[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 8 (Monday, February 9, 1998)]
[Senate]
[Pages S507-S509]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
HUMAN CLONING PROHIBITION ACT
Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I, as in morning business, want to digress
here just a moment, if I might, to talk a little bit about another
issue that is going to be coming up here tomorrow. I understand we are
going to be voting on cloture on a bill that has not gone through any
committee, hasn't had any hearings. It involves an area of science and
medicine which very few, if any, of us in this entire body are
qualified to vote on with short notice, without proper hearings and
proper input. Yet, it's trying to be rammed through here. I am talking
about the bill regarding cloning research.
Now, there has been a lot of, I think, undue, inflammatory kinds of
statements and comments made about this cloning research. It seems odd
to me that on something that has so much potential to alleviate human
suffering and which is also, I will be frank to admit, fraught with
perils of ethics and bioethics--it seems odd to me that a bill of that
nature would be rushed so soon to the floor of the Senate. It seems to
me that this is the kind of bill that ought to go through a lengthy and
involved hearing process, to bring in the best minds, ethicists,
physicians, doctors, researchers, those involved in gene therapy, those
who have been involved in cloning research in the past, to hear their
views on this. And then out of this, perhaps we can develop a more
reasoned, logical, bipartisan approach on the issue of cloning
research.
So I have to ask, what is this so-called rush? Why bring it out on
the floor like this without the proper kind of hearings, because there
is a hidden political agenda? Is this to inflame fears among people?
Well, I hope not. To take away that apprehension, I think the best
thing would be to refer this to committee and have hearings on it. I
serve on the Labor, Health and Human Services Committee, and I would
assume that committee would be the proper one to have the hearings, at
least some of them, plus those on the House side. So I want to speak
about it in that context.
Mr. President, each year, too many of our loved ones suffer terribly.
They are taken away from us by diseases like cancer, heart disease and
Alzheimer's. For many years, I have worked hard to expand research into
finding cures and preventative measures and improve treatments for the
many conditions that rob us of our health. Over the last several years,
there have been major breakthroughs in medical research. We need to
make sure that our world-class scientists continue to build on this
progress, but that we also say to young people who are in college
today, maybe even in high school, who are thinking of pursuing research
careers, that we welcome their inquisitiveness, we welcome their
experimentation, we want there to be no bounds put on their inquiries
by a rush to judgment by the Congress of the United States, which is
ill-equipped to make such a judgment. I think our actions here send a
very chilling message to young people, who want to go into biomedical
research, that somehow there is going to be the heavy hand of ``Big
Brother'' Government overlooking their research, telling them you can
do this but not that, or you can go no further than that, or you can
ask this question, but you can't ask that question. I think this bill
that we have, again, pushed before us in this rush, can have that kind
of chilling effect.
Now, another area of research that has been ongoing for a long time--
this is nothing new--has recently captured public attention. That is
the research into cloning, cloning cells. Now, there is a man in
Chicago--I don't know him and I never have met him--and his name is
Richard Seed. Well, he caused quite a sensation a few weeks ago by
saying he intends to clone infertile people within the next 2 years.
Well, when I first heard this, I said, who is this guy? I never heard
of him and I have been involved in research, medical research for a
long time. Well, I found out that, quite frankly, he is a very
irresponsible individual. He doesn't have the expertise himself. He
doesn't have the laboratory, the money, or the wherewithal. I think
most researchers and policymakers that I know who know of this person
say that he is both out of the mainstream and that his plans for
cloning are, at the very least, premature.
Now, again, from all that I have read--and now I have seen him on
television--I think that Mr. Seed is more interested in getting his
name in the paper than actually carrying out any legitimate scientific
research. This is the unfortunate part of it. Why should the
irresponsible actions of an individual like Mr. Seed lead to
irresponsible actions on our part, because that is exactly what we are
doing? Is Mr. Seed irresponsible? I believe so, absolutely. As I said,
he doesn't have the expertise, the lab, or the wherewithal to even
carry out this research. So he is making very irrational,
irresponsible, inflammatory statements. But then why should we respond
irresponsibly? I think we should respond responsibly and very carefully
to an area of scientific research that can hold so much promise to
alleviate pain and suffering and premature death all around the world.
Let's not act irresponsibly because one person in America has spoken
irresponsibly. S. 1601, the bill we will be having a cloture vote on
tomorrow, bans the use of cloning technology called somatic cell
nuclear transfer. To create an unfertilized egg cell, even if this egg
cell is for research, is totally unrelated to the cloning of a human
being. For example, if the cell is grown under special laboratory
conditions, it does not become a child, or a baby, but instead becomes
specific tissue such as a muscle, nerve, or skin.
