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Cloning License for Dolly's Doc

Posted by Zonk on from the not-baaaaad dept.

Rollie Hawk writes "Ian Wilmut, leader of Dolly the sheep's team and Professor at the Roslin Institute in Edinburgh, has been given the green light by the British government's Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority to start further cloning research. As a matter of fact, he is now a licensed human cloner. The license has a duration of one year and is the second of its kind given by Britain, the first country to officially sanction human cloning research. Research will be focusing on motor neurone disease (MND). The team hopes to perform cell nuclear replacement on the skin cells of MND victims in order to create stem cells, the jack-of-all-trades of the cell family and the supposed magic bullets for ailments ranging from Alzheimer's to paralysis.

2 of 290 comments (clear)

  1. Is this a good idea AT THIS TIME? by beh · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I am not sure, whether this is really such a grand idea -- yes, genetics
    and cloning hold enormous potential, but I think with the current
    knowledge of this subject there should be a moratorium on actual
    experiments (especially on human cells) until we learn more of the
    background of the whole thing - and especially, until we have some form
    of agreement on ethical standards about what we want to achieve and how
    far we are willing to go.

    (Note: this is not the "we should leave this to god argument" -- simply
    because I am agnostic. But somehow I think before we start "playing
    god", we should at least get to know whatever we can on a theoretical
    level, before we go about practical experiments on it and decide what
    should be allowed and what should be off limits... )

    1. Re:Is this a good idea AT THIS TIME? by nuclear305 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      " I am not sure, whether this is really such a grand idea -- yes, genetics
      and cloning hold enormous potential, but I think with the current
      knowledge of this subject there should be a moratorium on actual
      experiments (especially on human cells) until we learn more of the
      background of the whole thing - and especially, until we have some form
      of agreement on ethical standards about what we want to achieve and how
      far we are willing to go."

      Ok, well the most obvious argument is "How do we learn without doing research?" We already know the "theoretical level" ...which is why people want to pursue research to begin with.

      That aside, who decides on the ethical standards? Who decides when we've learned enough "background" to proceed with experiments? Historically speaking there is no way...there will always be people that disagree and there will always be those who think we should put something off until we have a better understanding.