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CNN Sunday Morning

Weekend House Call

Aired January 19, 2003 - 08:31   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: Time now for "Weekend House Call." Dr. Sanjay Gupta in the house.
HEIDI COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: You do like that name?

SANJAY GUPTA, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: I think so. "Weekend House Call."

O'BRIEN: This is a house call that costs you absolutely nothing, we should tell you.

GUPTA: It's kind of like a house, except the cost of your cable bill, as you said.

O'BRIEN: There you go. You do have to -- throw that in. But after that, you're in.

COLLINS: It's very inexpensive.

O'BRIEN: So if something aches you or pains you, send Sanjay an e-mail. We'll give you his personal information.

GUPTA: Right. Or if you want to talk about cloning, which is what we're going to talk about today. And very hot topics capture the public's imagination and the president's legislation. There's going to be a lot of chat about this, the uses of cloning, the dangers of cloning, and the future of cloning.

Three weeks ago, the debate was ignited in a big way again, when we heard about the birth, possible birth of baby Eve. Did it really happen or was it just a hoax?

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BRIGITTE BOISSELIER, CLONAID CEO: It's an easy case...

GUPTA (voice-over): On December 27, a group called Clonaid really stunned the world by announcing what they said was the birth of the first cloned human, baby Eve.

BOISSELIER: I'm very, very pleased to announce that the first baby cloned is born. She was born yesterday at 11:55 AM.

GUPTA: Brigitte Boisselier, Clonaid's CEO, provided no photo, no proof of the baby whatsoever. But announced that within eight days the world would have scientific evidence that Eve was indeed a clone. But that has never happened. Boisselier says it's because of legal action.

An attorney in Florida did file a motion to have a guardian appointed for baby Eve. And the hearing is scheduled for this week. But many professionals in the reproductive field still think this is a hoax.

A week after Eve's birth, Clonaid announced another alleged clone birth, this one born in Europe to a Dutch lesbian. Again, no proof of child was provided. Groups that support human cloning say it would help infertile couples have children, but Clonaid and its founding religious group, the Raelians, believe cloning is their doorway to immortality.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: ... your memory, your personality, and to download it in a clone of yourself, an adult clone. So that's the secret, the key toward eternal life. When you die, you wake up in a new young body. And that's the ultimate goal.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

GUPTA: The key to immortality, supposedly. That's what Rael was saying there. Lots of interest in this. We're going to encourage all of you at home to either e-mail us or call us at 1-800-807-2620. There's the phone number on the screen.

We're going to take your cloning questions and we're going to have the help of a couple of guests. Joining me first is Dr. Art Caplan. He is director of The Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania. He's been on our air several times. You certainly probably recognize him. Good morning, Dr. Caplan.

ART CAPLAN, PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA: Good morning. Thanks for having me.

GUPTA: Thank you. And we also have Dr. Robert Lanza. I believe he's joining us from Worcester, Massachusetts. Dr. Lanza is actually involved with Advanced Cell Technology, a company that also is involved in cloning and has actually done some therapeutic cloning. We're going to distill these issues with both of you throughout the hour today. So thank you for joining us, both of you.

Dr. Lanza, let's start with you. You know you and I spoke right after this press conference that took place on December 27. You were pretty outraged, I believe, at some of the things that you heard. Tell me about your first reactions and whether now, a month later or so, do you think this really happened?

ROBERT LANZA, ADVANCED CELL TECHNOLOGY: No. Well, first of all, they haven't produced a baby, a parent, no DNA test. So I think without any scientific data all we can do at this point is assume this is a hoax.

GUPTA: OK. And Dr. Caplan, really quick from you. Your first reaction when you heard this news conference on the 27.

CAPLAN: Fooey (ph). I mean, just a hoax, flat out. Without any evidence or proof, given the history of the group, which has been to get involved in hoaxes in the past, I wasn't buying.

GUPTA: All right. Well a lot of people very interested in this topic. The dangers of cloning, the ethical issues of cloning. Heidi and Miles, this is a topic that we've been talking about a lot, and we're going to do that for the next 20 or 30 minutes or so.

O'BRIEN: I believe that is a scientific term, fooey (ph), right?

COLLINS: Fooey (ph).

O'BRIEN: Fooey (ph), yes. And does anybody really believe this claim any more at all?

GUPTA: There are some people who do. It's really captured the public's imagination.

COLLINS: Who are they?

GUPTA: But we're going to try and find out. There are some scientists who believe that maybe it did happen and maybe it should happen as well.

O'BRIEN: Two separate questions.

GUPTA: Yes.

O'BRIEN: Very different questions. All right.

