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Cloning License for Dolly's Doc
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.
" I am not sure, whether this is really such a grand idea -- yes, genetics
...which is why people want to pursue research to begin with.
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"
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.