Human Embryos Cloned, Killed to Harvest Stem Cells

In a similar manner that Dolly the sheep was cloned in 1996 (somatic cell nuclear transfer, or SCNT), researchers implanted DNA from two men into four women's eggs and then "created" living human beings, which they destroyed in order to produce stem cell lines for further research.

“This and every technical advance in cloning human tissue raises the possibility that somebody will use it to clone a human being, and that is a prospect everyone is against.”
-- Marcy Darnovsky, Executive Director, Center for Genetics and Society (Berkeley, CA)

For background, read Court OKs Obama Killing Embryos with Tax Dollars and also read Obama Administration OKs Aborted Baby Brain Experiments

Such destruction of human life is unnecessary because Stem Cell Science is Advancing WithOUT Embryos.

-- From "Cloning advance using stem cells from human adult reopens ethical questions" by Ariana Eunjung Cha, Washington Post 4/17/14

The first success in humans was reported last year by scientists at the Oregon Health & Science University and the Oregon National Primate Research Center. But they used donor cells from infants. In this study, the cells came from two men, a 35-year-old and a 75-year-old.

While the research published Thursday involves cells that are technically an early stage embryo, the intention is not to try to grow them into a fully formed human. However the techniques in theory could be a first step toward creating a baby with the same genetic makeup as a donor.

The research was conducted in California by a large team that included representatives from both academia and industry and was funded by a private medical foundation and South Korea’s Ministry of Science.

At least 15 states have laws addressing human cloning. About half of them ban both reproductive and therapeutic cloning.

To read the entire article above, CLICK HERE.

From "In a cloning first, scientists create stem cells from adults" by Sharon Begley, Reuters 4/17/14

The advance, described online in the journal Cell Stem Cell, is the first time researchers have achieved "therapeutic cloning" of adults. Technically called somatic-cell nuclear transfer, therapeutic cloning means producing embryonic cells genetically identical to a donor, usually for the purpose of using those cells to treat disease.

But nuclear transfer is also the first step in reproductive cloning, or producing a genetic duplicate of someone . . .

If the embryo were implanted in a uterus, it could develop into a clone of the DNA donor, which is how Dolly was created. "Without regulations in place, such embryos could also be used for human reproductive cloning, although this would be unsafe and grossly unethical," said Dr Robert Lanza, chief scientist of Massachusetts-based biotech Advanced Cell Technology and a co-author of the new study.

The goal is to grow these embryonic stem cells in lab dishes and coax them to turn into specialized cells for therapeutic use against an illness the DNA donor has, such as Parkinson's disease, heart disease, multiple sclerosis or type-1 diabetes. Because the cells are genetically identical to the donor's, they would not be rejected by the immune system.

To read the entire article above, CLICK HERE.

From "Scientists use cloning to make stem cells matched to two adults" by Monte Morin, Los Angeles Times 4/17/14

The scientists in Oregon and the authors of the new report acknowledged that the clones they created could develop into babies if implanted in surrogate wombs. But like others in the field, they have said reproductive cloning would be unethical and irresponsible.

Experts who were not involved in the experiments said the achievement was significant because it offered clear confirmation that so-called therapeutic cloning is possible with human cells. Given the field's history of fraudulent claims, such confirmation was valuable, said stem cell researcher Sean Morrison, director of the Children's Medical Center Research Institute at UT Southwestern.

To read the entire article above, CLICK HERE.

From "Scientists use cloning to make stem cells matched to two adults" by Monte Morin, Los Angeles Times 4/22/14

Dr Robert Lanza, the chief scientific officer for Advanced Cell Technology Inc., has been working on SCNT off and on for about 15 years.

In the years that Lanza spent working on therapeutic cloning, many of his colleagues shifted their focus to a method that uses viruses and other compounds to rewind a cell to an earlier, more flexible state of development. The researcher who first developed these induced pluripotent stem cells, or iPS cells, won a Nobel Prize for the work.

With so much momentum behind iPS cells, it's unlikely that the new study will prompt many researchers to return their focus to SCNT, said Dr Arnold Kriegstein, director of the Developmental and Stem Cell Biology Program at UCSF School of Medicine.

