Human cloning has become recently a hotbed for scientific as well as political discussions. The National Bioethics Advisory Committee brought up the issue to the President stating that in order to face human cloning, social, ethical, and legal questions require addressing aside from the safety issues. Further talk in the political arena has focused on stem cell research.
Stem cells are derived mainly from human embryos. These cells are general enough in that they can later be grown into specific cells which in turn would spawn particular tissues and organs. By taking stem cells and manipulating it with a person’s DNA, tissues and organs can be grown with an individual’s genetic information. The product—a genetically identical tissue or organ—would provide the perfect match for that individual, eliminating organ rejections after transplants and possibly ending or alleviating a problem with organ donor shortages.
Scientific advancements have led this technology to the chasm. Before deciding whether we, as a society, should invest in this technology and build the bridge to transport us to the other side of human cloning or stand at the precipice shy of playing god, we must first face the legal, ethical, and social issues. The conflicting legal issues are akin to those in the abortion debate. Proponents for stem cell research consider that embryonic cells—the most popular for stem cell research—do not constitute the beginnings of life as the opponents believe it to be. The government, tangled in this debate answered by limiting federal funding to only 60 embryonic lines of stem cells from embryos.
There are significant intellectual property ramifications to this decision as well, primarily with respect to the patents on these stem cell lines. The patents for most of the 60 embryonic stem cell lines are held by domestic and foreign companies. This poses some difficulty for future federal funding and possible advancements in stem cell research. Future ownership of the stem cell lines is under discussion. Since many of the stem cell lines are privately owned by research companies, the government is negotiating access to these stem cells while allowing the private researchers to retain their interest in the intellectual property. This corresponds with the policy of allowing researchers and governments to share revenues generated from government-sponsored research. Negotiations for these terms range anywhere from royalty free licensure to open-ended options. In light of this controversial research, it may boil down to similar negotiations set on the precedence of other established scientific research.
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National Bioethics Advisory Committee