Just think of the potential of this kind of technology. I have looked
into this a lot over the last several years. Science makes genetically
identical tissues and organs for the treatment of a vast array of
diseases.
I gave a sort of off-the-cuff set of comments last summer when this
issue came up with Dolly, the sheep that was cloned in Scotland. Dr.
Wilmut was at our committee. I talked about the need to continue
research into cloning of cells. I said it was going to happen in my
lifetime. I certainly stand here and hope that it does.
Shortly after that, I was at a restaurant in a small town in Iowa. A
person came up to me, a friend of mine. I went over to their booth to
see them. There was a woman there whom I had never met, a rather young
woman with her husband. I was introduced to them. Just right out of the
clear blue she said, ``Thank you for what you said about cloning and
taking the position you did on cloning.'' I don't even think it was in
the newspaper. It was on television, I think. CNN may have carried that
type of thing. But I was curious as to why this young woman, who, if I
am not mistaken, lives on a farm, I believe--I can't quite remember
that detail. I asked her, ``Why are you so interested in this?'' She
said because she
[[Page S508]]
has a rare kidney disorder. She is hoping because of rejection
possibilities that there might come a time when we could actually grow
the kind of tissue that would develop into a kidney to replace her
kidney so that there wouldn't be that possibility of rejection. She got
it. She understood it.
That is what we are talking about. Those are the kinds of
possibilities that I believe will happen in my lifetime if we do not
act irresponsibly and irrationally.
This bill, S. 1601, would make it a crime to conduct some research
seeking to generate stem cells to treat a wide variety of and a wide
range of deadly and disabling diseases.
S. 1601 could ban blood cell therapies for diseases such as leukemia
and sickle cell anemia, nerve cell therapies for Alzheimer's disease,
Parkinson's disease, Lou Gehrig's disease, and multiple sclerosis. It
could ban nerve cell therapy for spinal cord injuries, a very promising
area of research for cloning. It could ban pancreas cells to treat
diabetes, skin cell transplants for severe burns, liver cell
transplants for liver damage, muscle cell therapies for muscular
dystrophy and heart disease. This bill before us could ban research on
cartilage cells for reconstruction of joints damaged by arthritis or
injuries. It could ban cells for use of genetic therapy to treat 5,000
different genetic diseases, including cystic fibrosis, Tay-Sachs
disease, schizophrenia, depression, and other diseases. S. 1601 could
permanently ban all of this type of research.
In addition, under this bill, scientists could be thrown in jail for
10 years if they conduct this research--research which may not have any
single thing to do with cloning a human being.
Last year, during this hearing on human cloning research, someone
asked, ``Are there appropriate limits to human knowledge?'' Quite
frankly, I responded--and I respond again--to say that I do not think
there are any appropriate limits to human knowledge, none whatsoever. I
think it is the very essence of our humanity and human nature. As long
as science is done ethically and openly and with the informed consent
of all parties, I do not think Congress should attempt to place limits
on the pursuit of knowledge.
To those who suggest that cloning research is an attempt to play God,
I invite you to take your ranks alongside Pope Paul V who, in 1616,
persecuted the great astronomer Galileo for heresy--for saying that the
Earth indeed revolved around the Sun and not otherwise.
But we don't have to go back that far. Not too long ago in our
Nation's history, Americans viewed artificial insemination as abhorrent
and its use was banned as being morally repugnant--even for animals;
even for animals. There was an attempt to ban artificial insemination.
Of course, now that is about all we use on the farm these days. Heart
transplants were scorned and X-rays were considered witchcraft. But
today we don't think twice about test tube babies, in vitro
fertilization, or organ transplants.
Throughout the 1950s, whenever we pushed the bounds of human
knowledge, there has always been a constant refrain of saying, ``Stop--
you are playing God.'' But if a couple did not have a baby and decides
to seek artificial insemination, is that playing God? If a patient is
dying of kidney disease and a doctor decided to transplant healthy
kidneys, is that playing God? If a patient is dying of heart disease
and receives a heart transplant, are we playing God?
Others say that human cloning research is demeaning to human nature.
I am sorry; I don't think so. I think that any attempt to limit the
pursuit of human knowledge is demeaning to human nature. I think it is
the very essence of our humanity to ask how and why and if and what. I
think it is demeaning to human nature to raise unfounded fears among
the people of America. I think that is demeaning to human nature.
As I said, I think the finest part and the very essence of our human
nature and our humanity is to ask why, how, and what if. It is our very
humanity that compels us to probe the universe from the subatomic to
the cosmos, and, yes, from blastocysts to the full human anatomy. Our
humanity compels us to do that.