COLLINS: All right. And when we come back, more possible uses of the cloning technology. Should some types of cloning be banned? We'll be answering your e-mails. And you can also call us at the number you see there on your screen: 1-800-807-2620.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GUPTA (voice-over): If you were to clone a human, here's how you might do it. First, take a woman's egg and remove the DNA. Then take some DNA from the person you want to clone and put that DNA into the hollowed out egg. Then expose this new egg to chemicals that would change its electrical charge, making the egg divide into an embryo. Finally, implant that embryo into a woman's uterus and the birth of a clone may occur nine months later.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

O'BRIEN: All right. We're back with "Weekend House Call." Dr. Sanjay Gupta giving us a lesson.

COLLINS: When you explain it like that it doesn't sound that difficult. But when it was first coming out, it was just out there as to how this process really works.

GUPTA: That's right. And we know a lot about that from animal data. How long it took for Dolly the sheep to actually come around. Over 200 attempts before that actually occurred.

We get a lot of questions about this. We are joined by Dr. Lanza and Dr. Caplan. A lot of scientific issues around this. We actually went to the streets to try and find some of your questions, and here's our first one.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Can you clone a human brain? Can you do that?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That's a good question.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Can you get, you know, better brains for other people? Because some people do kind of need that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GUPTA: Yes. And Dr. Lanza joining me from Worcester, Massachusetts. Talking about cloning human brains. And obviously that's sort of far off down the road there, Dr. Lanza. But talk about some of the uses in general of cloning.

LANZA: Well, what they may be discussing in terms of the brain is we will have the ability and already do to generate new neurons that could be used for patients, for instance, who have Alzheimer's Disease, Parkinson's Disease, and many other neuro degenerative disorders. But in addition to the use of these neurons, you could also, for instance, create insulin-producing cells to cure possibly diabetes. If you had heart disease, for instance, we could create new heart cells that could then be transplanted back into your body. And of course these would be your own cells, so your body wouldn't reject them. So there are literally hundreds of various applications that this technology could be used for.

GUPTA: Right. Go ahead -- and Dr. Caplan, real quick. You know we hear about all these promising things possibly in the future. When we talk about the future, how far away is this? Are we going to see this within the next couple of years or is this way down the line still?

CAPLAN: Well, in all honesty, Sanjay, I would be very surprised if anybody cloned a human being within five years, just because the animal data and the laboratory data shows that the failure rates are really significant. It's very difficult to get a healthy animal born by cloning right now. And some people have different ideas about why that is, but until we really understand the animal work, I wouldn't be looking for any human clones before five years.

GUPTA: And how about any of those promising technologies, Dr. Lanza? Any of the things you just mentioned? How far away are those?

LANZA: Well we already know, for instance, how to produce dopamine-producing cells in the Petri dish that could be used for Parkinson's Disease. So I think it's going to depend on the application. But certainly some of the applications could be available within a few years. Some of the more ambitious goals, such as cloning an entire kidney, may 10 ten years or so off.

GUPTA: All right. Both of you stand by. We got a phone call. This is Abe (ph) from Baltimore, who has a question for all of us. Go ahead, Abe (ph).

ABE: Yes. Which is easier to clone, a female or a male?

GUPTA: All right. Male or female. Dr. Lanza, you've actually done some actual cloning here, I think just recently a year ago. Can you answer that question?

LANZA: Absolutely the same. There's no difference whatsoever.

GUPTA: OK. Male and female, about the same. We also have some e-mail questions. Let's see if we can put up our first e-mail question, sort of along the same lines of what we've been talking about with regards to cloning. And I think you can read the e-mail question there.

"Can individual organs be cloned when you're born in case you need them later in life?" This almost sounds like the stuff of science fiction, quite honestly, to a lot of people who hear this for the first time. But can that happen, Dr. Caplan? Can you actually clone -- make organs for someone who might have liver failure later on in life?

CAPLAN: Well the dream is this: if you could somehow learn to make an embryo from your own cells in a dish and then put the right chemicals in there, maybe you could grow different kinds of cells that you could use someday to replace worn out body parts. Now that wouldn't mean making a whole new person whose organs you would come and get. I don't think we're going to be doing that, and I'd have to say that's clearly unethical to do. But if you could do research cloning, which is its own subject of controversy, you might be able to grow small bits of yourself and use them later, kind of like plugging a flat tire.

GUPTA: And you say research cloning, its own bit of controversy. Dr. Lanza, you draw a distinction, as many people do, between therapeutic and reproductive cloning. And you were outraged, as we said, about reproductive cloning. Why is therapeutic cloning OK, and why is it something that you do?

