I grow weary: Science journalists should report science matters accurately, without spin and the usual hype seen in the ESCR/human cloning debates. Alas, we don’t see much of that in this report, byline Dave Mosher of LiveScience. The story is about Ian Wilmut, the veterinarian who supervised the cloning of Dolly the sheep, who, since his animal cloning enterprise went belly up has been driven to clone human life. Wilmut wants to create human/animal chimera embryos by using SCNT with human DNA and animal eggs.
But this post isn’t about that issue, it is about imprecise reporting. From the story:
Wilmut proposes that scientists take a DNA-packed nucleus from a diseased person’s cell, then slip it into an animal egg from which the nucleus has been removed. About one times out of eight, a clump of human embryonic stem cells should grow. Once the clump is large enough, medical researchers could test experimental drugs on the cells without destroying a single human embryo.First, why should it work one time out of eight? Despite thousands of attempts, scientists still haven’t been able to clone human embryos and obtain stem cells from them using human eggs. Moreover, it is simply disingenuous to claim that a “clump of human embryonic stem cells” would grow. If the technique worked—a big if—the result would be an embryo that would be about 99% human. It would not be a clump of stem cells and it would raise ethical issues that would be unique in human history.
The reporter also fails to note that Wilmut has been making a lot of claims of late about the benefits of human cloning research. He asserts in this article that chimera embryos could lead to vastly in creased drug testing because it could avoid having to test the products in mice. Perhaps. But given the failure of human cloning so far, and in light of Wilmut’s increasingly anything goes pronouncements, such as now supporting reproductive cloning in some cases, and considering his expressed desire to engage in unethical medical testing of unsafe embryonic stem cells on dying people, Wilmut’s assertions should be looked at with at least some skepticism. Alas, too often the science press these days act more like star-struck fans than true journalists.
