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My name is Stuart Newman. I have been a professor
of Cell Biology and Anatomy at New York Medical College since 1979, where I
teach medical and graduate students and direct a laboratory in developmental
biology. This is the scientific field that studies embryo development, cloning,
regeneration, and stem cells. My work on the development of the skeletal system
in animal embryos has been supported over the past 25 years by grants from the
National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health. I am
currently the recipient of two Federal grants.
Since my student days I have also been concerned
with the uses to which scientific research is put. My doctoral research in
chemistry at the University of Chicago was conducted at the James Franck
Institute. Professor James Franck was a Nobel prize winning atomic physicist who
was the principal author of the May 1945 Franck Report. This document
anticipated the horrors of nuclear weapons and was the first call by scientists
for international controls over these weapons. The Franck report was a landmark
in scientific responsibility and its message ultimately prevailed.
Having become convinced that scientists, who are
beneficiaries of public resources, have a deep responsibility to anticipate what
lies down the road in their own fields and to themselves act as a resource for
the public on the complex issues around applications of scientific research, I
joined with other scientists, social scientists, feminists and community
advocates to found the Council for Responsible Genetics in the late 1970s. The
Council is now the Nation’s oldest organization scrutinizing and interpreting
the new genetic technologies, and has worked for protecting genetic privacy,
ending genetic discrimination, exercising caution on the development and
dissemination of genetically engineered crops, banning biological weapons, and
banning the introduction of inheritable genetic modifications into humans. This
last issue relates to my own field of expertise. Over the past quarter century I
have seen laboratory findings such as virus-based gene therapies and
implantation of fetal tissues employed prematurely or inappropriately in humans
through a process that while often having noble motivations has also been mixed
with appreciable amounts of wishful thinking, hype and greed.
Last year the Council issued the Genetic Bill of
Rights (appended) which touches on all the above issues. The last of the ten
listed Rights states:
All people have the right to have been
conceived, gestated, and born without genetic manipulation.
This position arose, in part, from scientific
consideration of the inherent uncertainties in performing such manipulations,
which include cloning. Reviewing the animal studies in this area led Professor
Rudolf Jaenisch of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to state "I
believe there probably isn't a normal clone around." Our postion also
emanated
from the fact that any person engineered in
this fashion will be an experiment, subject to the kinds of disappointments
associated with experiments failing to meet expectations. A grim aspect of
this experimental approach to producing people would the devaluation of
"unfavorable" outcomes if, as in cloning, the same procedure could
be performed repeatedly until a desired outcome was reached. In addition,
while the Council for Responsible Genetics is unequivocally committed to women’s
right not to proceed with a pregnancy if that is her choice, we, along with
many feminists and others who affirm this right, are concerned that
"reproductive choice" is increasingly taken to include the right to
genetically improve the next generation. If this is allowed it may soon lead
to baby design and reproductive boutiques. Eugenics, defining humans as
genetically superior or inferior and implementing those definitions, has a
horrific history that we dare not repeat.
In line with the Genetic Bill of Rights, and in
light of new experimental results
and proposals to generate and modify human embryos, the Council for
Responsible Genetics issued a policy statement on human embryo research
earlier this month. The statement is appended and I will summarize it here:
The Council for Responsible Genetics opposes the
utilization of human eggs and embryos for experimental manipulations and as
items of commerce.
We therefore call for a ban on the buying or
selling of human eggs or embryos, and the manipulation of any and a ll human
eggs or embryos by transfer of cells, nuclei, cytoplasm, mitochondria,
chromosomes, or isolated DNA or RNA molecules of human or non-human origin.
These bans are to apply whether or not the
embryos are to be implanted and gestated.
No human embryo is to be produced solely for
purposes of research.
These bans are to apply irrespective of the
sources of funding, whether public or private.
It is essential that the United States join the
many other nations that have banned reproductive cloning. But note that we call
for a ban not just on reproductive cloning but on so-called "therapeutic
cloning" as well. That is, even if a cloned embryo is not intended for
gestation we are opposed to its manufacture. We have become convinced that if
the construction of modified or cloned embryos is permitted there will be little
standing in the way of using them for reproductive purposes. At that point
gestation of cloned embryos would easily become defined as a matter of
individual choice.
