One Step Too Far?

When U.S. biotech firm advanced Cell Technology announced last week that it had cloned the first human embryo, Europeans greeted the news with a mixture of interest, suspicion and revulsion. Scientists are keen to explore cloning as a potential source of embryonic stem cells, which could be used to treat diseases such as Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s, but many question the validity of ACT’s results.

Others were appalled by the experiments. Jörg-Dietrich Hoppe, president of Germany’s Federal Medical Board of Registration, described the U.S. research as “a nightmare unfortunately come true.”

Central to the debate is the distinction between therapeutic and reproductive cloning. Therapeutic cloning would be performed to harvest embryonic stem cells, which have the ability to grow into a variety of other cell types. These cells could then be implanted into patients to replace defective ones. Such procedures have not yet been carried out in humans, although experiments on animals have shown promising results.

Reproductive cloning, which involves inserting a person’s genetic material into an egg and allowing the egg to develop into a fetus, would be performed with the goal of bringing a cloned baby to term. Last week the U.K. rushed through emergency legislation banning reproductive cloning after a legal loophole was exposed in its current regulations.

Perhaps the best-known researcher attempting to defy the taboo on reproductive cloning is Severino Antinori, the maverick Italian gynecologist best known for helping a 62-year-old woman bear a child in 1994. Antinori, who dismisses his critics as “Taliban,” told Time that reproductive cloning could help infertile couples and that he was “very, very close” to cloning a human baby.

The mainstream medical community is skeptical of Antinori’s claims and takes a more moderate view of the issue. “There is a need for careful discussion and debate about human reproductive cloning,” says Harry Griffin, assistant director at the Roslin Institute, where Dolly the sheep was cloned in 1997. But, he said, anyone who insists on reproducing themselves “needs counseling, not cloning.”

The case for therapeutic cloning is less clear, clouded by as yet unproven medical and commercial possibilities. “If you could find a way of producing cells that would help maintain quality of life,” Griffin says, “the market potential would be tremendous.” But that potential would remain untapped if therapeutic cloning were banned. At present, every E.U. member state except the Benelux countries, Portugal and the U.K. have laws restricting cloning for research purposes.

Somewhat illogically, Germany, for example, permits the import of embryonic stem cells for research but bans the production of cloned embryos. Many countries are now contemplating relaxing such rules as the scientific possibilities and market potential become clearer.

In France, a 1994 bioethics law forbids the cloning of human embryos for any reason. But earlier this year when the bill was revisited, a heated debate arose over therapeutic cloning. Last month a number of prominent researchers and physicians signed a petition for the authorization of therapeutic cloning. “Reproductive and therapeutic cloning are two entirely different things,” French Health Minister Bernard Kouchner said last week. “The first should be banned, while the second should be permitted, though strictly legislated.”

Consensus seems unlikely in the near future. For the best part of a year, a European Parliament committee has been holding hearings to establish a framework for cloning research. Last week, a resolution went before the Parliament that called for a moratorium on therapeutic cloning. But in the end — after 400 amendments, some of which contradicted each other — not even the resolution’s originator could support it.

“What happened in the European Parliament was a kind of cloning experiment gone wrong,” sighs José MarÍa Gil-Robles Gil-Delgado, a Spanish MEP. “The vote underlines the confusion that reigns in the minds of politicians and the public.” Until that confusion is cleared up, neither the promise nor the perils of cloning will be properly understood.