Company Announces Cloning of First Human Embryo

The debate over human cloning has again reached headlines with the announcement on November 25 by a Massachusetts company that it has cloned the first human embryo. Advanced Cell Technology, Inc. has announced that the cloned human embryos survived for several days. The researchers also said that they were not planning on cloning humans, but only wanted to extract cells from the embryos for use in combating disease and creating organs for people who would die without them.

This recent announcement has again fueled the debate over human cloning, ranging from its moral implications to its usefulness to its feasibility. Certainly, this will have ramifications for the legal and science/technology community. Congress has expressed increased interest since the November 25th announcement. As of early December, Republicans attempted unsuccessfully to have the Senate take up a bill that would place a six-month moratorium on cloning to allow lawmakers to have a debate in the spring. The House had already passed the cloning ban.

Sean C. Etheridge, MTTLR

To learn more about cloning, some helpful links include:

Human Cloning Foundation: www.humancloning.org

The Human Genome Project Cloning Fact Sheet: www.ornl.gov/hgmis/elsi/cloning.html

MSNBC: http://www.msnbc.com/news/CLONING_front.asp