The new technological revolution has begun yet again. In Massachusetts, scientists at Advanced Cell Technology have cloned a cow’s kidney from an embryo. While this could be an amazing feat, what is even more astounding is that the cloned
organ actually functioned in most of the ways that an (for lack of a better term) “organic” kidney would and was not rejected by the cow’s body. By extracting the stem cells just as they began to specialize into a kidney function and colonizing them in what is known as a
“biocompatible scaffolding” — basically a mold of the organ to be created — they were able to “create” a kidney. This new science has intense ramifications on medicine, by divorcing the supply of donor organs from the need to wait for a person to die from a head injury or other fatal accident. More than that, it clears the path for a near-limitless organ supply.
However, there is one thing standing in the way of this advance in medical science. We have a deep-seated mistrust of cloning and cloning technology. Some of this is religious in nature; people have been taught that to clone a human being or any part of a human is little more than “playing God.” Others feel that an embryo, no matter how early in its development stage, is a human being and therefore sacrosanct. This discourse in the debate over cloning has been picked up by anti-abortion advocates who feel, through a leap in logic, that cloning is therefore tantamount to abortion.
The second notion in this hurdle is the average American’s science-fiction view of the dangers of genetic engineering. For too many years, when people have heard the world “clone,” they think of depictions in the popular media, almost universally depicting cloning as a tool of evil or, at best, as a force of nature that is better left untapped. For
instance, the book and motion picture “The Boys From Brazil,” where escaped Nazi doctor Josef Mengele makes numerous clones of Adolf Hitler. Or “Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan,” in which Ricardo Montalban played the genetically-engineered supercriminal Khan Noonien Singh, a genocidal tyrant who abused his strength to take over the world.
The upcoming “Star Wars” prequel is also rumored to be set during a “clone war,” where clone soldiers are churned out by the bushel to fight for the bad guys. Then there is the real world’s own experience in
eugenics, where in Nazi Germany, Europe more generally and even for a brief period in this country, there were attempts to
“purify” the genetic pool by using brutal methods. With these notions in our collective memory, is it any wonder that we fear any application of cloning?
But we live in an age where the terrors of some unchecked, cloned “superman” on the silver screen is far less horrific than what thousands of families are going through at this very moment. Organ donations are still nowhere near enough to cover the 76,000 on organ waiting lists in this country. More than 6,000 people die each year in the United States because a donor couldn’t be found fast enough to save the life of someone who desperately needed a kidney, heart, liver or a lung. And those family members who
donate their own organs (kidneys and parts of the liver) while they’re still alive run serious risks, including death. If cloning could save those 6,000 lives, then I say fears be damned. We now hold in our hands the promise of a time in which no person would have to die needlessly because a donor
organ could not be found in time.
E-mail columnist Pat Payne
at [email protected]. His opinions
do not necessarily reflect those of the Emerald.