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CNN Sunday Morning

Interview With Art Caplan

Aired January 05, 2003 - 08:03   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: So are these cloning claims just stunts to promote a sect that believes aliens populated Earth with genetically engineered humans? Joining us with his insight is Art Caplan; he is the director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania.
Thanks for joining us this morning.

ART CAPLAN, BIOETHICIST, UNIV. OF PENNSYLVANIA: Thanks for having me.

O'BRIEN: You think this is a hoax, don't you?

CAPLAN: I do. I think that the Raelians are really using cloning as a way to recruit members and to raise money. We know that they've hoaxed in the past, over a year ago, in West Virginia, they took 250,000 from a man promising to clone his dead child. And when, in fact, their laboratory was raided by the FDA, there was nothing there except a graduate student and a high school science kit.

So I don't think they've given us anything in the past to make us trust their announcements. And today we have a sort of a clone of the week phenomenon going on, but no data.

O'BRIEN: We were supposed to have independent verification by now from this freelance journalist who was supposedly working with the Raelians or Clonaid. There are two reports on him today. One, that he shopped this around to the networks, including CNN, as an exclusive with himself as host of a cloning special. The other report that he was thinking about backing out of this now because of the delay in DNA testing by Clonaid. You know, what this would try to do to his reputation. Your thoughts on the use of this journalist as an independent verifier here?

CAPLAN: To put it bluntly, no one that the Raelians select as their verifier should be trusted. What you need is very simple. You need to have an agency, say the National Academy of Sciences, or one of the many professional associations of genetics, ask to appoint two or three experts who can go in, take the cell samples. And then maintain that evidence, make sure no one tampers, make sure no one touches it. And then just basically do the genetic testing that would prove beyond a shadow of a doubt whether you had a clone or not. And that testing could have been done days ago now. This kind of waffling around with the middleman, I think, is more evidence that something is really fishy here.

O'BRIEN: I realize that I'm about to give you a hole Michael Vick (ph) could do some real damage with, but...

CAPLAN: Don't say that to a Philadelphian.

O'BRIEN: I'm sorry about that. Well, you know, the teams may meet here, who knows.

But what do you think about the media's role in all this? I have to say as far as my employer is concerned, we've made it clear that nothing has been proven during every bit of coverage of this, talked about the background of the Raelians and Clonaid. Your thoughts on the media's take on all of all this?

CAPLAN: I've been spending a fair amount of time trying to debunk the Raelians, but I think they've gotten too much attention.

Basically, if somebody announced they'd found a new continent, that Atlantis was discovered, we'd probably say show us some pictures, who us some soil samples, tell us who else has been there.

These people have had kind of 10 days of continuous attention, continuous worldwide media coverage. And they still haven't been able to produce a shred of evidence. So, you don't want the public to think that science is just a matter of who can make the claims the loudest. And you don't want to lose the political debate, which is a serious one, both about reproductive cloning and should we use cloning for research? We don't want that to get lost in a kind of waterfall of UFO-logy claims.

O'BRIEN: I was going to say, if you kind of partially answered my next question, but if it is a hoax, what kind of damage does that do to the therapeutic cloning issue?

CAPLAN: It can do damage. I think a lot of people, not the majority of Americans, I think most Americans still look at this and say I don't buy any of this. But you can still lose the discussion. It looks like right now the debate is about, should we make babies this way.

Since I don't think that's at all possible and at all safe, and there seems to be no disagreement that we should prohibit that, then in one sense, we're all going to run over and try to prohibit the Raelians or anybody else from cloning. But using cloning to make embryos that you could then turn into stem cells for research, that is a valid use, an important scientifically possible use for cloning. And the argument about that is getting lost is getting lost as we say, gee, what can we do to stop nuts and crooks and con men from using the technology.

O'BRIEN: We were already getting into the thick of that particular debate when the Raelians and cloning came along.

CAPLAN: Yes.

O'BRIEN: You know, as a bioethicist, you had to have seen this coming, with the beginning cloning of Dolly, the sheep, the mapping of the human genome project. We were getting into some uncharted territory here. I mean, does it require legislation? I mean, at the very least, you have to be happy that there is a debate going on about all this, at least.

CAPLAN: It's good to hook the debate into the consciousness of Americans, and indeed worldwide. These issues are not just ones that the United States has to settle. We could use an international agreement, which I think we could get, on a prohibition on cloning until animals studies show it's safe. That is absolutely a must. And we should have both federal law and international conventions that make that so.

But beyond that, there are things going on in genetics right now, genetic testing, people going out and sampling DNA to see whether you might be at risk of getting a disease. And we don't have in place, in my view, adequate privacy protections, adequate anti-discrimination protections. Those are real issues right now.

Cloning is off five, 10, 15 years away. Today someone might want to test your DNA to see whether you are going to get breast cancer or going to get depression. We want to make sure that we have laws on the books that protect you.

O'BRIEN: We have to leave it there. Art Caplan, director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania, thanks so much for your insight this morning.

