Panel Backs Some Human Clone Work

Board Would Ban Implanting Embryos

A federal ethics commission will recommend that Congress enact legislation that would allow some researchers to create cloned human embryos, but would prohibit the use of those embryos to make cloned human babies, accordi= ng to several commission members.

Under the plan, privately funded scientists or doctors could make cloned human embryos for research purposes but could not implant them into women's wombs.

The much anticipated recommendations, from the National Bioethics Advisory Commission, are an attempt to find common ground between those who find the possibility of human cloning an affront against nature and those who see cloning as a promising option for infertile couples and a possible source of medical advances.

Commission members said the recommendations were sensible, given the ethical complexities and the need for immediate action. Bu= t critics, including antiabortion activists, complained that the proposed restrictio= ns do not go far enough.

The ethics group, consisting of 18 experts in science, law and theology, is scheduled to complete its work this weekend. Its basic findings= , which are largely complete, were outlined in a draft report obtained by The Washington Post and in interviews with members of the commission.

The group has met five times at President Clinton'= s request since Scottish scientists in February made the startling report they had cloned= a lamb named Dolly from a single cell taken from an adult sheep. It's possible, but not certain, that the technique could be used to make human babies that are genetically identica= l to an existing man or woman, and President Clinton wanted recommendations about how to deal with that prospect.

At first many commission members wanted simply to extend the current moratorium on the use of federal funds for human cloning, which Clinton announced in February -- in part because a law might be hard to undo should human cloning eventually prove safe and acceptable.

But members became concerned that without an overarching legal prohibition, privately financed scientists not covered by the funding moratorium might wade quickly into the otherwise unregulated realm of cloning research.

"The most important thing is to get some rules abo= ut ethical conduct," said David R. Cox, a commission member and professor of genetics and pediatrics at Stanford University. "We're focusing on the arena of making babies, and the rules shouldn't rely on the source of funds."

To get around the worry that a legislated ban migh= t become outdated in the quickly evolving field, sources said, the group plans to recommend that the law include a "sunset provision," to limit its lifetime unless it's rene= wed.

Commission members said they came to realize in recent weeks they could not untangle the myriad ethical issues in time to meet a June deadline for their final report, so they fell back on the common ground of safety concerns to justify their call for a ban on cloning for human reproduction. Testimony from scientists had convinced the group that cloning poses serious health risks for both the clone and the woman who would carry the cloned fetus to term.

"It's like a court trying to decide a very complex question -- you can do it exhaustively or you can decide on the issue that is the clearest," said Thomas Murray, a commission member and director of the Center for Biomedical Ethics at Case Western Reserve University.

"Are there concerns beyond safety? Moral concerns? Absolutely," Murray said. "They really go to the heart of what's significant about having children, being a parent, the interweaving of generations and questions about whether cloning is elevating narcissism to new heights."

While leaving those questioned unanswered, Murray said, the group's report tries to catalogue and describe them so the national debate can continue to evolve.

Members said the recommended ban would ease the mo= st immediate concern voiced by federal officials and the public: that the technology used to make Dolly might be used to make children who are genetic knockoffs of a singl= e biological adult.

Although the ban would not specifically address th= e issue of cloning human embryos, they said, Clinton already partially closed that door by decreeing in 1994 that federal funds cannot be used to create human embryos for research purposes.

But critics, including at least one dissenter on t= he commission, said they were troubled by the panel's decision not to address private sector embryo cloning. As currently worded, the ban would allow privately financed laboratories and clinics to clone human embryos and perform experiments on them -- as they already do with other human embryos -- as long as they don't implant them into women.

"It's the worst of both worlds," one commissioner said of the federal restrictions on embryo research and the lack of regulation in the private sector, speaking on the condition of anonymity.

"The place you're likely to get all the rules strictly adhered to and the research published openly is the federal government," the commissione= r said, "and the place where things will get done shoddily and just done for the money will be the private IVF [fertility] clinics that already have bad reputations for conducting research without proper oversight."

The decision not to ask for a ban on human embryo cloning also angered those who believe that life begins at conception. "This woul= d, in essence, be a ban with a wink," said John Cavanaugh-O'Keefe, of the American Life League, an antiabortion organization based in Stafford, Va. "It would be okay to clone as long as you kill."

Some commission members have also expressed concer= n in recent weeks that if a ban were less than complete in this country then the United States may become a relatively unregulated "offshore island" attracting scientist= s from other countries with more restrictive bans.

Ultimately, however, the commissioners were unwilling to recommend a ban on all research involving cloned human embryos. In part, sources said, they feared Congress would write a law so restrictive or imprecise as t= o interfere with other kinds of cloning-related research that are not ethically questionable and offer medical promise.

Many commission members also felt that the issue o= f research on human embryos -- whether produced by standard test-tube methods or = by cloning -- was beyond their charge from the president. A National Institutes of Healt= h panel specified certain "ethically acceptable" kinds of embryo research in 1994, only to have the findings thrown out by Congress and the president.

Cox, of Stanford, said that the commission's approach was practical for now. The group could have haggled forever with scientists who wou= ld like the ban on federally funded embryo research lifted, and with activists who wan= t the ban expanded to include private sector.

"That's simply a game we're not going to play righ= t now," Cox said. "It's not shrinking from the issue. It's making a decision on the basi= c tough issue, and that issue is making babies from cloning."

Commission members this week were engaged in a frantic effort to complete their report, which is to be finalized at a public meeti= ng in the Crystal City Marriott on Saturday. But a ban is certainly justifiable for now, members said, because there is evidence that cloning often results in abnormal embryos.

The Scottish team went through 277 sheep embryos t= o get one Dolly. Scientists suspect that many of the other 276 failed to survive becau= se the technique led to genetic defects. Indeed, it is still not known whether Dolly will prove as healthy as a normally produced lamb, "and subtle changes may show up more in a person than in a sheep," said R. Alta Charo, a commission member and professor of law at the University of Wisconsin at Madison.

Further research in animals might eventually resol= ve those concerns and human cloning may become acceptable someday, according to some scientists. As of yesterday, however, members said they had not come to an agreement on how soon a legislated ban should expire.

The commission compiled an enormous amount of information before making its decision, through a survey sent to scientific organizations, research into legal precedents and religious doctrines, and testimony from member= s of the public.

In contrast to the philosophical, biological and legal technicalities that the commission studied, much of the public testimony consisted of strongly worded and simply put opposition to human cloning, based on religious or moral beliefs or fears that cloning would exacerbate social inequities.

"Cloning is just one more way to treat people like property, to focus on the material things in our lives and miss the deeper spiritual realities," said District resident Mary Lyman Jackson in testimony before the commission last month.

Copyright 1997 The Washington Post Company

Webmaster: steve@greenpeople.org