LANZA: Well, therapeutic cloning, the goal is to create embryonic stem cells in a Petri dish. The goal of reproductive cloning, of course, is to implant an embryo into a uterus to create an entire copy of a human being. And that clearly is not only scientifically unsafe, but there are very serious moral and ethical questions that surround that.

GUPTA: Is that your opinion, as well, Dr. Caplan? Do you think there are a lot of moral and ethical questions?

CAPLAN: There are some really tough ethical questions here because, obviously, for some people, even making something that might be embryo-like and then destroying it to make cells would be unethical. That's why it's so important to be clear how tough it is to make human beings by cloning. If it really is possible to do it at all, and it may not be possible, then the case for doing therapeutic or research cloning seems to me to be pretty clear. But the closer we get to thinking that human cloning is possible, then some people are going to say, you've got an embryo, an embryo is a person or at least has moral standing or rights from the time you make it, you can't destroy it.

GUPTA: All right. Well we're going to distill some of those dangers of some of the future of cloning over the next several minutes as well. Back to you guys.

O'BRIEN: All right. We appreciate it.

COLLINS: Thanks, Sanjay.

O'BRIEN: Coming up: can cloning backfire? Well, certainly the media event backfired. We'll look at the worst case scenario if the cloning process goes amuck, scientifically.

COLLINS: Keep those e-mails and phone calls coming. We'll be back right after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

O'BRIEN: All right. We're back. Dr. Gupta, here's my question: you just can't trust a cult that believes we're all aliens anymore. It's a darn shame when it comes to that. I just -- it's a very flip way of saying, why the heck did they get 35, 32 whatever minutes of CNN and every other broadcast -- excuse me, cable network that day, except for the fact that it was two days after Christmas and there was nothing else going on?

GUPTA: Well I think that's certainly part of it. I also think that this issue has captured the public's imagination, cloning. And I think when we do see the first human clone, it's not going to come out of a Stanford a (UNINTELLIGIBLE), a big, you know, well-known institution. It's probably going to come from...

O'BRIEN: Why? Why is that?

GUPTA: Well I think because there's so much public opposition to reproductive cloning. So there's some of these fringe scientists out there who believe it's OK, who are going to do it. And I think the first time we hear about it, it's really going to come from one of them. So that was part of the reason that it got so much play. But I really think people are very, very interested in this topic.

O'BRIEN: It can do an awful lot of harm, though, because what it does is taints what should be a rather serious debate and changes the way legislators think, and possibly impacts a lot of potential cures for, say, paralysis, ultimately, because it gets into the whole stem cell issue and all the other related areas, right?

GUPTA: I asked Dr. Boisselier that very question. I said, "Do you think that you've given a black eye to the cloning industry today?" She said no, obviously, but I think many scientists think that what you're saying is absolutely right.

O'BRIEN: I wonder...

(CROSSTALK)

COLLINS: And it's also true that it's been a month. To me, that tells me an awful lot. It's been a month, there's no baby, there's no DNA.

GUPTA: I think Dr. Caplan and Robert Lanza are clear on what they think actually happened here.

O'BRIEN: Fooey (ph) was the word.

GUPTA: Fooey (ph) was the word from Dr. Caplan. We've got a lot of questions actually from phone callers out there. Why don't we go ahead and take our first one. Pamela (ph) from New Jersey has a question about aging of the clone. This came up quite a bit. Go ahead, Pamela (ph).

PAMELA: Hi. If you're 30 years old and you decide to clone a baby from your DNA, wouldn't your baby, if it was even viable, possess 30-year-old DNA?

GUPTA: Well an interesting point. Dr. Lanza, do you want to go ahead and take that one?

LANZA: Yes. I know there's differences of opinions on this. But we did publish a very definitive paper that showed that the cloning process actually does reverse the aging procedure. You can take an old cell backward in time and restore to it a youthful state. But there may be differences in methodology where that may not occur.

For instance, when Dolly was cloned, there was concerned that the age of the donor cell that you're cloning was going to be reflected in the cloned animal. However, subsequent groups, our own as well, have shown that that isn't the case. That the cloning procedure does in fact reverse the aging procedure.

GUPTA: Right. And you know, Heidi, when the Raelians were talking about this, one of the things they actually wanted to do was, when you got to be older and were just about to die, they wanted to clone you at that point and literally download your personality into this clone. And that was how they defined immortality.

COLLINS: Not me in particular, because that would be a horrible idea. But I understand what you're saying.

GUPTA: Well, no. For you, I think it would be an OK idea. We've got another caller out there as well. And Lisa (ph) from Iowa has a question about the dangers and specifically the diseases that are passed on to a clone. Go ahead, Lisa (ph).