CAPLAN: My pleasure.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com







Aired January 5, 2003 - 08:03   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: So are these cloning claims just stunts to promote a sect that believes aliens populated Earth with genetically engineered humans? Joining us with his insight is Art Caplan; he is the director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania.
Thanks for joining us this morning.

ART CAPLAN, BIOETHICIST, UNIV. OF PENNSYLVANIA: Thanks for having me.

O'BRIEN: You think this is a hoax, don't you?

CAPLAN: I do. I think that the Raelians are really using cloning as a way to recruit members and to raise money. We know that they've hoaxed in the past, over a year ago, in West Virginia, they took 250,000 from a man promising to clone his dead child. And when, in fact, their laboratory was raided by the FDA, there was nothing there except a graduate student and a high school science kit.

So I don't think they've given us anything in the past to make us trust their announcements. And today we have a sort of a clone of the week phenomenon going on, but no data.

O'BRIEN: We were supposed to have independent verification by now from this freelance journalist who was supposedly working with the Raelians or Clonaid. There are two reports on him today. One, that he shopped this around to the networks, including CNN, as an exclusive with himself as host of a cloning special. The other report that he was thinking about backing out of this now because of the delay in DNA testing by Clonaid. You know, what this would try to do to his reputation. Your thoughts on the use of this journalist as an independent verifier here?

CAPLAN: To put it bluntly, no one that the Raelians select as their verifier should be trusted. What you need is very simple. You need to have an agency, say the National Academy of Sciences, or one of the many professional associations of genetics, ask to appoint two or three experts who can go in, take the cell samples. And then maintain that evidence, make sure no one tampers, make sure no one touches it. And then just basically do the genetic testing that would prove beyond a shadow of a doubt whether you had a clone or not. And that testing could have been done days ago now. This kind of waffling around with the middleman, I think, is more evidence that something is really fishy here.

O'BRIEN: I realize that I'm about to give you a hole Michael Vick (ph) could do some real damage with, but...

CAPLAN: Don't say that to a Philadelphian.

O'BRIEN: I'm sorry about that. Well, you know, the teams may meet here, who knows.

But what do you think about the media's role in all this? I have to say as far as my employer is concerned, we've made it clear that nothing has been proven during every bit of coverage of this, talked about the background of the Raelians and Clonaid. Your thoughts on the media's take on all of all this?

CAPLAN: I've been spending a fair amount of time trying to debunk the Raelians, but I think they've gotten too much attention.

Basically, if somebody announced they'd found a new continent, that Atlantis was discovered, we'd probably say show us some pictures, who us some soil samples, tell us who else has been there.

These people have had kind of 10 days of continuous attention, continuous worldwide media coverage. And they still haven't been able to produce a shred of evidence. So, you don't want the public to think that science is just a matter of who can make the claims the loudest. And you don't want to lose the political debate, which is a serious one, both about reproductive cloning and should we use cloning for research? We don't want that to get lost in a kind of waterfall of UFO-logy claims.

O'BRIEN: I was going to say, if you kind of partially answered my next question, but if it is a hoax, what kind of damage does that do to the therapeutic cloning issue?

CAPLAN: It can do damage. I think a lot of people, not the majority of Americans, I think most Americans still look at this and say I don't buy any of this. But you can still lose the discussion. It looks like right now the debate is about, should we make babies this way.

Since I don't think that's at all possible and at all safe, and there seems to be no disagreement that we should prohibit that, then in one sense, we're all going to run over and try to prohibit the Raelians or anybody else from cloning. But using cloning to make embryos that you could then turn into stem cells for research, that is a valid use, an important scientifically possible use for cloning. And the argument about that is getting lost is getting lost as we say, gee, what can we do to stop nuts and crooks and con men from using the technology.

O'BRIEN: We were already getting into the thick of that particular debate when the Raelians and cloning came along.

CAPLAN: Yes.

O'BRIEN: You know, as a bioethicist, you had to have seen this coming, with the beginning cloning of Dolly, the sheep, the mapping of the human genome project. We were getting into some uncharted territory here. I mean, does it require legislation? I mean, at the very least, you have to be happy that there is a debate going on about all this, at least.

CAPLAN: It's good to hook the debate into the consciousness of Americans, and indeed worldwide. These issues are not just ones that the United States has to settle. We could use an international agreement, which I think we could get, on a prohibition on cloning until animals studies show it's safe. That is absolutely a must. And we should have both federal law and international conventions that make that so.

But beyond that, there are things going on in genetics right now, genetic testing, people going out and sampling DNA to see whether you might be at risk of getting a disease. And we don't have in place, in my view, adequate privacy protections, adequate anti-discrimination protections. Those are real issues right now.

Cloning is off five, 10, 15 years away. Today someone might want to test your DNA to see whether you are going to get breast cancer or going to get depression. We want to make sure that we have laws on the books that protect you.

O'BRIEN: We have to leave it there. Art Caplan, director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania, thanks so much for your insight this morning.

CAPLAN: My pleasure.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com