WASHINGTON: The announcement by a small Massachusetts company that it had created a human embryo with cloning techniques was a great publicity event, but rather misleading advertising. If anything, the experiment was a failure. Researchers at Advanced Cell Technology in Worcester could only get their cloned cells to divide to the six-cell stage. Then the cells died. It is not even clear whether the cells had a working nucleus that expressed the genetic identity of the original cell.

That is why cloning a person is still fiction. As bioethicist Karen Rothenberg said: “I think we as a society can make the distinction between six cells and a human being.” To be sure, company executives made it clear that they had no intention of creating a human being. They were trying to develop a technology that would trick cells into behaving like an embryo, in which cells rapidly multiply, producing master stem cells. These stem cells hold great promise for designing treatments for diseases ranging from diabetes to Alzheimer’s.

The news that one small step had been made toward human cloning provoked another outbreak of the Frankenstein syndrome. This is the fear that mad scientists are tinkering in dark basements to create monsters that will be unleashed on society. The syndrome surfaces every time an on-the-edge scientific feat is achieved - the first test-tube baby, the first gene therapy experiment.

Unchecked, it leads to a predictable Canute response. Like the ancient king who shouted at the waves to stop crashing on the shore as the tide came in, politicians rail against the scientists and try to prohibit a whole tide of research.

But such a response ignores the dynamism of medical science - its complexity and possibility. A moral jihad against cloning dismisses the difference between reproductive cloning - making human beings - and therapeutic cloning - creating a supply of stem cells that theoretically could be coaxed into treatments for disease.

At this point, reproductive cloning is abhorrent to the vast majority of Americans. By all means, prohibit that. But banning all cloning research, as recommended by the House of Representatives, would be as reckless as saying anything goes.

There is broad public support for developments in science and technology. For example, more than 85 per cent of Americans believe that scientific developments have improved society, according to a recent nationwide survey conducted by Virginia Commonwealth University. Yet nearly 75 per cent in the same poll agree that scientific research does not pay enough attention to the moral values of society.

When it comes to cloning, people seem to want it both ways: ”no” to reproductive cloning on moral grounds and “yes” to therapeutic cloning on scientific grounds. In other words ypu do not want a person cannot clone himself but you like to help him control his diabetes.

The best way to achieve these twin goals is to bring cloning research into the mainstream of government-sponsored science. That way, the public can make sure the technology will not be misused. Instead of shunning the whole field of cloning as rogue science, make it a priority for the National Institutes of Health.

Fund programmes at university medical centres. Create explicit ethical and scientific guidelines for the research. Require that results be reviewed by peer scientists and hold public conferences in which experiments are discussed. —Dawn/LAT-WP News Service (c) The Washington Post.