With the current changes to federal funding of embryonic stem cell research, the future truly looks bright, however we don’t know how long it will be before the pendulum swings in the other direction.
Currently embryonic stem cell research can be performed with federal funding only on stem cell lines from left over from in-vitro fertilization labs, and those cannot be used for somatic transfer… another way of putting this is that therapeutic cloning cannot take place under the new guidelines.
As some people understand: this type of cloning can be used to clone cells from someone with a disease: for example cells containing the Parkinson’s disease and the genetic markers. From this point researchers could watch as the disease develops and use this information to create drugs which would inhibit the disease from ever developing in the human host.
Then we have reproductive cloning which is what we see in the movies: Not one stem cell researcher has proposed the cloning of human beings, And yet we have people who are afraid this will happen!!!
It is a profound mistake to “outlaw” therapeutic cloning, yet Congress has done just that. As you can see there are real differences between these two approaches to cloning—Let’s hope that this law is withdrawn soon.
What is your opinion?