The Washington Post headline is misleading: “Scientists Report Possibly Crucial Advance in Human Embryonic Stem Cell Research.” In actuality, this is a potential advance in human cloning research.(Scientists have long known how to create ES cell lines from destroyed embryos.)
The story, byline Rob Stein, begins vaguely about what was actually done. From the story:
Scientists reported Wednesday that for the first time they used cloning techniques to coax human eggs to generate embryonic stem cells containing the genes of specific patients.
And there’s a junk biology bias penalty flag thrown on the field! If the researchers had obtained stem cells from eggs, it would be process known as parthenogenesis, that is, stimulating the egg to divide. But that isn’t what this was. It was a form of human cloning via a procedure similar–but different as we shall see below–to somatic cell nuclear transfer. SCNT, the process that created Dolly, makes an embryo asexually. That means the stem cells were obtained from embryos, not eggs.
Back to the story, the reporter then changes his story. The cells didn’t come from eggs, but “mutant” embryos.
At the same time, the researchers made the cells by producing and then destroying mutant embryos, whose moral status immediately became a matter of sharp debate.
How were they “mutant?” When the scientists tried to create embryos via standard SCNT, they failed. So rather than taking the nucleus out of the egg before inserting the somatic cell nucleus–as is usually done in SCNT cloning–they left it in. That meant the resulting embryo was “triploid,” that is it had 23 extra (69 rather than 46) chromosomes. That makes these clearly useless in treatments. And as for use in drug or other patient specific research, we already have induced pluripotent stem cells that have the normal set of chromosomes. So, this is more a novel proof of theory, it seems to me, than an actual breakthrough.
So, that means the embryo could never have become a baby, right? Nope. Triploid babies are occasionally born (although they usually miscarry). It is a terminal condition, but they can live for weeks, or even months, after birth. From a scientific paper published in 2005:
Triploidy is estimated to occur in 3% of recognized human conceptuses. Most triploids are aborted spontaneously between 7 and 17 weeks of gestation, while those who proceed to live birth die at an early postnatal stage (Hasegawa et al., 1999). Twenty different clinical features have been described in 69,XXX triploid infants (Doshi et al., 1983). According to the literature, triploid cases with a survival of more than 60 days are very rare (Sherard et al., 1986). In this report we present a case of a 69,XXX triploid infant who survived for 164 days. This is the longest survival reported for this condition to date in Greece. A review of the literature uncovered six cases of a 69,XXX triploid infant who survived more than 45 days.
These children are not “mutants.” They are fully equal human beings born with a terminal disability.
So, this is what I think: Human cloning is intrinsically unethical because it creates human beings (or, if you prefer, human organisms) as a method of manufacture. This process is also, because it creates a human life for the purpose of destroying it in research.
And then there is another problem: These scientists paid women for their eggs to allow their research:
The research was possible because for the first time scientists paid women for their eggs for human embryonic stem cell research, stirring worries about women being exploited and putting their health at risk. At the same time, the researchers made the cells by producing and then destroying mutant embryos, whose moral status immediately became a matter of sharp debate.
Yes, as the award winning documentary, Eggsploitation, (produced by the CBC, for which I am a paid consultant) clearly demonstrates, egg extraction can be very dangerous to women’s health–potentially including death. Egg selling is now allowed in New York, which is how these researchers obtained the gametes. It should be outlawed, and indeed, is generally deemed unethical for use in biotechnological research. Even the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine doesn’t permit it (although watch for a push to allow that to change).
So, this seems the bottom line:
- Scientists still have not succeeded in creating human embryos via usual SCNT processes, at least not that were maintained to the blastocyst stage of embryonic development.
- The 69 chromosome stem cells derived from the cloning procedure are of limited value in and of themselves, although Stein reports that the scientists said the advance could be used to “decipher how eggs reprogram genes.”