"With the iPS technology, almost any molecular biology lab can create stem cell lines using simply skin cells, or even blood cells," said Kriegstein, who wasn't involved in the cloning studies.

To read the entire article above, CLICK HERE.

Not to mention that iPS technology does NOT require killing embryos!

Also read Lab 'Creates' Human Life with 3 Biological Parents as well as Stem Cell Cloning, Buying Women's Eggs

Lab 'Creates' Human Life with 3 Biological Parents

Oregon scientists are creating human embryos by removing the nucleus of an egg from one woman and placing it into an egg from another woman, and then fertilizing the concocted egg with a man's sperm.  The resulting offspring thus has genetic material of three people.

For background, read Designer Babies with Three Biological Parents

UPDATE 2/19/14: Obama's FDA: Why not Three Biological Parents?

-- From "Oregon scientists make embryos with 2 women, 1 man" by Malcolm Ritter, Associated Press 10/24/12

The researchers at Oregon Health & Sciences University said they are not using the embryos to produce children, and it is not clear when or even if this technique will be put to use. But it has already stirred a debate over its risks and ethics in Britain, where scientists did similar work a few years ago.

The British government is asking for public comment on the technology before it decides whether to allow its use in the future. One concern it cites is whether such DNA alteration could be an early step down a slippery slope toward "designer babies" — ordering up, say, a petite, blue-eyed girl or tall, dark-haired boy.

Questions have also arisen about the safety of the technique, not only for the baby who results from the egg, but also for the child's descendants.

Laurie Zoloth, a bioethicist at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill., said in an interview that safety problems might not show up for several generations. She said she hopes the United States will follow Britain's lead in having a wide-ranging discussion of the technology.

To read the entire article above, CLICK HERE.

From "Three-parent embryo could prevent inherited disease" by Andy Coghlan, New Scientist 10/25/12

This technique was trialled in four monkeys in 2009. They all gave birth to healthy offspring which are still going strong.

Now, Shoukhrat Mitalipov of the Oregon National Primate Research Center in Beaverton, and his colleagues have fused human eggs using a similar technique. Mitalipov extracted the nucleus from 65 eggs and replaced each one with the nucleus from another donor egg.

The team then fertilised the eggs and let them grow into a ball of about 100 cells called a blastocyst. This takes about five or six days and is normally around the time that such a fertilised egg would become implanted into the womb. Of the 65 donated eggs that were fertilised, 48 per cent grew into healthy-looking blastocysts. Their development was similar to that of 33 unaltered fertilised eggs.

Just over half of the eggs in the study developed abnormally.

To read the entire article above, CLICK HERE.

From "Scientists in Oregon Create Embryos With Three Genetic Parents" by Rebecca Taylor, LifeNews.com 10/25/12

Why would scientists want to engineer an embryo with the genetic material from three people? Because they say it will “prevent” the inheritance of mitochondrial disease. Not all of our DNA that we inherit is in the nuclei of the egg and sperm that join at fertilization. In the cytoplasm of our mother’s egg are mitochondria. Mitochondria have their own DNA called mtDNA. We inherit our mtDNA only from our mother because sperm’s mitochondria are dumped at conception. There are genetic mutations that cause very serious disease found in mtDNA and a woman with a such a mutation cannot help but pass this mutation on to her children.

To read the entire article above, CLICK HERE.

Stem Cell Cloning, Buying Women's Eggs

Scientists in New York crossed ethical boundaries in research in which abnormal human clones were created, using eggs purchased from desperate women in need of money, in order to destroy the living matter to harvest embryonic stem cells.

-- From "Stem cell research used cloning technique, paid women for eggs" by Eryn Brown, Los Angeles Times 10/6/11

. . . The [research] team paid the women who provided the eggs used in the study, a practice that has been forbidden by ethical guidelines from scientific organizations around the world. Some ethicists have argued that paying women for their eggs might create an exploitative trade. But in this case, it may be the reason why the researchers were able to collect enough healthy eggs (they used 270 in all) to get their historic result.

Teams have "tried to recruit donors on altruistic grounds and failed," said New York Stem Cell Foundation researcher and study co-leader Dieter Egli, during a press conference on Tuesday. "That's why we knew it was not the way to go in New York."