LISA: Hi. My daughter is a teenager, and at 16 she had a rare disease called Wegener's, with no known origin. And I was wondering, if she was cloned, would that child all develop this disease later in life, or would this baby have the disease as it was cloned?

GUPTA: Right. So we're talk about cloning an exact replica. Dr. Caplan -- Art Caplan, do diseases get passed on along with everything else?

CAPLAN: Any genetic disease that you have the clone is going get. So if you had juvenile diabetes, if you had a predisposition to get breast cancer at 30 or 40, the clone would, too. All those genetic traits would be passed along. That's one of the interesting problems about cloning. I think people think, oh, a clone is going to be dangerous somehow to the public health or the public safety. Probably not.

But a clone is going to know if their parent has a genetic disease, even a genetic predisposition, say, to baldness. They're going to get that, too.

O'BRIEN: Let me ask -- can I ask a strange -- and this is a little out there -- philosophical question, I guess, Sanjay. In a way, what it does is it completely undermines all of Darwin's theories, because the gene pool would remain static if everybody cloned, right? Am I too far out there, guys?

CAPLAN: Well that's not too far off, but the chance of people replacing sex with cloning as a way to reproduce, I wouldn't worry about it.

O'BRIEN: It sounds like a Woody Allen movie I saw once.

GUPTA: Dr. Caplan, really quick, as well, if you get rid of the scientific argument and you say, listen, cloning is safe scientifically, you're not going to get this sort of subspecies, are you still as sort of -- do you object to it as much if you give it the scientific safety?

CAPLAN: Well I think the safety issue is the big hurdle. But if you took it off the table, I don't think clones are a worry in terms of making armies or monsters. I think that's Hollywood.

I think the real issue then becomes, is it good to be a clone? You're going to be made in someone else's image, people will treat you like your parent, but in a very serious way, you're going to look just like your parent. And you will know things about your future. What diseases you're going to get, what appearance you're going to have. And that might limit your freedom.

Is that bad enough to ban it? I probably would say no. But it's something to think about.

GUPTA: Well very interesting.

O'BRIEN: You know what would be a kind of interesting scenario, if you could clone a husband and wife, and if they were to...

CAPLAN: Correct.

O'BRIEN: Think about that one.

CAPLAN: Emotionally you're going to have some odd relationships going.

O'BRIEN: Would they reunite? Would these clones get married and would they...

COLLINS: They would have to or it would just ruin the whole theory. Right?

CAPLAN: Another type of Woody Allen scenario.

GUPTA: Dr. Art Caplan, Dr. Robert Lanza, thank you both very much. This topic is going to come up over and over again. You know that. We're going to have you back on the air to talk more about it. Thank you very much, both of you.

CAPLAN: Thank you.

LANZA: Thank you. It was a pleasure.

O'BRIEN: Next week we'll look into the orgasmatron (ph) and other matters relating to Woody Allen.

COLLINS: No, we will not.

GUPTA: Wrong movie.

COLLINS: But still ahead: our "Weekend House Call." We're going to wrap things up here when we come back. What's on the cloning horizon?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

O'BRIEN: Do you know what it reminds me of? Biosphere. Remember Biosphere? It's just out of Tucson. I covered that a little bit.

And the fact is that the Biospherians, as you may recall, were -- well, they were a sandwich short of a full picnic, right? And...

COLLINS: (UNINTELLIGIBLE).

O'BRIEN: And -- but the fact is, you know, they went in there and they tried to have this closed ecosystem. Of course they're ordering Domino's pizza and all this stuff. But the truth of the matter was that the Biosphere, which was funded by the Bash (ph) brothers, no less, some real money there, did have some scientific validity. But that was just lost in the controversy. Is there anywhere in this Raelian group a shred, a scintilla of scientific validity?

GUPTA: My opinion is no.

O'BRIEN: OK. GUPTA: I don't think -- they went in and raided their lab before. They found a dusty old lab in an old high school. They went down to the Bahamas to look at their lab down there and they found a post office box. So I don't think the Raelians, but I do think there's other scientific validity out there. But let me tell you this: if there is a reason not to clone, and maybe the best reason of all not to clone, I think we have a video to show what that reason might be.

(LAUGHTER)

GUPTA: A world full of dancing baby O'Briens.

COLLINS: I can hear them whining through the screen.

GUPTA: That image alone...

O'BRIEN: You know the interesting thing is I go to the graphics department to try and get some bona fide news items, they tell me, "We're too busy." And now we know what they're doing.

COLLINS: Sanjay Gupta, thanks so much for being here. And clearly, I'm not the only one who is mean to Miles.

GUPTA: No.

COLLINS: Thanks Dr. Sanjay.

GUPTA: Thanks for having me.

COLLINS: See you next time.