- IPSCs are already producing patient specific, tailor made pluripotent stem cells for use in drug testing and disease research, which we were once told would require human cloning to do
Here’s the macro bottom line: Even if IPSCs eventually provide every benefit supposedly to be obtained from human cloning for experimentation (therapeutic cloning), many scientists would shrug and keep on cloning anyway. That’s because the ultimate agenda goes far beyond stem cell research and into Brave New World technologies that require cloning, e.g., genetic engineering, fetal farming and experimentation, and eventually cloning to produce babies. Indeed, some bioethicists already support allowing cloning and gestating to birth.
October 5th, 2011 | 5:25 pm
[...] J. Smith, an attorney and bioethics author, also commented on the latest news, saying, the media reports are [...]
October 5th, 2011 | 5:41 pm
Really?
Scientists have just cloned human embryos*, some of which they could harvest stem cells from.
That doesn’t qualify as a breakthrough?
*Or… are they not all clones because they are not true genetic copies as they not diploid?
This work demonstrates that removal of the oocyte genetic material, or some linked physiology thereof, is a limiting factor in successful human SCNT for blastocyte generation.
That’s not a breakthrough?
This work is a major breakthrough; additionally, it is out-right riveting.
There are many problems with iPSCs – they may or may not be useful, likewise ESCs. The iPSC front is a red herring.
holyterror Reply:
October 5th, 2011 at 7:05 pm
@David, Gee I am always amazed at what people pick out to use as the basis for their purely critical comments. Here you pick “not a breakthrough,” as if Wesley said that. Which he didn’t.
He is reframing the story from one of “Wow! Gosh how riveting! This hasn’t happened before in this way!” to “What is actually happening in this process and what are the moral implications?”
It’s not that hard to see unless you are deliberately ignoring it in order to make a critical comment. (Is that what trolling is? I still haven’t figured it out exactly.)
David Reply:
October 6th, 2011 at 8:44 am
@holyterror, go back and re-read what Smith wrote. He said this seemed more like a “proof of theory” than an “actual breakthrough”. I assume he meant “proof of principle” as I see no “theory” here – there is no scientific theory of cloning, for example.
Anyways, it is mentioned somewhere around the 3rd paragraph.
And, yes, this is a significant breakthrough and it is not unethical. The donors were informed and compensated. The embryos have/had no consciousness, memories, self-awareness, etc. Just cells, nothing special. The Nature paper even has pictures of the embryos before they were scrambled.
Try again.
Chris Reply:
October 6th, 2011 at 11:38 am
@David, David, I would deduce then that you are just a clump of cells, nothing special, and can be murderd at any point for spare parts as long as your are asleep when it happens. After all, you won’t know what you are missing, right?
David Reply:
October 6th, 2011 at 2:12 pm
@Chris, except for that whole “consciousness, self-aware, memories” thing. I also have a functioning brain stem – those embryos never even had that.
Go back and re-read what I wrote and try again. Your deduction fails in light of my qualifiers.
Chris Reply:
October 6th, 2011 at 4:06 pm
@David, No, at the core of your argument isn’t anatomy, it’s the notion that they can’t feel any pain, they will never know what hit them, so it’s OK to use them. My argument shares the exact same reasoning, why is it wrong to kill you to benefit others while sleeping, but OK kill human embryos? If you are only the sum total of your physical parts, and “consciousness” is the only measure of your reality, what difference does it make if you can’t feel any pain?
October 5th, 2011 | 6:09 pm
.((((((Scientists have long known how to create ES cell lines from destroyed embryos.))))))
Hey even “I” knew that!
OK! I learned “IT” from you! :)
Peace
October 5th, 2011 | 9:23 pm
This took place in the United States? I am ashamed.
October 5th, 2011 | 9:28 pm
Who gets to decide what’s ethical? It’s kind of arrogant to presume that your singular worldview is the only correct one. Maybe some would argue that flushing unused embryos down the toilet is unethical and giving them a purpose in life saving research is a better use.