To avoid exerting undue influence on the donors, the New York team paid them $8,000 for the time and burden of donation (which does pose risks), then allowed them to decide later if they wanted their eggs to be used for research or for reproduction. That way, the conversation about payment was already over before any talk about scientific research began.

To read the entire article above, CLICK HERE.

From "Scientists report possibly crucial advance in human embryonic stem cell research" by Rob Stein, Washington Post 10/5/11

Scientists reported Wednesday that for the first time they had used cloning techniques to generate embryonic stem cells containing the genes of specific patients.

The experiments, which produced genetically abnormal cells useful only for research, have raised new concerns in a field rife with ethical, moral and political quandaries.

For the first time, scientists paid women for their eggs to use for human embryonic stem cell research, stirring worries about women being exploited and putting their health at risk. And they made the stem cells by producing and then destroying mutant embryos. Because of their genetic abnormalities, those embryos could not have survived. Their moral status immediately became the subject of debate.

“They have created human embryos. They are abnormal, but they are still human embryos,” said Daniel P. Sulmasy, a professor of medicine and ethics at the University of Chicago. “Anyone who is opposed to the deliberate creation and destruction of human embryos, as I am, would be opposed to this research.”

To read the entire article above, CLICK HERE.

From "Cloning Research Gives Way To Bioethics Questions" transcript from NPR "All Things Considered" 10/5/11

GUY RAZ, host: Now that scientists have used cloning techniques to create a human embryo, there's sure to be debate about the ethics of all this. Insoo Hyun is an associate professor of Bioethics at Case Western Reserve University, and he joins me now. Welcome to the program.

. . .
HYUN: Well, some people may think that we are now down a slippery slope toward getting cloned babies. And that's certainly a major concern for policymakers and the public.

RAZ: So explain the thinking behind the restrictions on paying women to donate eggs for this kind of research.

HYUN: The main concern is that when you put money on the table, women would not give a fully voluntary choice to participate. So the idea is that paying women for the time and inconvenience may be exploitative of women who are in desperate need of money. That's the main concern, that it undermines people's voluntary choice.

To read the entire transcript above, CLICK HERE.

Designer Babies with Three Biological Parents

Successful experimentation with monkeys shows promise for creating humans with transplanted DNA from egg to egg, to manipulate genetic traits, including presumed defects believed to lead to disease.

For background, read Designer Babies Available Upon Request

UPDATE 10/25/12: Lab 'Creates' Human Life with 3 Biological Parents

-- From "DNA swap could cure inherited diseases" by Mark Henderson, The Times (London) Science Editor 8/27/09

The technique is controversial . . . because the children it creates would inherit genetic material from three parents. The mother and father would contribute most of their child’s DNA but a small amount would come from a second woman donating healthy mitochondria.

Such children would be the first produced by germline genetic engineering, in which genes introduced by artificial means would be passed to successive generations.

Although more than 99 per cent of a cell’s DNA is carried in the nucleus, a small amount resides in the mitochondria — tiny energy-producing structures inherited from the mother — and it is mutations in this mitochondrial DNA that can cause disease.

. . . the technology could be applied “pretty quickly” in humans, and that his team would apply to an internal ethics board and the US Food and Drug Adminstration for permission to try it with human eggs.

To read the entire article, CLICK HERE.

Obama Administration Outlines Embryo Destruction

The proposed rules avoid "the morally thorny territory of creating embryos for research, which is . . . politically quite messy."

-- From "Draft rules expand stem cell research options" By Bina Venkataraman, [Boston] Globe Correspondent 4/18/09

The federal government yesterday released its draft rules for funding embryonic stem cell research - expanding opportunities but stopping short of allowing government-sponsored scientific projects to use human embryos created solely for experimental purposes.

The National Institutes of Health proposed limiting federally funded research to use of embryos that would otherwise be discarded from fertility clinics. That is expected to significantly expand the number of stem cell lines available to researchers who seek to do basic research and develop treatments for a variety of intractable diseases.

But the Obama administration made clear it does not intend to finance research that uses embryos created solely for research purposes or cloned by scientists - more controversial procedures with less public and congressional support.