However, I must admit that I think it is rightly proper for us as
policymakers to ask how human cloning research is going to affect our
Nation. It is right and proper for us to examine the use of public
funds for scientific research.
But I urge my colleagues to proceed with caution on this legislation.
What we are talking about here is not the cloning of a human being.
What we are talking about is the cloning of cells, and without further
research and appropriate regulations, many people will die and become
ill and spend very, very miserable lives when that could otherwise be
alleviated through this cloning research.
So I have to ask: Why the rush to pass hastily drafted legislation on
this very complex technical subject? We need to take the time to
consider what could be the unintended consequences. The U.S. Congress
and the Senate should tread very softly before sending scientists to
jail for what could be promising research to cure diseases and
disabilities.
Mr. President, there was an article in Time Magazine dated February
9, 1998, called ``The Case for Cloning.'' I ask unanimous consent that
this article be printed in the Record.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
[From Time magazine, February 9, 1998]
The Case for Cloning--The Benefits of This Bold Technique Outweigh the
Risks, and the Danger is Not What You Think
By J. Madeleine Nash
An elderly man develops macular degeneration, a disease
that destroys vision. To bolster his failing eyesight, he
receives a transplant of health retinal tissue--cloned from
his own cells and cultivated in a lab dish.
A baby girl is born free of the gene that causes Tay-Sachs
disease, even though both her parents are carriers. The
reason? In the embryonic cell from which she was cloned, the
flawed gene was replaced with normal DNA.
These futuristic scenarios are not now part of the debate
over human cloning, but they should be. Spurred by the fear
that maverick physicist Richard Seed, or someone like him,
will open a cloning clinic, lawmakers are rushing to enact
broad restrictions against human cloning. To date, 19
European nations have signed an anticloning treaty. The
Clinton Administration backs a proposal that would impose a
five-year moratorium. House majority leader Dick Armey has
thrown his weight behind a bill that would ban human cloning
permanently, and at least 18 states are contemplating
legislative action of their own. ``This is the right thing to
do, at the right time, for the sake of human dignity,'' said
Armey last week. ``How can you put a statute of limitations
on right and wrong?''
But hasty legislation could easily be too restrictive. Last
year, for instance, Florida considered a law that would have
barred the cloning of human DNA, a routine procedure in
biomedical research. California passed badly worded
legislation that temporarily bans not just human cloning but
also a procedure that shows promise as a new treatment for
infertility.
Most lawmakers are focused on a nightmarish vision in which
billionaires and celebrities flood the world with genetic
copies of themselves. But scientists say it's unlikely that
anyone is going to be churning out limited editions Michael
Jordan or Madeleine Albright. ``Oh, it can be done,'' says
Dr. Mark Sauer, chief of reproductive endocrinology at
Columbia University's College of Physicians and Surgeons.
``It's just that the best people, who could do it, aren't
going to be doing it.''
Cloning individual human cells, however, is another matter.
Biologists are already talking about harnessing for medical
purposes the technique that produced the sheep called Dolly.
They might, for example, obtain healthy cells from a patient
with leukemia or a burn victim and then transfer the nucleus
of each cell into an unfertilized egg from which the nucleus
has been removed. Coddled in culture dishes, these embryonic
clones--each genetically identical to the patient from, which
the nuclei cme--would begin to divide.
The cells would not have to grow unto a fetus, however. The
addition of powerful growth factors could ensure that the
clones develop only into specialized cells and tissue. For
the leukemia patient, for example, the cloned cells could
provide an infusion of fresh bone morrow, and for the burn
victim, grafts of brand-new skin. Unlike cells from an
unrelated donor, these cloned cells would incur no danger of
rejection, patients would be spared the need to take powerful
drugs to suppress the immune system. ``Given its potential
benefit,'' says Dr. Robert Winston, a fertility expert at
London's Hammersmith Hospital, ``I would argue that it would
be unethical not to continue this line of research.''
There are dangers, but not the ones everyone's talking
about, according to Princeton
[[Page S509]]
University molecular biologist Lee Silver, author of Remaking
Eden (Avon Books). Silver believes that cloning is the
technology that will finally make it possible to apply
genetic engineering to humans. First, parents will want to
banish inherited diseases like Tay-Sachs. Then they will try
to eliminate predispositions to alcoholism and obesity. In
the end, says Silver, they will attempt to augument normal
traits like intelligence and athletic prowess.
Cloning could be vital to that process. At present,
introducing genes into chromosomes is very much a hit-or-miss
proposition. Scientists might achieve the result they intend
once in 20 times, making the procedure far too risky to
perform on a human embryo. through cloning, however,
scientists could make 20 copies of the embryo they wished to
modify, greatly boosting their chance of success.
