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CNN Live Sunday

U.S. Scientists Clone First Human Embryo

Aired November 25, 2001 - 17:03   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.
DONNA KELLEY, CNN ANCHOR: Cloning a human embryo for use in treating diseases is being called a scientific breakthrough, even through it maybe be a political and ethical land mine.

For details on the scientific side of the developments, let's turn to our CNN medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen.

Hi Elizabeth.

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Donna.

The science in this is very interesting. And you might think back to Dolly. But instead what we've done here is we've actually worked with human beings rather than with sheep. What scientists have done is they took adult human beings here on earth and created embryos that are clones of those human beings.

So for example, what they did -- and this is one way that they did it -- is they took an egg and they removed the DNA from that egg. And then what they went on to do, is they took a person, and they took the skin from that person, obtained the DNA from that skin and put it into that hollowed-out egg. So you now have an egg that has the DNA from another person.

They gave it a jolt of electricity, and that electricity caused that egg to turn into an embryo -- to divide and turn into an embryo. So you now have an embryo that has the DNA from only one person, not two.

Theoretically you should be able to put that embryo into a woman's stomach and nine months later, you'd have a baby. You put it into the woman's stomach, and she would become pregnant.

Now that is one way that doctors -- that the scientists came up to do -- came out with how to do this. They also came out with -- another way to clone human beings is they took an egg -- that's the same egg that we saw before -- and they put in chemicals. They put some chemicals on the egg that gave it a different electrical charge; the ions changed their charge. And that egg then became an embryo. It basically duplicated itself. So then you could do the same thing that we saw earlier. You theoretically could put that into a woman and start a pregnancy.

Now, what's very important here to note is that the company that did this, called Advanced Cell Technology in Massachusetts, they say that they have absolutely no desire whatsoever to get anyone pregnant with these cloned embryos. As a matter of fact, they say that they want to keep these embryos at the microscopic stage, and then what they could do is they take these microscopic embryos, take some of the cells out, and they could create medical therapies with those cells. Again, they say they don't want to create human beings; they want to keep these at the microscopic stage.

KELLEY: But they only -- they used eight eggs, Elizabeth, and they only made it to a certain stage with those, didn't they?

COHEN: Exactly. I mean, this doesn't seem to be the final way to do it; I mean, this is not the final version. This is the first time that anyone has done this. So it's unclear if they really could get therapies from what they created.

But, of course, they did create them, and that's a first step. They then, theoretically, would go on in the future to make sure that they could come up with therapies, too; but there's no saying if they could right now.

KELLEY: They did it two ways. They say that they don't want to make a human being -- they're trying to make that distinction -- that they took it and they made the embryo, but they're not going to take it to term, but others could, because they published the recipes, as you call them.

COHEN: Exactly. And actually, again, Cell Technology calls them recipes. They say yes, we know that we published two -- not just one, but two recipes for how to make a cloned human being. And there are some groups out there that are very vocal that say, we want to clone human beings. Well, now here they have two recipes that they could possibly follow.

KELLEY: And you have to use living DNA. We were talking about this earlier -- it can be skin, or -- they used skin this go around, didn't they?

COHEN: They used skin this time. When they made Dolly, they used a cell from her mammary glands. So there are various ways to do it. Skin is, of course, the least -- you know, it's not so -- you don't have to go in and get anything, you just use someone's skin. So in this case they used skin.

KELLEY: But it still -- it still could be dangerous for a mother and child, because they had a lot of problems with animals before, didn't they?

COHEN: Absolutely. And that's why Advanced Cell Technology and most people say, don't try to take any of these embryos -- don't put them in a woman and take them to term, because they usually come out with terrible, horrible defects. And often they're huge. And you certainly wouldn't want a woman carrying an embryo that's many times the size that it's supposed to be. So Advanced Cell Technology says, we don't want these taken to term; we don't want to put a mother or a fetus at risk. But there are some people who say, you know what, there's not much risk, and we should really try it.

And the fear among some people is that those groups will get ahold of this technology, since it's been published, and then put it to work.

KELLEY: What about the electricity that was used to start the cells dividing -- that's interesting.