Within minutes of yesterday's announcement, researchers in the Boston area publicly praised the proposed rules for making new research possible. Privately, some expressed concern that the rules might exclude certain lines of stem cells currently in use because there is no paper trail showing the original donors consented to their use. Some scientists elsewhere in the country are also concerned that the guidelines exclude cloned embryos that could be used to develop genetically tailored organs more effective for transplant.

Some researchers believe cloned embryos are important in developing genetically matched organs for transplant. But projects that use these more controversial human embryos are expected to continue, said Dr. Leonard Zon, director of the stem cell research program at Children's Hospital Boston, as long as they retain the support of private philanthropists.

To read the entire article, CLICK HERE.

Unmentioned in the article are the other legislative hurdles yet resolved.

UK: Parliament Votes to Allow Creation of Human Animal Hybrids

Exaggerated hope for cures leads Brits to cross a terrible line...

From "MPs back creation of human-animal embryos" by Mark Henderson and Francis Elliot, posted 5/20/08 at timesonline.co

British scientists will be allowed to research devastating diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s using human-animal embryos, after the House of Commons rejected a ban yesterday.

An amendment to the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill that would have outlawed the creation of “human admixed embryos” for medical research was defeated in a free vote by a majority of 160, preserving what Gordon Brown regarded as a central element of the legislation.

...A second amendment, which would have banned the creation of “true hybrids” made by fertilising an animal egg with human sperm, or vice-versa, was...defeated yesterday by a majority of 63. Another free vote last night was expected to approve the use of embryo-screening to create “saviour siblings” suitable to donate umbilical cord blood to sick children.

Edward Leigh, Conservative MP for Gainsborough, moving the amendment to ban all admixed embryos, said that mingling animal and human DNA crossed an “ultimate boundary”. He said that exaggerated claims were giving patients false hope and that the dangers of the research were unknown. “In many ways we are like children playing with landmines without any concept of the dangers of the technology we are handling,” he said.

Read the rest of this article.

If Embryonic Stem Cell Research is so Promising Why do Supporters Need to Lie?

From "Nascent Falsehood" by David Freddoso, posted 4/2/07 at National Review Online

On March 13, a group of patients of suffering from various diseases descended upon Capitol Hill, lobbying their lawmakers to fund the therapies that had successfully treated them — therapies involving the use of adult stem- cells.
One of them, a Long Island woman receiving adult-stem-cell therapy for multiple myeloma, approached Sen. Charles Schumer (D., N.Y.) and told him about the successful treatment she was receiving. According to two other witnesses to the conversation, Schumer told her he supports funding adult-stem-cell research, but added that he did not “share your religious views” and that he also embraces embryonic-stem-cell research.

“But Senator,” the woman replied. “Adult stem cells produce cures. Embryonic stem cells have never produced any cures.”

“Yes they have,” Schumer replied. “I’ve met with two patients that have been treated with embryonic stem cells.”

Schumer’s staff has not yet responded to inquiries on the clearly mistaken answer he gave. In fact, embryonic stem cells have never successfully treated any disease in humans, and human trials of such therapies are more than a decade away, because currently they tend to produce malignant tumors in animal test subjects.

Many writers have already questioned just how promising embryonic research is, given that the best science now suggests that it will never cure Alzheimer’s and it probably won’t cure autoimmune diseases such as juvenile diabetes. But the falsehoods that seem inevitably to accompany embryonic research as a political issue should themselves give voters pause. Why must the backers of this research invoke bad science and sow public confusion every time the issue appears in the public square? Schumer’s statement, even if it is just the result of innocent confusion or scientific ignorance, just is one falsehood among many.

Read the rest of this article.

Illinois Senate Passes Embryonic Stem Cell and Cloning Bill

From Illinois Senate Passes Embryonic Stem Cell and Cloning Bill, published Feb. 23, 2007, by The Illinois Family Institute.

Senators in Springfield vote 35 to 23 to use tax dollars to fund human embryonic stem cell research and cloning. Thirty votes were needed to pass this this bill. It now moves on to the House for further debate.

To see how your senator voted, click here.

Private funding has dried up for embryonic stem cell research because over the last two decades of research NO viable treatments have been developed. It is both immoral and a waste of money.

Please contact your state representative and urge them to vote no.