UNTIL the end of last year, fusing human cells with animal eggs to create 鈥渉ybrid鈥� cloned embryos was considered an obscure area of reproductive science, not key to the future of stem cell science. That all changed, it seems, with the publication of the UK government鈥檚 white paper on embryo research, which prompted politicians, Nobel laureates and the research establishment to line up in support of hybrid embryos as though the future of stem cell research depended on it. The clamour continued until last week, when the UK鈥檚 Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) announced it would hold a public consultation on whether such research should be allowed.
Having followed developments in this field closely since 1998, I have found myself troubled by the recent debate. Firstly, why is the science community presenting such a united front about a technology that is still acknowledged as doubtful? When the US biotech company Advanced Cell Technology claimed to have created a cow-human hybrid in 1998, it was viewed as an oddity. Furthermore, reprogramming human cells back to an embryonic state is difficult enough using human eggs; using animal eggs would introduce more uncertainties.
In 2000 when the UK government鈥檚 expert working group on stem cells gave the green light to cloning embryos for stem cell research, it concluded that while the shortage of human eggs would rule out therapeutic cloning as a basis for treatment, using the eggs of another species 鈥渨ould raise many technical and ethical issues. Most researchers active in this field do not regard this as a realistic or desirable way forward.鈥� The government agreed, announcing it would introduce legislation to ban the mixing of human cells with animal eggs, and called on funding bodies 鈥渢o make it clear that they will not fund or support research involving the creation of such hybrids鈥�.
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The technical questions over hybrid cloning have not gone away, and it seems disingenuous of scientists to now claim that blocking such research would hinder the search for cures. Most stem cell research projects use spare IVF embryos, of which there are tens of thousands. Those researchers applying for HFEA permission to use animal cells require them not to develop stem cell lines for patients, but for speculative research that is probably decades from clinical application.
There are issues over which politicians and scientists might rightly jump up to defend the cause of science, but this is not one of them. In a country that already has the most permissive legislation in Europe in this area, manning the barricades when the ends do not clearly justify the means may be unwise and could cost public support.
The ethical aspects of the debate also raise serious questions. 杏吧原创s are claiming that it is ethically better to use animal eggs because obtaining eggs from women is a highly invasive procedure. However, you don鈥檛 solve one ethical issue by creating another.
It鈥檚 surprising how quickly some scientists have dismissed ethical concerns over mixing animal and human cells, especially when the UK Department of Health cites 鈥渙ngoing and widespread [public] support for a ban鈥�. For some people this research might conjure up unrealistic visions of mythological chimeric creatures, but there is a more valid point at issue: should we be mixing reproductive entities in this way, even if the result will never develop into something capable of producing offspring?
Some researchers evidently believe that these are just cells in a dish, with no moral status, to which we may therefore do what we like. Yet this is out of step with UK law, which takes the view that human embryos, while not having the status of people, should be accorded moral status above that of cells. If that is so, then hybrid embryos derived from human nuclear DNA and animal cytoplasm also have moral status. What is it, and should we create them or do research on them?
鈥淪ome researchers evidently believe these are just cells in a dish, with no moral status鈥�
The way some scientists are dealing with such questions is reminiscent of the debate over genetically modified food 10 years ago, when they sought to educate the public that any concerns were misplaced. It seems unwise to impose such a reductionist view on the population, or to dismiss those who feel that this is a threshold we should not cross. These are not morally trivial questions, and it is in scientists鈥� own interest to consider them properly.
For Christians such as myself, compassion for the sick is a great motivation for medical research, but within moral limits. In the Church of Scotland, we support some stem cell research with human embryos and might even countenance cloning embryos from human eggs under exceptional circumstances, but we draw an ethical line at mixing human and animal reproductive cells. This resonates with UK law itself, which says that embryonic research should only be used in pursuit of extremely important medical goals achievable no other way. We should think twice before assuming that animal-human cloning is a case in point.