COHEN: Isn't it? It's sort of in place of fertilization, is what it really is. I mean, usually what happens, sperm meets egg, and so then you have an embryo. Instead, what they did is they took just this egg that had DNA inside it and somehow, for some reason -- and I think no one completely understands why -- that jolt of electricity made it divide as if it were a fertilized egg and not just an unfertilized egg. So that was the method that they used.

KELLEY: Has this company, even though they said they don't want to take a human be being to term with this, are they concerned about other companies or other people who could get ahold of the technology and go nuts with it?

COHEN: Well, they said this morning on Wolf Blitzer's show that they are concerned, and they don't want anyone doing that. And they said -- they made it sounds as if they had weighed the pros and cons. They said, yes, publishing it would let everyone know how to do it, basically. But on the other hand, it could also lead to medical developments. Once you publish it, then other people can sit in their labs and try to make medical treatments.

Now, if these treatments come to pass, that could, medically speaking, be quite exciting. Because what you do is not just make any old treatment, you make a treatment that could be tailored to the person whose DNA you used. So for example, if I needed a liver, you could theoretically use an embryo and just keep it at the microscopic level, never grow it up -- use some of the cells to make a liver that would match me perfectly, because it's only my DNA that's been used to make it.

KELLEY: We're going to talk more about this, because we have a debate coming up, because controversy continues over those folks who believe life begins at conception, too.

So we'll talk more about that. Elizabeth Cohen, our medical correspondent, thanks as usual.

Today's announcement of cloning a human embryo setting off a chain reaction of criticism from the president on down. Mr. Bush is saying again he is totally opposed to the technique.

And we get the latest on the president's thinking from CNN's White House correspondent Kelly Wallace.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KELLY WALLACE, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): President Bush, through a spokeswoman, criticized the creation of the first cloned human embryos, the aide telling CNN, quote: "the president has made it clear that he is 100 percent opposed to any type of cloning of human embryos."

Lawmakers were also quick to express concern.

From the right...

SEN. RICHARD SHELBY (R), ALABAMA: I think what we have to do is think about, where does to lead us.

WALLACE: ... and from the left.

SEN. PATRICK LEAHY (D), VERMONT: It goes over the line in dealing with the natural order of things if it is being done simply to perpetuate another human being. But I think that we're talking about medical research.

WALLACE: It is already against the law to use taxpayer dollars to clone human embryos. And the White House believes Congress should go further and outlaw human cloning outright.

Listen to the president this summer, when he backed federal research only on already existing embryonic stem cell lines.

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I strongly oppose human cloning, as do most Americans. We recoil at the idea of growing human beings for spare body parts, or creating life for our convenience.

WALLACE: The House of Representatives voted this summer to ban human cloning and make it a criminal offense subject to prison time and fines. Now the administration says the Senate should do the same, but senators caution against any rush to legislate; and some advocate a compromise approach.

SEN. RICHARD DURBIN (D), ILLINOIS: We in the Senate have to draw that line so it's a reasonable line, so we can continue medical science and breakthroughs without crossing that line into something none of us want to see.

WALLACE: But other lawmakers worry about even allowing human cloning for scientific research.

SHELBY: All of us are very interested in biomedical research; we benefit from it. But this is a slippery slope, we better be careful.

WALLACE (on camera): It is not likely Congress will act this year, since the agenda is dominated by September 11-related issues. And even if Congress eventually imposes a ban, lawmakers of both parties believe that human cloning will still go on, either illegally in the U.S., or overseas.

Kelly Wallace, CNN. Hagerstown, Maryland.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KELLEY: And there is, of course, an ethical component to the public debate over cloning.

For a closer look at that, we want to turn to our two guests, both experts in bioethics. Jeffrey Kahn is with the Center for Bioethics at the University of Minnesota. And Kevin Fitzgerald is a priest and bioethicist at Georgetown in Washington.

Welcome to both of you. Father Fitzgerald, let's start with you. West -- Mr. West, who's the CEO of the company who made the announcement today said that he was just trying to help people who are sick. Is there a need for this? Is this the proper route?

KEVIN FITZGERALD, BIOETHICIST AND PRIEST: Well, certainly one can always put that out as the desire that one has, to help other people. You ask a very good question, though: Is this the route to go?

Here is a route that certainly comes up against, if not transcends, a principle that's been very important in our society, and in many societies -- and that is: You do not use one human life to profit another. They're...