The bans that we call for would in no way
curtail the option to employ in vitro fertilization for reproductive purposes.
Moreover, while we do not explicitly reject the production of embryo stem
cells from excess embryos produced by in vitro fertilization, my own view is
that other scientific avenues, specifically adult stem cell research, have
greater promise. A group of my colleagues at New York Medical College recently
published on the repair of damaged mouse hearts with adult mouse stem cells. I
know of no comparable successes with embryo stems cells in the mouse, even
though such cells have been available and researched for more than a decade.
Any objective view of the relevant animal research would conclude that adult
stem cells are the better bet.
As recently as a year or two ago advocates of
human cloning were careful to state that an embryo produced by cloning had no
less dignity as a potential human than an embryo produced by fertilization.
Now that some technical advantage is seen in making donor-matched stem cells
from cloned embryos, distinctions are being made by interested parties between
producing embryos for research by fertilization (still not acceptable) and
doing so by cloning (now acceptable). If we let purely technical and
utilitarian considerations determine what is acceptable in human reproduction
and production, in a few brief years human error will assuredly lead to the
production of humans with avoidable errors.
As a scientist, I am personally concerned that
the products of our research not be used for dangerous and divisive purposes,
which would bring disrepute to science and undermine our ability to do
beneficial work. As these new technologies proliferate the question
continually arises as to "where to draw the line." Because embryo
cloning will, with virtual certainty, lead to the production of
"experimental" human beings, both as a scientist and a citizen I
urge you to draw the line here.
APPENDIX I
Council for Responsible Genetics
Statement on Embryo Research
June 2001
The Council for Responsible Genetics unequivocally supports a woman's right to
make her own reproductive decisions. However, we oppose the utilization of human
eggs and embryos for experimental manipulations and as items of commerce because
of the potential for eugenic applications and health risks to women and their
offspring.
The Council for Responsible Genetics therefore calls for a ban on the buying or
selling of human eggs or embryos, and the manipulation of any and all human eggs
or embryos by transfer of cells, nuclei, cytoplasm, mitochondria, chromosomes,
or isolated DNA or RNA molecules of human or non-human origin.
This ban would apply whether or not the embryos are to be implanted and gestated
and irrespective of the sources of funding, whether public or private.
No human embryo is to be produced solely for purposes of research.
APPENDIX II
THE GENETIC BILL OF RIGHTS
PREAMBLE
Our life and health depend on an
intricate web of relationships within the biological and social worlds.
Protection of these relationships must inform all public policy.
Commercial, governmental, scientific and medical
institutions promote manipulation of genes despite profound ignorance of how
such changes may affect the web of life. Once they enter the environment,
organisms with modified genes cannot be recalled and pose novel risks to
humanity and the entire biosphere.
Manipulation of human genes creates new threats
to the health of individuals and their offspring, and endangers human rights,
privacy and dignity.
Genes, other constituents of life, and
genetically modified organisms themselves are rapidly being patented and turned
into objects of commerce. This commercialization of life is veiled behind
promises to cure disease and feed the hungry.
People everywhere have the right to participate
in evaluating the social and biological implications of the genetic revolution
and in democratically guiding its applications.
To protect our human rights and integrity and the
biological integrity of the earth, we, therefore, propose this Genetic Bill of
Rights.
THE GENETIC BILL OF RIGHTS
All people have the right to preservation of the
earth’s biological and genetic diversity.
All people have the right to a world in which
living organisms cannot be patented, including human beings, animals, plants,
microorganisms and all their parts.
All people have the right to a food supply that
has not been genetically engineered.
All indigenous peoples have the right to manage
their own biological resources, to preserve their traditional knowledge, and to
protect these from expropriation and biopiracy by scientific, corporate or
government interests.
All people have the right to protection from
toxins, other contaminants, or actions that can harm their genetic makeup and
that of their offspring.
All people have the right to protection against
eugenic measures such as forced sterilization or mandatory screening aimed at
aborting or manipulating selected embryos or fetuses.
All people have the right to genetic privacy
including the right to prevent the taking or storing of bodily samples for
genetic information without their voluntary informed consent.
All people have the right to be free from genetic
discrimination.
All people have the right to DNA tests to defend
themselves in criminal proceedings.
All people have the right to have been conceived,
gestated, and born without genetic manipulation.
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