Welcome to GENETIC CROSSROADS #19
August 18, 2001
Supporting responsible uses of human genetic technologies
Opposing the new techno-eugenics
For subscription and submission information, see end of message.
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CONTENTS
I. EDITORS' NOTE
II. NEWS
1. Women's Health, Reproductive Rights Leaders Call for Cloning Ban
2. Cloning Advocates at the National Academy of Sciences
3. France and Germany Call for UN Debate on Human Cloning
III. EMBRYO CLONING AND STEM CELL RESEARCH
IV. EVENTS AND RESOURCES
1. Beyond Cloning Conference, Boston, September 21-22
2. New Human Genetic Engineering Listserv
V. ABOUT GENETIC CROSSROADS
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I. EDITORS' NOTE
Human cloning has captured the attention of the country. In the past few weeks it has been the subject of a Congressional vote (see Genetic Crossroads Bulletin #3, August 2), a conference held by the most prestigious scientific body in the US (see below), and intense media scrutiny. George Bush talked about cloning in his speech on stem cell research, and the ethics board he appointed will deliberate on it. The researchers who say they are working to produce a cloned child grabbed headlines, as did the announcement by a biotechnology company that it intends to clone human embryos in its privately funded laboratory.
Some of the news is encouraging. The House of Representatives voted in favor of a tough cloning ban. Pro-choice and progressive voices condemning human cloning and inheritable genetic modification are beginning to organize and be heard. A few prominent scientists have spoken out about the social and political threats posed by cloning, as well as about its serious health risks. France, Germany and other countries are asking the UN General Assembly to consider working towards a global ban on human cloning. An influential group of social conservatives that oppose human cloning is working to untangle it from abortion politics. In poll after poll, huge majorities reject the production of cloned or genetically "redesigned" children.
Other developments are disturbing. Many scientists and others say that they believe cloning will be acceptable once it can be done safely. Too few progressives are aware of what's at stake in the push for human cloning and inheritable genetic modification. Commercial interest in these dangerous technologies is quickly increasing. Confusion about the relationship between stem cell research and cloning is widespread.
This issue of Genetic Crossroads addresses many of these topics and gives pointers to information about others. But the most important message is this: We now face, with much heightened urgency, the job of building a broad groundswell to stop the technologies of eugenic engineering.
At this moment, the two constituencies visible in US debates about new human genetic technologies are the biotechnology lobby and opponents of abortion rights. Thus media coverage typically pits overblown promises of regenerative medicine against the claims of abortion foes about the moral status of embryos, and downplays or ignores the enormous social and political consequences of human cloning and inheritable genetic modification. No wonder, then, that many people are unaware that the techniques used in cloning would open the door for inheritable genetic modification and the takeoff of a new market-driven eugenics.
Our job is to alert and activate the broad constituencies who have not yet fully understood or engaged the dangers of eugenic engineering. In the next few weeks we will be launching a web site and planning a number of public events. Genetic Crossroads will keep you informed both about organizing developments and about events related to the new human genetic technologies as they unfold.
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II. NEWS
1. Women's Health and Reproductive Rights Leaders Call for Cloning Ban
In anticipation of the US Congressional vote on human cloning, Judy Norsigian of the Boston Women's Health Book Collective and other feminists circulated a letter calling for a ban on cloning among women's health and reproductive rights leaders. The letter and its more than 100 signatories are posted at <www.ourbodiesourselves.org/clone3.htm>.
From the letter: "To allow the creation of human clones would open the door to treating humans like interchangeable manufactured objects and commodities. It would violate deeply and widely held values concerning human individuality and dignity. It would pave the way for unprecedented new forms of eugenics. And it serves no justifiable purpose.
"Supporters of women's health and reproductive rights have particular reasons to oppose human cloning. There is no way that human cloning could be developed without unethical mass experimentation on women and children. Further, cloning advocates are seeking to appropriate the language of reproductive rights and freedom of choice to support their case. This is a travesty, and needs to be challenged. There is an immense difference between ending an unwanted pregnancy and creating a duplicate human...
"We also call for a moratorium of five years on the use of cloning to create human embryos for research purposes....The creation of clonal human embryos, which would increase the difficulty of enforcing a ban on the production of genetic duplicate humans, is unnecessary for [stem cell] investigations. This moratorium is prudent and reasonable policy when faced with a technology of such profound consequence."
To add your name and/or organization to the letter, or to discuss it, please contact Judy Norsigian at <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.> or Marcy Darnovsky at <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>.
The fact that human cloning is opposed by women's health advocates and other pro-choice constituencies is just beginning to be noticed by the media. One of the first stories on this broad opposition appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle on August 9. See <www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/ article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2001/08/09/MN24275.DTL>
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2. Cloning Advocates at the National Academy of Sciences
On August 7, three scientists who say they intend to begin cloning human children appeared at a widely covered session of a National Academy of Sciences (NAS) conference. Fertility researchers Panos Zavos and Severino Antinori shared a podium with Brigitte Boisellier, the Raelian scientist who claims to be working on cloning the dead child of a wealthy couple.
Most, though disturbingly far from all, of the biomedical scientists and bioethicists on the NAS panel said they oppose the production of cloned children. But many of them indicated that they believe human cloning is unethical only because it is too physically dangerous at this time. Much of the discussion thus focused on whether the technical difficulties that now accompany the cloning of animals can be overcome, so that attempts at human cloning could be considered safe.
The NAS is preparing policy recommendations on human cloning for a report scheduled for release by the end of September.
