[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.

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