GUPTA: Appreciate it.

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 19, 2003 - 08:31   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Time now for "Weekend House Call." Dr. Sanjay Gupta in the house.
HEIDI COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: You do like that name?

SANJAY GUPTA, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: I think so. "Weekend House Call."

O'BRIEN: This is a house call that costs you absolutely nothing, we should tell you.

GUPTA: It's kind of like a house, except the cost of your cable bill, as you said.

O'BRIEN: There you go. You do have to -- throw that in. But after that, you're in.

COLLINS: It's very inexpensive.

O'BRIEN: So if something aches you or pains you, send Sanjay an e-mail. We'll give you his personal information.

GUPTA: Right. Or if you want to talk about cloning, which is what we're going to talk about today. And very hot topics capture the public's imagination and the president's legislation. There's going to be a lot of chat about this, the uses of cloning, the dangers of cloning, and the future of cloning.

Three weeks ago, the debate was ignited in a big way again, when we heard about the birth, possible birth of baby Eve. Did it really happen or was it just a hoax?

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BRIGITTE BOISSELIER, CLONAID CEO: It's an easy case...

GUPTA (voice-over): On December 27, a group called Clonaid really stunned the world by announcing what they said was the birth of the first cloned human, baby Eve.

BOISSELIER: I'm very, very pleased to announce that the first baby cloned is born. She was born yesterday at 11:55 AM.

GUPTA: Brigitte Boisselier, Clonaid's CEO, provided no photo, no proof of the baby whatsoever. But announced that within eight days the world would have scientific evidence that Eve was indeed a clone. But that has never happened. Boisselier says it's because of legal action.

An attorney in Florida did file a motion to have a guardian appointed for baby Eve. And the hearing is scheduled for this week. But many professionals in the reproductive field still think this is a hoax.

A week after Eve's birth, Clonaid announced another alleged clone birth, this one born in Europe to a Dutch lesbian. Again, no proof of child was provided. Groups that support human cloning say it would help infertile couples have children, but Clonaid and its founding religious group, the Raelians, believe cloning is their doorway to immortality.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: ... your memory, your personality, and to download it in a clone of yourself, an adult clone. So that's the secret, the key toward eternal life. When you die, you wake up in a new young body. And that's the ultimate goal.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

GUPTA: The key to immortality, supposedly. That's what Rael was saying there. Lots of interest in this. We're going to encourage all of you at home to either e-mail us or call us at 1-800-807-2620. There's the phone number on the screen.

We're going to take your cloning questions and we're going to have the help of a couple of guests. Joining me first is Dr. Art Caplan. He is director of The Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania. He's been on our air several times. You certainly probably recognize him. Good morning, Dr. Caplan.

ART CAPLAN, PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA: Good morning. Thanks for having me.

GUPTA: Thank you. And we also have Dr. Robert Lanza. I believe he's joining us from Worcester, Massachusetts. Dr. Lanza is actually involved with Advanced Cell Technology, a company that also is involved in cloning and has actually done some therapeutic cloning. We're going to distill these issues with both of you throughout the hour today. So thank you for joining us, both of you.

Dr. Lanza, let's start with you. You know you and I spoke right after this press conference that took place on December 27. You were pretty outraged, I believe, at some of the things that you heard. Tell me about your first reactions and whether now, a month later or so, do you think this really happened?

ROBERT LANZA, ADVANCED CELL TECHNOLOGY: No. Well, first of all, they haven't produced a baby, a parent, no DNA test. So I think without any scientific data all we can do at this point is assume this is a hoax.

GUPTA: OK. And Dr. Caplan, really quick from you. Your first reaction when you heard this news conference on the 27.

CAPLAN: Fooey (ph). I mean, just a hoax, flat out. Without any evidence or proof, given the history of the group, which has been to get involved in hoaxes in the past, I wasn't buying.

GUPTA: All right. Well a lot of people very interested in this topic. The dangers of cloning, the ethical issues of cloning. Heidi and Miles, this is a topic that we've been talking about a lot, and we're going to do that for the next 20 or 30 minutes or so.

O'BRIEN: I believe that is a scientific term, fooey (ph), right?

COLLINS: Fooey (ph).

O'BRIEN: Fooey (ph), yes. And does anybody really believe this claim any more at all?

GUPTA: There are some people who do. It's really captured the public's imagination.

COLLINS: Who are they?

GUPTA: But we're going to try and find out. There are some scientists who believe that maybe it did happen and maybe it should happen as well.

O'BRIEN: Two separate questions.

GUPTA: Yes.

O'BRIEN: Very different questions. All right.

