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WELCOME TO "BRAVE NEW WORLD"         January 12, 1997
The recent cloning of Dolly, a sheep, by a Scottish team headed by Dr. Ian Wilmut seems to have opened the door to all the horrors of a "Brave New World".  Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World" predicted the cloning of human beings and the anti-Utopian society that this might produce. Huxley had the scientific background to make these predictions: He came from a distinguished family of British biologists. Huxley did not have to imagine the Elitist mind-set of animal researchers since he had grown up with them. It was easy for him to extrapolate these Elitist attitudes into the theme of his book: The upper class of his anti-Utopia made dumbed-down cloned humans to serve as their slaves. It is a short step from playing God with "dumb animals" to playing God with "dumb people".

It was not a much larger step to intuit that the end result of animal research would be cloning humans.

The vast majority of Americans were shocked and alarmed that the cloning of human beings now seemed at hand. A Time/CNN poll showed 93% thought it was a bad idea. Many of them would like to see Congress pass laws that would prevent this from happening. If they act immediately to demand such laws, Congress would probably pass them; after the furor dies down, it may be impossible to control this dangerous technology that has horrified most Americans.

A small but powerful minority--self-centered scientists, greedy entrepreneurs, and ruthless professionals--have reacted in the opposite way. They are already gloating over the possibilities of making money and gaining power by cloning human beings. They are alarmed BECAUSE laws might actually be enacted which would prevent or hinder such exploitation. They are afraid, probably correctly, that the American public might demand--and get--laws which would criminalize the cloning of human beings or parts of human beings.

2. The Politics of Cloning: Keeping the Public Out of
     Decision-Making
An alarmed science establishment had no difficulty persuading President Clinton to use the 18-member National Bioethics Advisory Commission to review the "troubling" implications of the cloning of adult sheep. Since the public knows little about this committee except that it has "Bioethics" in the title, this might seem like an intelligent thing to do. The public has been told that this panel consists of experts in medicine, science, ethics, and law.  What it has NOT been told is that almost all of the panel members are in extreme conflict-of-interest because their own self-interests would be hurt by any effective regulation of hazardous medical technologies--including cloning.  Indeed, this particular Commission was specifically set up to PREVENT the regulation of dangerous biomedical technologies; its purpose was to protect these technologies and not to protect patients and the general public from these technologies.

Although the Bioethics Commission was positioned to block any laws to protect the American public against the "troubling" technology for cloning humans, the public was becoming more determined to slam the door on the "Brave New World". President Clinton's accurate political antennae told him that the plan to stall until the furor died down was not working well: the furor was not dying down. Naturally, he flip-flopped. Without waiting for a Commission decision, he cut off U.S. funding for cloning technolgies (in theory, not in practice). The many Americans who do not trust Clinton realized this did not protect the public; it would only last until Clinton's next flip-flop. The British science establishment had realized earlier that the public furor over sheep clones was getting out of hand and might result in drastic cuts for ALL scientific research. Therefore, Dr. Ian Wilmut did not get the rewards that he had expected from British Government; a nervous establishment has taken steps to cut his funding to zero. The politics of cloning was not going as had been expected. Cloning humans had become a hard sell.

3. How "Bioethics" Promotes Dangerous Medical
    Technologies
The U.S, science establishment had been lying to the public and literally got away with "bloody murder" throughout the Cold War "in the name of science" and "national security". This abuse of the American public has continued although the magic in these phrases has evaporated. However, the magic word "Bioethics" was expected to"justify" inflicting yet another dangerous and unwanted technology, human cloning, on the helpless Americans who despised this idea.

Perhaps this time the public will not be fooled by the word "Bioethics" and will realize that "medical ethics" has very little to do with "ethics" in the normal sense of the word. For may years, the real business of many medical ethicists has been "justifying" hazardous technologies "in the name of science". For example, consider the reaction to the sheep cloning of Dr. Richard Hull who was identified in a "Buffalo News" editorial of February 27, 1997 as "a medical ethicist and philosopher at the University of Buffalo". Hull is quoted with approval, by the "News" as saying: "Laws won't stop science. Others will do the work if we don't in this country". Some readers may immediately recognize this as a stock argument used by drug company lobbyists who are trying to block U.S. regulation of hazardous drugs. Perhaps because this is so obvious, Hull may have felt it necessary to add: "We need to regulate it in a way that is true to our democratic values". However, Hull seems to think it would be undemocratic for Congress to pass laws making cloning of human beings a felony. He seems to feel that the science establishment is above the laws of the land (as it was during the Cold War). Hull's philosphy is at least consistent in defending the indefensible--he has long been in the forefront of the defense of certain atrocious animal experiments at the University of Buffalo medical school.

If one side-effect of the furor over human cloning is that the public comes to realize the difference between "medical ethics" and ordinary "ethics", something good might come out of all this. My years of dealing with medical ethics committees have taught me that their top priority is protecting the doctors and medical institution--it is NOT protecting patients or the public. For example, I once tried (and failed) to get an ethics committee to stop entry of patients into a bone marrow transplantation program where the first dozen consecutive patients had died from a fungus infection BEFORE they could complete the therapy. While the New York State Health Department finally shut this program down, it was not until more patients had died. The moral of this story is: Medical ethics is the last refuge of a scoundrel. The public should not expect any help from "ethicists".

Letting a "Bioethics" Commission make the decisions about cloning human beings is letting the foxes guard the hen house. As detailed in my new CD-ROM, "A History of U.S. Science and Medicine in the Cold War", Cold War cover-ups of hazardous medical technologies show that government panels of "experts" protect the technologies and don't protect the public.

4. Big Science is Big Business
"Why did the scientists wait seven months to deliver Dolly's birth announcement?" the "Wall Street Journal" asked on February 27, 1997. The answer: The delay was to get patents on the cloning technology in
                                                                                                             
place. Since other scientists were aware of the research for some time, it was also important to get the news out before it was leaked to the media.   Dr. Neal First, an animal researcher in Wisconsin "heard rumors...last autumn" and plans to "one-up Dr. Wilmut: He plans to clone a
cow." A few days later the cloning of monkeys in Oregon hit the headlines. Clearly, the end result of animal research will be cloning humans and the race to do so is now on. Probably the only way to stop it in the U.S. is to make it a major felony to clone humans.

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