Human Cloning Worldwide—
There is much to report on the state of human cloning around the globe:
United Nations—The U.N. is currently considering a treaty to ban human cloning in some form. The official U.S. position at the negotiations is that the treaty should be a comprehensive ban—one that prohibits the creation of human embryos through cloning, regardless of whether they are used in research or are implanted and brought to term. CBHD Senior Fellow Nigel Cameron is an advisor to the U.S. delegation.
Korea—Scientists in South Korea announced in March that they had cloned an embryo by transplanting the nucleus of a human somatic cell into an egg cell of a cow. The researchers reportedly artificially cultivated the embryos for eight days. The goal of the research was to attempt to create embryos suitable for obtaining embryonic stem cells.
China—A Chinese scientist has claimed that she was actually first in the race to clone a human embryo. Lu Guangxiu of Xiangya Medical College said that she succeed ed in cloning a human embryo back in 1999 and has been continuing her research ever since. Professor Guangxiu runs an IVF clinic from which the eggs necessary for the cloning experiments were obtained. Her research, which has allegedly resulted in the harvesting of embryonic stem cells, is funded in part by the Chinese government. A research team at Shanghai Medical University #2 has also claimed to have produced human embryos. They did so by fusing human DNA with rabbit eggs as a means of obtain ing human embryonic stem cells.
United Kingdom—The House of Lords has given the go ahead to British scientists to create human clones for experimental research. The authority to issue licenses to experiment with human embryos has been given to the country’s Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA). The Authority is expected to begin issuing licenses immediately.
United States—The U.S. Senate has been considering three competing bills to ban human cloning, only one of which—the Brownback-Landrieu bill (S. 18991—is equivalent to the comprehensive cloning ban passed in the House of Representatives. The other two bills would allow the creation of human embryos via cloning, but would prohibit their implantation into a woman’s uterus. At the time of this writing, a Senate vote is expected in late April or early May.
Three Disabled Children Sue Over “Wrongful Life”
In Australia, three children who were born severely disabled are suing in the NSW Supreme Court on the grounds of “wrongful life.” Currently, parents of disabled children can make a claim of "wrongful birth" and receive damage awards. These recent suits are aimed at obtaining a judgment that allows the children themselves to receive monetary compensation for for “wrongful life” resulting from medical negligence.
Monkey’s Thoughts Control Computer Cursor
In the emerging field of cybernetics, researchers at Brown University have been able to wire the brain of a monkey so that the animal could control the movement of a computer screen cursor with only its thoughts. The researchers attached electrodes to as many as 30 neurons and discovered how mathematically to convert neural impulses into electronic signals the computer could interpret. It is hoped that this work will one day enable people with “locked-in” syndrome to communicate and paralyzed people to manipulate objects.
Human Embryos Selected Based on Genetic Trait
In February, a woman carrying a gene known to cause early-onset Alzheimer’s gave birth to a baby free of the defect after doctors from Chicago’s Reproductive Genetics Institute genetically screened her and her husband’s embryos for the disease-causing mutation. The 30-year-old mother is known to have the mutation and is expected to show signs of the disease with in the next 10 years. Her two siblings are in their upper 30’s and are already declining, and her father died at the age of 42.The report, which was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, stated that the mother’s eggs were screened and that the embryos created with the defect-free eggs were also tested for the trait. Only those embryos deter mined to have the least possibility of carrying the gene were implanted.
