I plan to hold both to account in this regard going forward.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

SAN RAMON, Calif. (May 15, 2013) - The Center for Bioethics and Culture (CBC) strongly decries the practice of deriving human embryonic stem cells through cloning because it exploits women for their eggs, it commodifies human life, and it is unnecessary.

In the June 6, 2013, issue of the scientific journal Cell, researchers announce that they have successfully derived human embryonic stem cells through somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT) cloning. The authors of the article, “Human Embryonic Stem Cells Derived by Somatic Nuclear Transfer,” acknowledge their reliance on women to supply their eggs (donors) to make this research possible. The paper discloses that 10 women were paid to “donate” more than 120 eggs.

The primary means by which these eggs are procured is ovarian hyperstimulation. The health risks associated with ovarian hyperstimulation and egg extraction are serious, in both the short and long term. They include ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome (OHSS), ruptured cysts, ovarian torsion, infection, bleeding, kidney failure, stroke, and even death. Longer term risks include loss of fertility and cancers from the fertility drugs women who supply their eggs must take.

“Harvesting” eggs is an onerous, invasive, and painful procedure. A woman must self-inject synthetic hormones every day for weeks to stimulate multiple egg production. A commonly used drug, Lupron, has never been approved by the FDA for such use. The medical literature states that young women—the target age group for egg “donation”—are most at risk for developing OHSS.

“Women contemplating selling their eggs are not told that no long-term studies have been conducted on the health risks involved. Many are not aware that there is virtually no regulation of egg trafficking in the United States; no national registry to keep records and track patient follow-up; or that the commercial fertility industry has every reason to minimize the health risks because of the enormous profits generated. Under these circumstances, it is impossible for women to give ‘informed’ consent,” stated CBC President Jennifer Lahl in response to the Cell article.

Kathleen Sloan, a consultant to the CBC and Board Member of the National Organization for Women (NOW) stated, “This confirms the suspicion of many that what is driving this push for human eggs is cloning research and the patenting gold rush. No one can patent stem cell lines from existing embryos because they are not ‘new in nature,’ but cloned stem cell lines can be, and they may be sold to other researchers, Big Pharma, etc. Women are already being exploited, commodified, and subjected to serious physical harms through reproductive egg trafficking. This new door that has been opened must be closed immediately to stop this gross violation of women’s human rights.”

As medical providers and scientific researchers consider the findings from this report, the Center for Bioethics and Culture urges reconsideration of the entire project. Contrary to what many believe, such efforts are unlikely to bring about true medical advances. Other, ethically noncontroversial sources of stem cells exist (for example, induced pluripotent stem cells or iPSCs and so-called adult stem cells). This research will only jeopardize the health of women and the dignity of all human life.

 
Contact:

Jennifer Lahl
The Center for Bioethics and Culture
Jennifer.Lahl@cbc-network.org

# # #

NOTE: CBC President Jennifer Lahl is currently in Sacramento to provide testimony against this bill

Human cloning is in the wind! Researchers are working diligently to learn how to accomplish such asexual reproduction, as can now be done in many animals, including monkeys. Once that happens, expect the debate over the legality and ethics of human cloning to make the embryonic stem cell brouhaha seem like a playful snowball fight.

Cloning of the kind used to make Dolly the sheep, known as somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT), requires one human egg per try. But human eggs (oocytes) are in very short supply. This “egg dearth” (as I call it), has hobbled the biotech industry from successfully cloning human embryos. I have predicted that will soon change. Now, fueling my suspicion, new California legislation has been filed to permit researchers to pay women for undergoing egg extraction — which can cost egg “donors” their health, fecundity, even their lives.

First, the prices paid would be set by the researchers: From AB 926:

(j) This bill will reverse the current ban on compensation for women providing human oocytes for research. Compensation amounts will be determined by human subject research panels and institutional review boards.

Not only that, but IVF clinics will be given a financial incentive to extract eggs or create embryos in excess of need. The bill would permit the set price to be waived if the eggs or embryos came from qualified IVF clinics:

If a woman providing human oocytes for the purposes of fertility is compensated, and any human oocytes or embryos in excess of those needed for fertility are offered for research, the institutional review board shall disregard the amount of compensation if all of the following conditions are met:

(a) The clinic performing oocyte retrieval is a member of the Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology.

(b) The procurement and disposition for research purposes of human oocytes initially provided for reproductive uses, either for use by the donor or another woman, shall not knowingly compromise the optimal reproductive success of the woman in the infertility treatment.

(c) The infertility treatment protocol is established prior to requesting or obtaining consent for donation for research purposes and the prospect of donation for research does not alter the timing, method, or procedures selected for clinical care.

(d) The woman in infertility treatment makes the determination that she does not want or need the oocytes for her own reproductive success.

(e) The donation of oocytes for research is done without valuable consideration as defined in Section 125350.

I can’t figure out whether the women would have to consent to using their eggs and embryos in research, or whether they or the clinic would receive the money. But this I do know: Women are being objectified for their procreative body parts, and nascent human life is increasingly being looked upon as a natural resource akin to a copper mine or prize cattle herd.

Human objectification is culture changing. We trod down this path at our moral peril.

The quest for the “perfect child” knows almost no bounds. From the Washington Post opinion blog by Melinda Henninger:

“Exceptional egg donor needed,” said a recent ad in the Harvard Crimson. The couple looking for that donor, it said, is working with a “prestigious Los Angeles IVF clinic,” in search of a “100% Korean woman” with an excellent education, “outstanding” test scores, “extremely healthy family history,” plus an “altruistic nature,” and a “slim build.” The Nobel Prize in Physics is only optional, I guess, since the ideal candidate sought in such notices must also be under 28.

Apropos of my recent First Things column about emotions too often trumping principle, today many believe they not only have a “right” to a child but to the child they want.

But the good news is that the Post commentator — wonder of wonder, miracle of miracles — actually sees the eugenics! And the danger to the “donor!” The column even quotes Jennifer Lahl of the Center for Bioethics and Culture (for which I am a paid consultant):

Jennifer Lahl, who’s spent the last three years traveling from college to college showing her documentary film Eggsploitation — interviews with women who did have serious complications as a result of egg donation — says she often feels like a latter-day opponent of Big Tobacco, outmatched by an lobby that’s “strong, wealthy and powerful.”

What she wants is what Big Tobacco finally had to provide: A warning label. A major survey of egg donors in 2008 found that one in five was unaware of any health risks, though with cash on the table, it’s easy to understand how the small print might have been overlooked. Can you even have informed consent with money at stake?

This is a rare case of the MSM actually presenting an issue from the heterodox side of the street — and without letting the emotional centrifuge trump all. Hooray!

Salon.com runs a lengthy, very frank, first-person account of a young woman considering selling her eggs. From “Selling my Eggs to Make Rent”:

Egg donation, as an option, can be seen at once demeaning and empowering: A job that no one else but a woman can have — or rather, a racially pre-selected, usually white, struggling, middle-class, educated woman — can have. For the infertile, the homosexual, the single, and the well-to-do, egg donation is another of the joyous luxuries of modern science. But then there are the women who act as that market’s laborers and nameless vessels; those who are themselves farmed — the anonymous sows, cows, or bitches pumped with hormones and praised for their pedigree and exaggerated numbers of follicles.

It is an interesting and well-written account that seeks to wrestle with multiple aspects of the decision to sell one’s eggs (or not).