COLLINS: All right. And when we come back, more possible uses of the cloning technology. Should some types of cloning be banned? We'll be answering your e-mails. And you can also call us at the number you see there on your screen: 1-800-807-2620.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GUPTA (voice-over): If you were to clone a human, here's how you might do it. First, take a woman's egg and remove the DNA. Then take some DNA from the person you want to clone and put that DNA into the hollowed out egg. Then expose this new egg to chemicals that would change its electrical charge, making the egg divide into an embryo. Finally, implant that embryo into a woman's uterus and the birth of a clone may occur nine months later.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

O'BRIEN: All right. We're back with "Weekend House Call." Dr. Sanjay Gupta giving us a lesson.

COLLINS: When you explain it like that it doesn't sound that difficult. But when it was first coming out, it was just out there as to how this process really works.

GUPTA: That's right. And we know a lot about that from animal data. How long it took for Dolly the sheep to actually come around. Over 200 attempts before that actually occurred.

We get a lot of questions about this. We are joined by Dr. Lanza and Dr. Caplan. A lot of scientific issues around this. We actually went to the streets to try and find some of your questions, and here's our first one.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Can you clone a human brain? Can you do that?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That's a good question.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Can you get, you know, better brains for other people? Because some people do kind of need that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GUPTA: Yes. And Dr. Lanza joining me from Worcester, Massachusetts. Talking about cloning human brains. And obviously that's sort of far off down the road there, Dr. Lanza. But talk about some of the uses in general of cloning.

LANZA: Well, what they may be discussing in terms of the brain is we will have the ability and already do to generate new neurons that could be used for patients, for instance, who have Alzheimer's Disease, Parkinson's Disease, and many other neuro degenerative disorders. But in addition to the use of these neurons, you could also, for instance, create insulin-producing cells to cure possibly diabetes. If you had heart disease, for instance, we could create new heart cells that could then be transplanted back into your body. And of course these would be your own cells, so your body wouldn't reject them. So there are literally hundreds of various applications that this technology could be used for.

GUPTA: Right. Go ahead -- and Dr. Caplan, real quick. You know we hear about all these promising things possibly in the future. When we talk about the future, how far away is this? Are we going to see this within the next couple of years or is this way down the line still?

CAPLAN: Well, in all honesty, Sanjay, I would be very surprised if anybody cloned a human being within five years, just because the animal data and the laboratory data shows that the failure rates are really significant. It's very difficult to get a healthy animal born by cloning right now. And some people have different ideas about why that is, but until we really understand the animal work, I wouldn't be looking for any human clones before five years.

GUPTA: And how about any of those promising technologies, Dr. Lanza? Any of the things you just mentioned? How far away are those?

LANZA: Well we already know, for instance, how to produce dopamine-producing cells in the Petri dish that could be used for Parkinson's Disease. So I think it's going to depend on the application. But certainly some of the applications could be available within a few years. Some of the more ambitious goals, such as cloning an entire kidney, may 10 ten years or so off.

GUPTA: All right. Both of you stand by. We got a phone call. This is Abe (ph) from Baltimore, who has a question for all of us. Go ahead, Abe (ph).

ABE: Yes. Which is easier to clone, a female or a male?

GUPTA: All right. Male or female. Dr. Lanza, you've actually done some actual cloning here, I think just recently a year ago. Can you answer that question?

LANZA: Absolutely the same. There's no difference whatsoever.

GUPTA: OK. Male and female, about the same. We also have some e-mail questions. Let's see if we can put up our first e-mail question, sort of along the same lines of what we've been talking about with regards to cloning. And I think you can read the e-mail question there.

"Can individual organs be cloned when you're born in case you need them later in life?" This almost sounds like the stuff of science fiction, quite honestly, to a lot of people who hear this for the first time. But can that happen, Dr. Caplan? Can you actually clone -- make organs for someone who might have liver failure later on in life?

CAPLAN: Well the dream is this: if you could somehow learn to make an embryo from your own cells in a dish and then put the right chemicals in there, maybe you could grow different kinds of cells that you could use someday to replace worn out body parts. Now that wouldn't mean making a whole new person whose organs you would come and get. I don't think we're going to be doing that, and I'd have to say that's clearly unethical to do. But if you could do research cloning, which is its own subject of controversy, you might be able to grow small bits of yourself and use them later, kind of like plugging a flat tire.

GUPTA: And you say research cloning, its own bit of controversy. Dr. Lanza, you draw a distinction, as many people do, between therapeutic and reproductive cloning. And you were outraged, as we said, about reproductive cloning. Why is therapeutic cloning OK, and why is it something that you do?

