Beware the cowboy cloners
By Hilary Rose,
The Guardian
| 02. 16. 2004
Here we go again. Reading the excited claims for the medical
benefits likely to accrue from the Korean veterinary researchers'
success in growing cloned human pre-embryos, one is entitled
to feeling a certain deja vu. Heading the list were those old
favourites, treatments for Parkinson's and Alzheimer's disease.
There really needs to be a phrase to describe this researchers'
equivalent of the old charge against doctors of shroud waving.
After all, only a few weeks back we were told that the planned
primate research centre in Cambridge was crucial in the search
for treatments for just the same diseases. The truth is that
no one knows if stem cells - the intended end product of therapeutic
cloning - will have such curative powers, still less the solution
to the spinal injuries Christopher Reeve was hoping for in Friday's
Guardian. The right way to find out - the way biomedical research
normally proceeds - is to try the methods first with laboratory
animals. And so far their success, even for the best-understood
condition - Parkinson's - has been limited. This isn't...
Related Articles
By Matthew Ormseth and Summer Lin, Los Angeles Times | 10.02.2025
The father of some 22 children discovered by Arcadia police in May also owns a property in El Monte where authorities found evidence of illegal gambling and drug activity, court records show.
Guojun Xuan, 65, told detectives all but two...
By Elizabeth Dwoskin and Zoeann Murphy, The Washington Post | 10.01.2025
MEXICO CITY — When she walked into an IVF clinic in June, Alin Quintana knew it would be the last time she would try to conceive a child. She had prepared herself spiritually and mentally for the visit: She had traveled to a nearby...
By Megan Mineiro and Caroline Kitchener, The New York Times | 10.05.2025
Kathleen Whipple and her husband had dreamed of a big family, but struggled to conceive.
Upon his return from an overseas deployment with the Navy, the couple learned from a fertility doctor that her husband’s sperm count was half of...
By Emma Belmonte, ChinaFile | 10.03.2025
On the popular Chinese social media platform Xiaohongshu, also known as RedNote, an account called “Georgia Notes” (@格鲁吉亚小纸条) offers tips and advice to Chinese nationals planning a trip to the Republic of Georgia. In one post...