Perhpas now would be a good time to ask ourselves which we
fear more: that cloning will produce multiple copies of
crazed despots, as in the film The Boys from Brazil, or that
it will lead to the society portrayed in Gattaca, the recent
science-fiction thriller in which genetic enhancement of a
privileged few creates a rigid caste structure. By acting
sensibly, we might avoid both traps.
WHO COULD BENEFIT?
Cloning might help patients with Parkinson's and other
brain diseases by providing them with neural tissue that is
genetically identical to their own.
Burn victims could receive soft, new skin, which would be
grown in a laboratory and wrapped around injured areas like a
bandage.
Patients with chronic myelogenous leukemia could gain
reliable source of healthy bone marrow, which might
eventually result in a cure.
Combined with gene therapy, cloning may make it possible
for scientists to eliminate the transmission of Tay-Sachs and
other inherited diseases.
Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, for example, I want to read a couple of
things from the article. It says:
House Majority Leader Dick Armey has thrown his weight
behind a bill that would ban human cloning permanently.
``This is the right thing to do, at the right time, for the
sake of human dignity,'' said Armey. ``How can you put a
statute of limitations on right and wrong?''
Right and wrong? It is wrong to conduct cloning research that might
enable us to grow a liver out of a person's own DNA? To grow skin out
of a person's own DNA? Perhaps even to grow heart tissue, or even a
full heart, out of a person's own DNA, so there would be no rejection
possibilities? It is wrong to do research in cloning of cells that
might permit my nephew, Kelly, who, at the age of 19, got injured in
the military, his spinal cord was broken and he has been a quadriplegic
since and still holds out the hope that research someday is going to
enable him to walk again? And, yes, cloning research might be able to
rebuild those kinds of cells from his own DNA that will get those nerve
endings going again so that my nephew can walk again. That research is
wrong? I ask who appointed the House majority leader as the arbiter of
what is right and wrong in biomedical research?
Well, as the drafter of this article went on:
. . . hasty legislation could easily be too restrictive.
Last year, for instance, Florida considered a law that would
have barred the cloning of human DNA, a routine procedure in
biomedical research.
You might say that's not what we are doing here. But we could be
sending the wrong signals to State legislatures, again, to try the same
thing:
Cloning individual human cells [the writer goes on],
however, is another matter. Biologists are already talking
about harnessing for medical purposes the technique that
produced a sheep called Dolly. They might, for example,
obtain healthy cells from a patient with leukemia or a burn
victim and then transfer the nucleus of each cell into an
unfertilized egg from which the nucleus has been removed.
Coddled in culture dishes, these embryonic clones--each
genetically identical to the patient from which the nuclei
came--would begin to divide.
The cells would not have to grow into a fetus, however. The
addition of powerful growth factors can ensure that the
clones develop only into specialized cells and tissue. For
the leukemia patient, for example, the cloned cells could
provide an infusion of fresh bone marrow, and for the burn
victim, grafts of brand-new skin. Unlike cells from an
unrelated donor, these cloned cells would incur no danger of
rejection, patients would be spared the need to take powerful
drugs to suppress the immune system.
And this, I think, says it all:
Given its potential benefit,'' says Dr. Robert Winston, a
fertility expert at London's Hammersmith Hospital, ``I would
argue that it would be unethical not to continue this line of
research.
Mr. President, I hope that tomorrow, when we vote on this, that the
Senate will choose to be on the side of the Galileos, those who want to
expand human knowledge, those who will not be constricted by outmoded
and outdated ideas, who understand it's the very nature of our humanity
to ask how and why and what if. No, not to be on the side of those who
wanted to keep the Sun moving around the Earth, but to be on the side
of progress and advancement, enlightenment and unlimited human
potential.
S. 1601 needs to be amended drastically. Frankly, it needs to be sent
to committee. There is no rush. Dr. Seed--is that his name? Yes, Dr.
Seed from Chicago is not going to clone any human being. No reputable
scientist or doctor that I have spoken to, and I have spoken to quite a
few of them, believes he is anywhere near that for years and years and
years. But he is making a name for himself. He is on all the talk
shows, that's for sure. He has become notorious, a public figure, and I
guess a lot of people like to do that.
But just because he's irresponsible doesn't mean we ought to be
irresponsible. Let's take a careful look at this. Let's have our
hearings. Let's bring in the experts. Let's bring in the bioethicists,
the people from all the different communities, to see what parameters,
if any, should be drawn on this. The parameters of S. 1601 are too
constrictive.
To send scientists to jail for up to 10 years for doing the kind of
research that can enable my nephew to walk again is not the kind of
legislation that we ought to be passing here.
Mr. President, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call will roll.
The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. ASHCROFT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
____________________