The presence of the "cowboy cloners" at the NAS conference, coupled with the failure of others in attendance to clearly condemn human cloning, serves to normalize the idea of cloning as a technique of assisted reproduction.
French Health Minister Bernard Kouchner, who co-founded the Nobel Prize-winning group Doctors Without Borders and who is calling on the United Nations to draft an international treaty banning human cloning (see below), said of the NAS event, "I simply fail to fathom how distinguished scientists of the kind present in Washington found nothing better to do than talk of the complexities or risks of such an enterprise."
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20010808/sc/health_cloning_dc_11.html
<http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20010809/hl/cloning_5.html>
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3. France and Germany Call for UN To Draft Global Cloning Treaty
France and Germany have launched a campaign for a global treaty to ban human cloning. On August 8 the two countries proposed that the United Nations General Assembly set up a committee to draft a legally binding international convention, and that human cloning be included on the agenda of the new General Assembly session, which begins next month.
Senior officials of both countries have spoken strongly in support of a global ban. "Action has to be taken to prevent the dangers and unpredictable consequences this poses to humankind...[W]e are trying to...mobilize the entire international community," said French Foreign Ministry spokesperson Bernard Valero. Reuters reported that French Health Minister and Doctors Without Borders co-founder Bernard Kouchner "stepped up pressure for a worldwide ban on human cloning...with a blistering attack on Italian doctor Severino Antinori" and called on Italy to remove Antinori's medical license.
<http://news.excite.com/news/ap/010808/20/germany-france-cloning>
<http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20010809/hl/cloning_5.html>
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III. EMBRYO CLONING AND STEM CELL RESEARCH
The relationship between embryo cloning and embryonic stem cell research is technically and politically complicated, and many media accounts of it have been misleading. The two procedures do overlap, but they are technically distinct and very different politically.
Most opponents of abortion rights object to embryo cloning and to any research on embryos that involves their destruction. The growing number of people who support both reproductive rights and research on embryonic stem cells are wary of embryo cloning for completely different reasons.
These pro-choice supporters of medical research are calling for a moratorium on embryo cloning, because the production of cloned embryos in labs around the country would greatly increase the likelihood that pregnancies would be initiated with some of them. The absence in the US of a ban on reproductive cloning, and of meaningful regulatory oversight of research and assisted reproduction facilities, heightens the concern.
Embryo cloning would also make germline engineering practical, by providing the "raw materials" for genetic manipulation of embryos--a point that has so far gone almost unnoticed in media coverage of the cloning debate.
A moratorium on embryo cloning need not hinder research on embryonic stem (ES) cells, which can and should continue using embryos produced in IVF procedures. Researchers can use these embryos to determine whether ES cells can in fact be used for therapeutic purposes. In these early days of stem cell research, no one yet knows whether ES cells can reliably be turned into needed tissue types, or whether they are as good as or better than adult stem cells for medical applications.
The other potential use of cloned embryos in stem cell therapies would be to create immune-compatible tissues. Many other avenues of existing and projected research also address that problem. But if it turns out that embryo cloning is needed to solve it, and if bans on reproductive cloning and inheritable genetic modification are in place, then the moratorium on embryo cloning should be revisited.
See "Can They Rebuild Us?," Peter Aldhous, Nature, April 5, 2001; "Hype over stem cells beginning to worry scientific community: Researchers warn cures may not come overnight," Keay Davidson, San Francisco Chronicle, August 5, 2001 <http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/ article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2001/08/05/MN32966.DTL>
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IV. EVENTS AND RESOURCES
1. Beyond Cloning Conference, Boston, September 21-22
"Beyond Cloning: Protecting Humanity from Species-Altering Experiments" will focus on the sorts of policies, legislation, international accords, and political work that will be needed, domestically and internationally, to prevent the new human genetic technologies from being used in ways that would alter the human species.
The conference is co-sponsored by the Health Law Department, Boston University School of Public Health, the Exploratory Initiative on the New Human Genetic Technologies, and the Chicago-Kent School of Law.
For further information on program, schedule, registration and lodging, see <http:www.bumc.bu.edu/www/sph/lw/website/index.htm>.
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2. New Human Genetic Engineering Listserv
A new listserv on human genetic engineering is dedicated to news and some commentary on cloning, germline modification, stem cell research, and other aspects of human genetic engineering. To subscribe, type: subscribe human-ge in the body of a message addressed to <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>.
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V. ABOUT GENETIC CROSSROADS (formerly Techno-Eugenics Email Newsletter)
This newsletter originated in 1999 out of the concerns of academics, activists, and others in the San Francisco Bay Area about the direction of the new human genetic and reproductive technologies. It is published by the Exploratory Initiative on the New Human Genetic Technologies, a public interest organization working to alert the public and leaders of civil society about the urgent need for societal oversight of these technologies and the dangers of the techno-eugenic vision.
We support genetic and reproductive technologies that serve the public interest. We oppose those--such as human germline engineering and human reproductive cloning--that would be likely to exacerbate inequality, the commercialization of reproduction, and the commodification of human genes and tissues.
GENETIC CROSSROADS is published approximately once a month. Feedback, submissions, and suggestions are welcome. Marcy Darnovsky will moderate. Please forward GENETIC CROSSROADS to others who may be interested.
Exploratory Initiative staff
Marcy Darnovsky, Ph.D. <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Richard Hayes, M.A. <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Tania Simoncelli, M.S. <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Jesse Reynolds, M.S. <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
To subscribe and for all other communications: <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>