“Dr. Irving Weissman’s claim that somatic cell nuclear transfer is not human cloning is simply false,” said Father Joseph Howard, director of the American Bioethics Advisory Commission (a project of American Life League).
“It is a well known fact among the scientific community that somatic cell nuclear transfer is one of many different techniques that could be used to clone human beings. It is immoral and an outrage for a scientist of his stature to purposefully mislead the public for his own personal agenda. I join with my colleagues in demanding Dr. Weissman’s immediate resignation.”
Stanford University announced its intention to produce stem cells for medical research through a human cloning technique called somatic cell nuclear transfer. Dr. Irving Weissman, director of Stanford’s Institute for Cancer/Stem Cell Biology, was quoted in the Associated Press as saying that his planned research is “not even close” to cloning.
“Finding treatments and studying diseases is noble,” said Howard, “but not on the backs of human embryos, who are living human beings that deserve to be protected by law.” Howard added that the recent developments at Stanford University “makes it clear to us that Congressional action is needed to ban all human cloning. The ABAC is committed to working with all members of the U.S. Congress to craft a comprehensive bill to render illegal all forms of human cloning.”
Posted: 12 Dec 02
