In lobbying for legislation to allow human cloning, advocates have promoted speculation about curing ALS, Parkinson's, Alzheimer's and diabetes that affect a total of over 22 million patients. However, human clone researchers would need every US woman of child-bearing age to donate to get the one billion-plus eggs required for embryonic stem cell therapy using human clones to treat just these four diseases.

While biotech industry leaders may not agree that "therapeutic" cloning is immoral, some prominent ones are admitting it is impractical. In a Los Angeles Times article, Geron Corp. President and CEO Thomas Okarma said he has no interest in using cloned embryos to find treatments for disease, and that odds that cloning will produce successful results are "vanishingly small," that the whole process is "a nonstarter, commercially."

Lutz Giebel, CEO of San Diego's CyThera, says cloning "is not commercially viable...quality control is difficult, the FDA can't regulate it and no one can afford the treatment." Giebel believes a complete ban on human cloning would have a "limited impact on corporate product development."

Los Angeles Times 10 May 2002.

There is no proof that 'therapeutic cloning' will lead to cures, but if it did, it would require 110 million women to donate 10 eggs each to gain enough eggs to treat just these four diseases. That calculation assumes a cloning success rate of 1 in 50.

Dolly took 287 attempts. There are only 55 million women between ages 18 and 44 in the US, so every woman would have to undergo two cycles of hormonal hyper-stimulation and surgery. That is worse than impractical. It is impossible.

Wouldn't it make more sense to direct our energies and resources to adult stem cell research, which already is producing real cures for real people? Why destroy human embryos, trample ethical and moral principles, and put millions of American women at risk in pursuit of human clones?"

• David Stevens, M.D. is the Christian Medical Association Executive Director.

Related Articles:

Study Suggests Reason for Type of Cloning Problem

Pope Warns Regarding Cloning