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CNN Live Sunday

Interview with Dr. Arthur Caplan of University of Pennsylvania Health System

Aired November 26, 2001 - 22:52   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.
JUDY WOODRUFF, CNN ANCHOR: Well, for some insight into this sensitive ethical and legal consideration surrounding the news of this breakthrough, we're joined by Arthur Caplan in Philadelphia. He's director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania Health System.

Dr. Caplan, thank you for joining us. Let me just begin by asking, are we making too much of this? Is this a big breakthrough or not?

DR. ARTHUR CAPLAN, DIRECTOR, CENTER FOR BIOETHICS, UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA HEALTH SYSTEM: It's significant, because when you get to the point where you've made a human embryo, even just for research purposes, and even though they only got it to divide out to six cells, basically, very primitive development, it's a line that's crossed at this point.

WOODRUFF: Well, the doctors or the scientists at Advanced Cell Technology, this company, they seem to be making a distinction between having cloned a human being, which they haven't done yet, and what they're calling human cellular life. What's -- what is the distinction there?

CAPLAN: Well, I'm not sure I buy the description human cellular life, but I know what they're reaching for. If you make an embryo by cloning, it isn't clear yet to anybody, despite pronouncements from some people, that you can actually turn it into a human being, even if you wanted to turn it into a human being. There have been all kinds of problems in trying to clone monkeys. We haven't seen any monkey clones around. It may be that human beings can't be cloned.

And so what they are -- what they've created in a sense is a kind of human-like thing, but maybe something that can't turn into a person, and that's what they're trying to say. We don't want to make babies, we want to make this kind of cellular thing that we can use then to turn into tissues and organs that others could benefit from, but no baby-making.

WOODRUFF: Well, they say they don't want to do that, but what's to stop other companies or scientists from doing that?

CAPLAN: If it's privately done in the United States, nothing. We have no law. We have no regulation that would prohibit that. I think we're probably overdue for a law that says at present we should not have anyone intend to create a human being by cloning. That would definitely be unsafe. There isn't enough animal work to justify doing that at this time.

Whether we want to extend that out and include the kind of basic research that was announced today, just trying to create embryos in the first place in order to see whether you can mine them for different cells and then try to grow them into things that would be useful for diabetes or Parkinsonism or other diseases, that's where the rubber's going to hit the road in the political debate.

WOODRUFF: Well, from your reading of what's going on, and clearly Congress has no, at least as far as I know, has not been focused on this recently, would there be the kind of support out there to ban even the research piece of this? In other words, for therapeutic cloning rather than cloning a human being for reproductive purposes?

CAPLAN: I think so far. When Congress hears cloning, all hands go up in the air and people start running around not quite headless, but pretty close. They haven't been very precise. So, the bill that passed the house says no cloning, none at all. Nothing for research. No baby-making, nothing. Just end it.

I think it's possible to craft a law that says we don't want to see anyone making people, we're OK if they're trying to make certain things in dishes that they might use for medical research. My hunch is we're not going to get that. I think they're going to pain with a broad brush and probably just try to push forward a ban on all forms of human cloning.

WOODRUFF: Can you make an argument for the therapeutic form of cloning, period?

CAPLAN: I can -- I -- try it this way: I think we don't know yet what we've got when we take an egg and get it to divide on its own. When we take some DNA from our own body cells and create some kind of embryo-like thing, we may not have the ability to turn those into people. And if we can't make them into people, if human cloning really isn't possible, then it may be acceptable to create those things and use them to create diseases.

The other option, the one that President Bush was so turned off by, is to use human embryos made the old fashioned way, sperm and egg, and destroy them. If these constructs are not going to become people, then maybe they're a better choice. We just don't know yet what they can become. We haven't studied them enough to know. So, that's how you try to make a difference, and say these aren't really potential people.

WOODRUFF: And the other side of that argument is, if there's anything out there that would help people suffering, who need an organ, need a transplant, need spinal cord regeneration, if there is anything that would help them, why not try it?

CAPLAN: We have nothing to give to the person with spinal cord injury, with traumatic brain injury. Not much for Parkinsonism once it gets advanced, and there are a host of other diseases where we don't have enough livers to give to people who need them. We have diabetes dying all the time.

If you could make cell lines from these creations and turn them into something that the body wouldn't reject, because they come from your own DNA, you're making these clones from your own body cells, or in the case of a woman, from her own eggs, that would be a wonderful breakthrough in terms of being able to offer cures to people.

So, I think that side of the argument will be heard, because those people who are in those groups, those advocates for those diseases, the families, they're going to be getting to Congress too and saying wait a minute, maybe you don't want to make people, but don't, don't put a blockade between us and those cures. That's the best shot we have.

WOODRUFF: And in fact we heard from many of those people on the whole stem cell debate.

CAPLAN: Yes, and they'll be back again. Absolutely.

WOODRUFF: For sure. All right. Dr. Arthur Caplan, who is director of the Center of Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania. Thanks again.

CAPLAN: My pleasure.

WOODRUFF: Good to see you. And we appreciate your being with us tonight.

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