Chris Reply:
October 6th, 2011 at 11:42 am
@zrzzz, “It’s kind of arrogant to presume that your singular worldview is the only correct one.” If you don’t believe your worldview is the correct one, shouldn’t you change your worldview? My worldview is that I deserve all of the money in your bank account, and in the spirit of humility you should hand it over to me, right now.
October 5th, 2011 | 10:59 pm
The horrific thing here, in my opinion, is that these researchers willfully created human organisms with a devastating genetic condition to be destroyed for cells they knew they could never use. Seriously when is enough is enough? Is it really necessary to be creating severely disabled human life just to know that eggs can reprogram somatic cells? We knew that before. Now we know that are other ways to induce pluripotency. How about we explore those avenues that don’t exploit women for their eggs and don’t purposefully create human organisms with 69 chromosomes?
Wesley J. Smith Reply:
October 5th, 2011 at 11:16 pm
Enough will never be enough.
October 5th, 2011 | 11:51 pm
[...] Genetic material was taken from an adult skin cell and transferred into a human egg. …Human Cloning Research Breakthrough Is UnethicalFirst Things (blog)Study: New cloning methods may lead to human cloningThe State ColumnHuman [...]
October 6th, 2011 | 12:27 am
@zrzzz,
With such a relativist outlook, you can defend literally anything. “Who are we to say that it is unethical to sell orphans into sex slavery? After all, we mustn’t force our religious views onto other people’s lives, right?”
And would you choose between killing homeless people and throwing them into the river or killing them and using them for medical research — or would you reject this false choice and demand that they not be killed in the first place?
Chris Reply:
October 6th, 2011 at 11:44 am
@bmmg39, How arrogant of you to assume homeless people have a meaningful quality of life!
October 6th, 2011 | 11:14 am
Aside from the genuine ethcial questions about whether scientists should be creating human embryos for their intent destruction is the question of safety for women who chose to go through the hyper-stimulation of their ovaries to produce bulk eggs for the research for profit as is now legal to do in NY (against the recommendations of the National Insititute of Health by the way). The Empire State Stem Cell committee decided to allow this payment to women but will not set up a data base of donors for the purpose of long term research into the safety of the egg procument procedure. At present time, there has been no research to determine the the long term health consequences for women who undergo hyper ovarine stimulation multiple times. The going rate for each successful cycle is up to $10,000 which can seem very attractive to a poor woman who is trying to put food on the table for her kids but should she develop serious health complications from the egg donation process, $10,000 won’t even begin to cover her expenses. The price of her health to herself and her family is priceless. NY is exploiting young and financially vulnerable women for the sake of its own curiosity and greed. Feminists Choosing Life of NY has a pending lawsuit against the Empire state stem cell committee to help protect NY women from this potential exploitation.
October 6th, 2011 | 11:35 am
People need to get off their moral high horses and let science progress. There is no place for ethics in science.
October 6th, 2011 | 11:57 am
David: “The embryos have/had no consciousness, memories, self-awareness, etc….”
David, just let those of us who understand the science handle this issue. Consciousness, memories, and self-awareness are not prerequisites for status as a human being. There’s a reason the cloning of human embryos was outlawed in Australia and throughout most of Europe, and it certainly isn’t because those are “theocracies.”
David Reply:
October 6th, 2011 at 2:52 pm
@bmmg39,
Good, good, good. You are in my camp now. I agree with you.
Since the “cloning of human embryos” is outlawed, yet therapeutic cloning is perfectly fine in GB, Australia, Sweden, etc, there is no problem with therapeutic cloning, right? So, you are saying “human cloning” (or reproductive cloning) is different from “therapeutic cloning”, right?
