BOSTON, June 25, 2002 (LSN.ca) – The cloning of human embryos is well underway in some of the world's laboratories, scientists say. In the end, they admit, it is inevitable that someone, somewhere will go ahead with human clone experimentation.
An attempt to ban so-called “therapeutic cloning” failed in the U.S. Senate two weeks ago, in response to cloning experiments by Advanced Cell Technology Inc. (ACT) last fall. Several maverick researchers around the world claim to have implanted cloned embryos in women, though no evidence has been provided.
In Britain, where embryo research has the support of government, a professor in a London teaching hospital, and a research laboratory in Scotland, are now licensed to carry out embryo cloning experiments.
Dr. Xiangzhang Yang, of the University of Connecticut, says he has “been briefed on the human cloning work in 'half a dozen labs' in China,” according to a feature in the Boston Globe. At least one of the Chinese labs successfully cloned a human embryo before ACT, Yang says, and all have conducted numerous embryo experiments. Dr. Yang says he himself will begin experimentation as soon as an embryo-cloning proponent sits in the White House (i.e., when it becomes legal). Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor Rudolf Jaenisch, who has made numerous breakthroughs in animal cloning, says he will also go ahead with human embryo work as soon as government funds are available—because he says federal vetting would ensure high safety standards.
But the key point is made by Michael Lysaght, director of Brown University's biomedical engineering program: “You're not going to be able to put a lid back on the jar or put the genie back into the bottle.”