LANZA: Well, therapeutic cloning, the goal is to create embryonic stem cells in a Petri dish. The goal of reproductive cloning, of course, is to implant an embryo into a uterus to create an entire copy of a human being. And that clearly is not only scientifically unsafe, but there are very serious moral and ethical questions that surround that.

GUPTA: Is that your opinion, as well, Dr. Caplan? Do you think there are a lot of moral and ethical questions?

CAPLAN: There are some really tough ethical questions here because, obviously, for some people, even making something that might be embryo-like and then destroying it to make cells would be unethical. That's why it's so important to be clear how tough it is to make human beings by cloning. If it really is possible to do it at all, and it may not be possible, then the case for doing therapeutic or research cloning seems to me to be pretty clear. But the closer we get to thinking that human cloning is possible, then some people are going to say, you've got an embryo, an embryo is a person or at least has moral standing or rights from the time you make it, you can't destroy it.

GUPTA: All right. Well we're going to distill some of those dangers of some of the future of cloning over the next several minutes as well. Back to you guys.

O'BRIEN: All right. We appreciate it.

COLLINS: Thanks, Sanjay.

O'BRIEN: Coming up: can cloning backfire? Well, certainly the media event backfired. We'll look at the worst case scenario if the cloning process goes amuck, scientifically.

COLLINS: Keep those e-mails and phone calls coming. We'll be back right after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

O'BRIEN: All right. We're back. Dr. Gupta, here's my question: you just can't trust a cult that believes we're all aliens anymore. It's a darn shame when it comes to that. I just -- it's a very flip way of saying, why the heck did they get 35, 32 whatever minutes of CNN and every other broadcast -- excuse me, cable network that day, except for the fact that it was two days after Christmas and there was nothing else going on?

GUPTA: Well I think that's certainly part of it. I also think that this issue has captured the public's imagination, cloning. And I think when we do see the first human clone, it's not going to come out of a Stanford a (UNINTELLIGIBLE), a big, you know, well-known institution. It's probably going to come from...

O'BRIEN: Why? Why is that?

GUPTA: Well I think because there's so much public opposition to reproductive cloning. So there's some of these fringe scientists out there who believe it's OK, who are going to do it. And I think the first time we hear about it, it's really going to come from one of them. So that was part of the reason that it got so much play. But I really think people are very, very interested in this topic.

O'BRIEN: It can do an awful lot of harm, though, because what it does is taints what should be a rather serious debate and changes the way legislators think, and possibly impacts a lot of potential cures for, say, paralysis, ultimately, because it gets into the whole stem cell issue and all the other related areas, right?

GUPTA: I asked Dr. Boisselier that very question. I said, "Do you think that you've given a black eye to the cloning industry today?" She said no, obviously, but I think many scientists think that what you're saying is absolutely right.

O'BRIEN: I wonder...

(CROSSTALK)

COLLINS: And it's also true that it's been a month. To me, that tells me an awful lot. It's been a month, there's no baby, there's no DNA.

GUPTA: I think Dr. Caplan and Robert Lanza are clear on what they think actually happened here.

O'BRIEN: Fooey (ph) was the word.

GUPTA: Fooey (ph) was the word from Dr. Caplan. We've got a lot of questions actually from phone callers out there. Why don't we go ahead and take our first one. Pamela (ph) from New Jersey has a question about aging of the clone. This came up quite a bit. Go ahead, Pamela (ph).

PAMELA: Hi. If you're 30 years old and you decide to clone a baby from your DNA, wouldn't your baby, if it was even viable, possess 30-year-old DNA?

GUPTA: Well an interesting point. Dr. Lanza, do you want to go ahead and take that one?

LANZA: Yes. I know there's differences of opinions on this. But we did publish a very definitive paper that showed that the cloning process actually does reverse the aging procedure. You can take an old cell backward in time and restore to it a youthful state. But there may be differences in methodology where that may not occur.

For instance, when Dolly was cloned, there was concerned that the age of the donor cell that you're cloning was going to be reflected in the cloned animal. However, subsequent groups, our own as well, have shown that that isn't the case. That the cloning procedure does in fact reverse the aging procedure.

GUPTA: Right. And you know, Heidi, when the Raelians were talking about this, one of the things they actually wanted to do was, when you got to be older and were just about to die, they wanted to clone you at that point and literally download your personality into this clone. And that was how they defined immortality.

COLLINS: Not me in particular, because that would be a horrible idea. But I understand what you're saying.

GUPTA: Well, no. For you, I think it would be an OK idea. We've got another caller out there as well. And Lisa (ph) from Iowa has a question about the dangers and specifically the diseases that are passed on to a clone. Go ahead, Lisa (ph).

LISA: Hi. My daughter is a teenager, and at 16 she had a rare disease called Wegener's, with no known origin. And I was wondering, if she was cloned, would that child all develop this disease later in life, or would this baby have the disease as it was cloned?

