Send In The Clones

Did you read recently that meat from cloned animals is apparently getting closer to FDA approval? That the FDA declared in December that cloned meat and milk is no more unsafe than it's old fashioned cousin? Do you care? To be honest, I thought I'd care more about this by now. I seem to be caring less about the ramifications of eating a cloned Kobe steak today, than I do, say, the ramifications of warrantless secret wiretaps being legal in America solely on the sayso of some deputy bureau chief in the CIA, NSA, FBI, DoD, or any other random collection of letters. Wow, that was some run-on sentence there, wasn't it?

When Dolly the sheep was presented to the world in 1997, people were polarized (well, some people were) - Was this a good thing? Was it the first chapter in a real-life "Jurassic Park"? Or maybe "The Boys From Brazil"?

I am not a medical ethicist, speaking of which, is a pretty odd notion: There apparently are codes of ethics, set up much like federal, state, and local laws are, including professionals whose job is to interpret these codes, for an entire profession. But that's another blog for another time. Anyways, NOT being one of these professionals, I find it interesting that the twists and turns of advancing medicine always seems to fall over itself when it comes to codifying those ethics. At what point is life being alive? A heart beat? A brain wave? For half a minute? For a minute? What happens if you get a life support machine to restart a heart, or lungs, long after any measurable brain function? Does the soul, or mind, or whatever ineffable criteria by which someone defines a human, remain when no part of the brain functions? If one is in excruciating pain (we'll just work for the moment within the realm of physical pain, not emotional) every moment of his or her existence, is this life? Is life defined by quality or quantity? And if one measures life according to a pulse or a breath or a brain wave, why do we (with few exceptions), have no problem with euthanizing an animal in pain that can't be healed, while we charge doctors who assist a terminal human in suicide with murder? The A.M.A. and their lobby occasionally remind me of the writers on all the incarnations of "Star Trek": The Prime Directive, that holiest of holies - sayest thus: 'You shall not interfere in any manner of a native culture's development or history - Unless it contributeth to the story line'. Bearing in mind that I'm a huge fan of most of the 'Trek incarnations, you hafta wonder what Gene Roddenberry was smoking when he developed THAT as the Prime Directive of a group dedicated to exploring the galaxy and meeting and interacting with new cultures.

Lest you think this thought is meandering away again, I think it's relevant to any discussion of clones, and what constitutes a life, as well as what constitutes an artificial one. For example, take the fairly straightforward concept of artificial insemination. Widely held a very reasonable next step for a couple unable to conceive the old fashioned way. Ok, take it one step further (or, perhaps not further, but a different course): fertility drugs. They will promote ovulation, as well as markedly raise the risk of multiple births. Let's say you have taken a fertility drug, increased your ovulation, and produced quadruplets. Is this in any practical way different from having a single baby cloned three times? Besides the random effect of whether or not the extra ovulation will take, you are using artificial methods to reproduce a baby.

And yes, I realize the above example is a hugely simplified one, in a complex conundrum. But I meant it to illustrate that the technologies contained within cloning are a lot more involved than worrying about skinheads cloning Hitler. Actually, I think it's a lot like the development of the atom: It's a weapon, as well as the basis for radiology. Were more people saved by X-Rays than killed by an atomic bomb?

Cloning technology is the laboratory for cures of diseases at the genetic level. And I'm not unmindful of the abuse potential inherent in any genetic manipulation. But the questions that are begged are not unlike any technological leap forward. Many on the religious side of the fence (and this includes any of the Judeo/Christian ones), for instance, make their case against allowing the 'plug' to be pulled (on terminal patients hooked up to life support) based on the fact that man shouldn't be "allowed to play God". I never see it postulated that man is ALREADY playing God by hooking up the patient to a machine man created to keep the patient alive in the first place. Or by curing any disease at all, for that matter. As much as it horrifies me to hear of parents who refuse medical treatment for their children on religious grounds (and very little makes me angrier or sadder, actually), at least it is consistent with the man playing God theory. The bottom line is that for good or ill, man makes those calls based on his or her own conscience.

And personally, I believe that mankind should work to cure every ill he can, however he can, including at the genetic level. Every generation in recorded history has shown us madmen and monsters that can (and will) use whatever technology is at hand to manipulate power. The best that we can do is the best that we can do.

And to tie this back to the more immediate future, much of the negative reaction people seem to have to having meat from cloned animals is safety-based. Have you ever been to a modern-day meat-packing plant? Know what's in a hot dog? Ask a friend (or the child of a friend) who works in almost any fast-food restaurant about the horror stories. Here are a couple more tidbits that might put you right off your feed: According to the New York Times (referenced through Wikipedia), every year, 5,000 deaths, 325,000 hospitalizations, and 76,000,000 illnesses are caused by foodborne illnesses within the U.S. alone. And according to the World Health Organization, in industrialized countries, the percentage of people suffering from foodborne diseases each year has been reported to be up to 30%. And that's just the reported cases.

Now, again, not purporting to be a genetic scientist, it still seems to me that if you can isolate the healthy animals in the food chain, reproduce them, and serve only the healthy byproducts of that reproduction, count me in.