Great, glad we agree.
therapeutic cloning is allowed in the following:
Spain, Belgium, Japan, GB, Australia, Sweden, Israel, South Korea, and Singapore
data and evidence:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2008/09/17/us-australia-stemcell-idUSSYD19317920080917
http://pewforum.org/Science-and-Bioethics/Stem-Cell-Research-Around-the-World.aspx
In the US:
http://www.ncsl.org/default.aspx?tabid=14284
Wesley J. Smith Reply:
October 6th, 2011 at 3:07 pm
David: Once gain, you are factually challenged. “Therapeutic cloning” isn’t outlawed in the USA, alas, except for a few states. It just can’t be funded by the Feds under the Dickey/Wicker Amendment.
David Reply:
October 6th, 2011 at 6:54 pm
@Wesley J. Smith,
Nowhere have I claimed that “therapeutic cloning is outlawed in the USA”.
I stated NOTHING about a banned legal status of therapeutic cloning in US. Zip, zilch, nada.
My previous post directly refutes your fabricated contention. I claimed:
“therapeutic cloning is allowed in the following…
In the US… [info for case-by-case exceptions, such as AR, IN, ND, etc, etc]”
No error on my part, try again.
Wesley J. Smith Reply:
October 6th, 2011 at 7:02 pm
That was hard to see at the bottom. But you are utterly wrong scientifically about this statement:
Since the “cloning of human embryos” is outlawed, yet therapeutic cloning is perfectly fine in GB, Australia, Sweden, etc, there is no problem with therapeutic cloning, right? So, you are saying “human cloning” (or reproductive cloning) is different from “therapeutic cloning”, right?”
Human cloning is done via SCNT (most commonly). “Therapeutic cloning” and “reproductive cloning” are both conducted in exactly the same way, e.g., cloning an embryo. After that, there is no more cloning. There is only the different uses of the embryo created thereby. In other words, the cloning techniques are exactly alike. Your statement is junk biology promoting an ethical perspective, not real scientific differences.
October 6th, 2011 | 12:02 pm
[...] Taylor and Wesley Smith discusses the human cloning/stem cell breakthrough that wasn’t. Taylor [...]
October 6th, 2011 | 4:03 pm
David writes: “Since the ‘cloning of human embryos’ is outlawed, yet therapeutic cloning is perfectly fine in GB, Australia, Sweden, etc, there is no problem with therapeutic cloning, right?”
No. Try harder this time: cloning of human embryos, including so-called “therapeutic” cloning, remains illegal in the majority of European nations. The only nations where cloning (including so-called “therapeutic” cloning) is legal in Europe are Spain, the United Kingdom, Belgium, and Sweden. So are Germany, France, Poland, Austria, and Italy, for examples, “right-wing theocracies”? (Also, in Germany and Italy, it is illegal to destroy a human embryo for research. So what are they?)
“So, you are saying ‘human cloning’ (or reproductive cloning) is different from ‘therapeutic cloning’, right?”
No, they are the same. Once you have used somatic cell nuclear transfer to create a new embryonic human being, you have already cloned, and you have already reproduced. Put again, so-called “therapeutic” cloning IS reproductive cloning. The only difference is that AFTER you have reproduced, the embryos are then deliberately destroyed, rather than implanted in a uterus. And, while Americans remain sharply divided on the issue of embryonic stem-cell research, they overwhelming oppose BOTH types of cloning (i.e. both for implanting in a uterus AND for destroying for ESCR purposes).
October 7th, 2011 | 9:09 am
[...] Human Cloning Research Breakthrough Is Unethical Secondhand Smoke, Wesley J. Smith [...]
October 7th, 2011 | 10:16 am
[...] NEW WORLD? “Human Cloning Research Breakthrough Is Unethical.” So, this is what I think: Human cloning is intrinsically unethical because it creates human [...]
October 7th, 2011 | 2:33 pm
[...] Wesley J. Smith calls out the Washington Post on their article regarding the alleged breakthrough in embryonic stem cell research – which is nothing of the sort. It is actually unethical human cloning: [...]
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