GUPTA: Right. So we're talk about cloning an exact replica. Dr. Caplan -- Art Caplan, do diseases get passed on along with everything else?

CAPLAN: Any genetic disease that you have the clone is going get. So if you had juvenile diabetes, if you had a predisposition to get breast cancer at 30 or 40, the clone would, too. All those genetic traits would be passed along. That's one of the interesting problems about cloning. I think people think, oh, a clone is going to be dangerous somehow to the public health or the public safety. Probably not.

But a clone is going to know if their parent has a genetic disease, even a genetic predisposition, say, to baldness. They're going to get that, too.

O'BRIEN: Let me ask -- can I ask a strange -- and this is a little out there -- philosophical question, I guess, Sanjay. In a way, what it does is it completely undermines all of Darwin's theories, because the gene pool would remain static if everybody cloned, right? Am I too far out there, guys?

CAPLAN: Well that's not too far off, but the chance of people replacing sex with cloning as a way to reproduce, I wouldn't worry about it.

O'BRIEN: It sounds like a Woody Allen movie I saw once.

GUPTA: Dr. Caplan, really quick, as well, if you get rid of the scientific argument and you say, listen, cloning is safe scientifically, you're not going to get this sort of subspecies, are you still as sort of -- do you object to it as much if you give it the scientific safety?

CAPLAN: Well I think the safety issue is the big hurdle. But if you took it off the table, I don't think clones are a worry in terms of making armies or monsters. I think that's Hollywood.

I think the real issue then becomes, is it good to be a clone? You're going to be made in someone else's image, people will treat you like your parent, but in a very serious way, you're going to look just like your parent. And you will know things about your future. What diseases you're going to get, what appearance you're going to have. And that might limit your freedom.

Is that bad enough to ban it? I probably would say no. But it's something to think about.

GUPTA: Well very interesting.

O'BRIEN: You know what would be a kind of interesting scenario, if you could clone a husband and wife, and if they were to...

CAPLAN: Correct.

O'BRIEN: Think about that one.

CAPLAN: Emotionally you're going to have some odd relationships going.

O'BRIEN: Would they reunite? Would these clones get married and would they...

COLLINS: They would have to or it would just ruin the whole theory. Right?

CAPLAN: Another type of Woody Allen scenario.

GUPTA: Dr. Art Caplan, Dr. Robert Lanza, thank you both very much. This topic is going to come up over and over again. You know that. We're going to have you back on the air to talk more about it. Thank you very much, both of you.

CAPLAN: Thank you.

LANZA: Thank you. It was a pleasure.

O'BRIEN: Next week we'll look into the orgasmatron (ph) and other matters relating to Woody Allen.

COLLINS: No, we will not.

GUPTA: Wrong movie.

COLLINS: But still ahead: our "Weekend House Call." We're going to wrap things up here when we come back. What's on the cloning horizon?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

O'BRIEN: Do you know what it reminds me of? Biosphere. Remember Biosphere? It's just out of Tucson. I covered that a little bit.

And the fact is that the Biospherians, as you may recall, were -- well, they were a sandwich short of a full picnic, right? And...

COLLINS: (UNINTELLIGIBLE).

O'BRIEN: And -- but the fact is, you know, they went in there and they tried to have this closed ecosystem. Of course they're ordering Domino's pizza and all this stuff. But the truth of the matter was that the Biosphere, which was funded by the Bash (ph) brothers, no less, some real money there, did have some scientific validity. But that was just lost in the controversy. Is there anywhere in this Raelian group a shred, a scintilla of scientific validity?

GUPTA: My opinion is no.

O'BRIEN: OK. GUPTA: I don't think -- they went in and raided their lab before. They found a dusty old lab in an old high school. They went down to the Bahamas to look at their lab down there and they found a post office box. So I don't think the Raelians, but I do think there's other scientific validity out there. But let me tell you this: if there is a reason not to clone, and maybe the best reason of all not to clone, I think we have a video to show what that reason might be.

(LAUGHTER)

GUPTA: A world full of dancing baby O'Briens.

COLLINS: I can hear them whining through the screen.

GUPTA: That image alone...

O'BRIEN: You know the interesting thing is I go to the graphics department to try and get some bona fide news items, they tell me, "We're too busy." And now we know what they're doing.

COLLINS: Sanjay Gupta, thanks so much for being here. And clearly, I'm not the only one who is mean to Miles.

GUPTA: No.

COLLINS: Thanks Dr. Sanjay.

GUPTA: Thanks for having me.

COLLINS: See you next time.

GUPTA: Appreciate it.

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