Japanese researchers have successfully taken adult mice skin cells, reverted them to stem cells, and then turned those skin cells into an egg.  That alone would be a huge technological achievement, but they didn’t stop there.  They fertilized and implanted those eggs, resulting in 11 live births (which reflects less than 1% of all attempts, so while the process was inefficient, it is a proof-of-concept).


It was just about a year ago that humans were successfully cloned for the first time.  Those researchers used fetal cells.  A couple of weeks ago, it was announced that Robert Lanza from Advanced Cell Technology successfully cloned two humans using adult cells (from a 35 year old man and a 75 year old man).

ObfuscationNow that cloning is back in the media again, the media is once again demonstrating their ignorance of the science, or blatant attempt to pull the wool over the public’s eyes about what is really being done in the lab.  They either:

  1. Leave out the fact that what is produced is a human embryo (going straight from enucleated egg with the nucleus of an adult cell, directly to stem cells)
  2. Or they admit that an embryo is created, but claim it’s not a human being
  3. Or they deny that the embryo is a human clone (redefining human clone to refer to a cloned human who is allowed to be born. 

They are leaving out important details, and redefining scientific words to fit their purposes.  It’s all rhetoric and propaganda, and obfuscates the science and biology behind it. 

For the last time: somatic cell nuclear transfer does not produce embryonic stem cells.  It creates a human clone, and that human produces stem cells.  To extract the stem cells, the human clone must be killed! 

Wesley J. Smith has some nice posts demonstrating how the mainstream media continues to get it wrong: 

Shoukhrat Mitalipov, of Oregon Health & Science University

Shoukhrat Mitalipov, of Oregon Health & Science University

Researchers at The Oregon Health & Science University have just announced in Cell that they successfully cloned 21 humans, and then killed them to extract their stem cells at the blastocyst stage (although they didn’t describe it as “killing”).  This is the first time stem cells have ever been derived from a human clone.  

Welcome to the brave new world of cloning.


HT: Wesley J. Smith

In May of this year Gallup polled Americans to determine what behaviors they found morally acceptable and unacceptable.  Sixteen behaviors were evaluated, and here are the results:



HR 2560, a.k.a. The “Human Cloning Prohibition Act of 2007”, was defeated 213-204. This bill pretended to ban human cloning by defining human cloning as the implantation of a cloned embryo in a uterus (though they did not say “cloned embryo”), rather than the creation of the embryo itself.

The bill states that “it shall be unlawful…to perform or attempt to perform human cloning.” So far so good. It goes on to make it unlawful “to ship, mail, transport, or receive the product of human somatic cell nuclear transfer technology knowing that such product is for the purpose of human cloning.” My question is, What’s the difference? What is the unnamed “product” to which they refer? Considering the fact that somatic cell nuclear transfer technology is the technology used in cloning (it’s what was used to create Dolly the sheep), the product is none other than a cloned human being. But wait…I thought the bill banned human cloning. Silly me! I’m using “human cloning” in a scientific way. These politicians aren’t doing that. They are making up their own political definitions of these terms so they can trick the public. Here is how the bill defines “human cloning” and “somatic cell nuclear transfer”:

Human cloning: “The implantation of the product of human somatic cell nuclear transfer technology into a uterus or the functional equivalent of a uterus.”
Human somatic cell nuclear transfer technology: “Transferring the nuclear material of a human somatic cell into an egg cell from which the nuclear material has been removed or rendered inert.”

The fact of the matter is that somatic cell nuclear transfer is the process by which a human clone is created. Once the nuclear material of a human somatic cell has been transferred into an enucleated egg and fused together, the act of cloning is complete. Where one puts the newly cloned human being after that (whether in a uterus, Petri dish, or trash can) has nothing to do with cloning. Shame on the politicians who are writing these deceptive bills (including an earlier Senate bill, and several different state bills), but thank goodness for the sanity of those in Congress who voted to defeat this bill.

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