KELLEY: But they're trying to make -- father, they're trying to make the distinction that it's for therapeutic, not reproductive. Is that valid?

FITZGERALD: Right. Well, that's a distinction that only holds if you already accept the fact that you can draw some line further on down and say, before this line we have somebody who doesn't count, after this line, now the person counts.

And there are various ways in which one wants to draw that line. A lot of different scientific data is used to support one way or the other. Nobody knows. There's a great deal of uncertainty in this area. And so one of the things that's important is for us to ask ourselves: What do we do when we don't know? How do we treat people about whose status we might have some question? And we can look to the past, to our own history as a species and how we have at different times said women don't count, people of color don't count, people with deficient intelligence don't count.

KELLEY: Dr. Kahn, what about playing God? You are, in essence, in some people's opinion, playing God. You are making a little human being, you are using that -- to sacrifice that little human being to help others.

DR. JEFFREY KAHN, CENTER FOR BIOETHICS: I think it depends a lot on how we think about when human life begins and when personhood begins. I think a real parallel to be drown what announced today and how we have already worked through thinking about policies toward stem cell research. The president, on August the 9th, said it was acceptable to use stem cells that were created before that date. Those stem cells were created from human embryos that were created by in vitro fertilization, and not being used by the couples for whom they were created.

I think that that same logic can be extended to use of embryos that were created by cloning, so long as that is not done for the purpose of reproduction. So, the therapeutic cloning versus reproductive cloning distinction, I think, is an important one for us to try to work through as a matter of public policy.

KELLEY: But Dr. Kahn, what do you think? Where is that line? Where do you think a person begins? These eight eggs that they talked about made it to a certain stage before they stopped dividing. one of it was like six-cell stage. Where do you put that? Father Fitzgerald talks about that -- where do you draw that line of where a person -- and you use the word, I guess, "personhood." Where does that start?

KAHN: I think the majority of Americans don't believe that eight-celled or 16-celled embryos are the same as you or I. They're not the same as people who are living, breathing, talking to each other as we are today. There's a real moral distinction between them...

KELLEY: But some people would say that if it starts out a human being, it will become a human being.

KAHN: Right. And I think it's not the same as saying they're not worth anything at all -- that there's some moral cost in doing research that is stem cell research. And there's a moral cost to therapeutic cloning. But we have to decide whether that moral cost is outweighed by the benefit to help sick people that can be realized by this sort of research going forward.

KELLEY: Father Fitzgerald, what about that? Is there a moral cost to helping others?

FITZGERALD: I think there definitely is. And I think Doctor Kahn brings up an excellent point. Even if one doesn't think that embryos have the same value as other persons, there still is this moral cost. Then one has to ask themselves, what cost this is that, and are there alternatives to this particular approach that will get us the same place we would like to do (sic) without having to pay that moral cost. One of...

KELLEY: What about that, Dr. Kahn, are there alternatives? Could you do that without using these human-cloned embryos?

KAHN: I think that nobody would prefer to use human-cloned embryos. But that's not the best course of action -- it certainly has a lot of ethical issues associated with it. But I don't think anybody is prepared to say we can forego that route because we know a better way or an equally good way. There should be research that allows us to look at adult stem cells and what their potential is. And at the same time I think we have to pursue these sorts of routes as well.

KELLEY: Father Fitzgerald, not do it at all, then, or do we have to pursue that route?

FITZGERALD: Well, I don't think that the case has been made yet that we have to pursue this route. There's a great deal of primate research that has not yet been pursued. That could give us a great deal of indication as to whether or not this is going to be successful at all.

Another thing that hasn't been mentioned yet today is all this therapy that's going to be developed depends upon using human eggs. Where are these eggs going to come from? Who is going to give and donate all these eggs so that these millions of people will be able to clone themselves? The logistics of this, even, argue against its being pursued.

KELLEY: We will have much more debate, as you can well image. We thank you both very much for joining us today; appreciate it. Father Kevin Fitzgerald, who's a bioethicist and priest, and Dr. Jeffrey Kahn with the -- director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Minnesota.

Pleasure to have you both. Thank you.

KAHN: Thank you.

FITZGERALD: Thank you.

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