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FOIA Number: 2006-0462-F
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Michael WAldman
Rm 196 OEOB
CLLe- 9 X
-
EXECUTIVE OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT
OFFICE OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY POLICY
WASHINGTON, D.C. 20506
Mike - Here's more than
you really want for imput to
the POTUS margan State speech.
Please contact Jell Smith
or me through switchbood if
we can help.
good luck!
Background Material
Morgan State speech
Jack Gibbons
Assistant to the President
For Science and Technology
456-7116 (o)
540/353-5409
OSTP/Jeff Smith (6-6047)
0202 633 8174
AIR & SPACE
*
UUS
05/17/05
17:13
The New Frontier:
Space Science and Technology in the Next Millennium
The Honorable Dr. John H. Gibbons
Assistant to the President for Science and Technology
Wernher von Braun Memorial Lecture
March 22, 1995
National Air and Space Museum
Smithsonian Institution
Washington D.C.
National Air and Space Muscum Occasional Paper Series Number 7
05/17/95
17:13
2202 633 8174
AIR & SPACE
If
...
Both the Wernher von Braun Memorial Lecture and this Occasional
Paper are made possible by the generous support of Orbital Sciences
Corporation.
We continue to be very grateful for this support.
The National Air and Space Museum
Smithsonian Institution
Washington, D.C. 20560
©1995 Dr. John H. Gibbons
Cover design by David Gant
ISSN 1059-6127
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of
the American National Standard for Permanence of Paper or Printed
Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1984.
00/11/00
17:14
202 ous 0174
AIR a SPACE
A new millennium is nearly upon us. The next few years mark the
transition between the twilight of one age and the dawn of another. During
this transition, we will have the opportunity to reflect on the great and
dynamic changes that are taking place around us.
Here at home, Americans are asking fundamental questions about the
social contract that binds them to each other and to their government
Around the world, new forms of cooperation between governments are
reducing barriers to commerce, technology, and culture, thus enhancing the
prospects for new forms of collaboration and defining anew the meaning of
national boundaries.
Dramatic and unparalleled advances in technologies for information,
health, transportation, and the environment are fundamentally redefining
how we live and work. Wc continue our struggle with the problems of
environmental degradation and overpopulation, with violence and famine
caused by centuries-old ethnic and religious conflicts, and with an increased
threat of proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.
I would like to reflect on the role that the space program has played, and
continues to play, in enabling technological and societal change and how
these changes have, in turn, altered our perception of space research and
exploration. I would like to share with you a vision for the future of United
States and international space activities. It is a vision that is simultaneously
optimistic and affordable; practical and yet, I believe, exciting.
Space technology has been one of the defining forces of this century.
The Soviet launch of Sputnik in October 1957 and the ensuing space race to
the moon came to symbolize the conflict between the competing world
views of communism and democracy. Space became the ideological
battlefield upon which each country sought to demonstrate its prowess and
win global influence.
This titanic struggle yiclded dark moments-such as the Cuban missile
crisis when it seemed to many that technology would ultimately be the
undoing of mankind. There were, however, also bright moments, such as the
Apollo moon landing, when space technologies seemed to light a clear path
to the future.
Space applications are now a practical and essential part of our daily
lives. Satellites provide essential communication services to both the
developed and the developing world. Whether it is the global distribution of
news and entertainment or the regional delivery of health care and educa-
tional programming, satellites constitute a critical component of the emerg-
ing global information infrastructure.
Space also provides a unique vantage point from which to analyze and
1
00/17/05
17:10
2242 our 0174
ALK a STACE
If
monitor our complex planet. Satellites have dramatically increased our
ability to predict the weather and its many consequences. Multi-spectral
imagery from space has provided unprecedented advances in regional and
global resources management, and satellites for treaty verification have
helped us to keep the peace.
The diverse scientific, military, and commercial applications of the
Global Positioning System (GPS) are revolutionizing how we work, play,
and travel. Although originally developed for military use, the United States
has welcomed the global use of GPS for a wide range of peaceful purposes
and anticipates the pivotal role that GPS could play in the global air traffic
management systems of the future.
Space research and technology can also make us better stewards of our
planet. The very first images of Earth from weather satellites and from the
Apollo missions literally changed our view of the planet. In these pictures-
particularly the one known as the "Blue Marble"-Earth, hanging in empty
space, seemed, for the first time, small and fragile.
Astronaut Bill Anders, remembering his first view of Earth from the
Apollo 8 command module, said: "Looking at the Earth and seeing it
floating like-I thought, since it was Christmastime-a little Christmas tree
ornament against an infinite black backdrop of space...it seems so very
finite. It was this view of the fragility and finiteness of the Earth that is the
impression, frankly. that I hold more in my head than any other."
It was Dr. Sally Ride, the first American woman in space, who later
pointed out that although we had sent highly sophisticated spacecraft to
study other planets, we had not taken a similar interest in our own planet,
She led a study group that recommended a program to accomplish this task
and dubbed it, somewhat ironically, "Mission to Planet Earth."
The simple truth is that we still don't understand well enough how our
planet works and how human activities are affecting the biosphere. Space
technology can play a pivotal role in this research. For example, we learned
more about ocean circulation from a single United States-French satellite
than in the whole history of ocean research. Satellite measurements also
played a critical role in monitoring and understanding ozone depletion in the
upper atmosphere, thereby averting a major health and biological catastro-
phe.
And we are just getting started. Some two dozen missions to study the
global environment will be flown by the year 2000. NASA's Mission to
Planet Earth, and its companion programs in the United States and other
nations, are building the knowledge base that is a critical prerequisite for
achieving a sustainable future.
2
08/17/00
17:10
2202 000 0174
AIR a SPACE
E UUI
Space exploration is providing phenomenal insights into the nature of
the universe. 1994 was an absolutely outstanding year for space science.
Indeed, astronomer John Babcall has called it-perhaps with only & little
exaggeration-the most important year to be alive for astronomers since the
dawn of man. The Hubble Space Telescope is simply wowing the world.
Most recently, it has given us striking evidence that the universe may be
billions of years younger than we thought. It's found conclusive evidence
that massive black holes exist at the core of active galaxies. And, it's
brought us the first views of infant galaxies, which formed only about two
billion years after the Big Bang.
And that's not all. Hubble data have confirmed the existence of
protoplanetary disks around newborn stars. This is the strongest evidence yet
that the same basic process that formed the planets in our solar system may
be common throughout the galaxy.
Looking Earthward, the Compton Gamma Observatory contributed to
the discovery of a strange new phenomenon known as upper atmospheric
flashes that may provide a link between phenomena in the Earth's lower
atmosphere and events in the upper layers of our atmosphere.
The Comet Shoemaker-Levy's collision with Jupiter in July was a
seminal event for astronomers. Such events may occur in the solar system
only once every thousand years or more. The early detection of the comet
by the Near Earth Object Program allowed unprecedented preparation to
observe this event from ground and space-based observatories, sparking
worldwide interest from the scientific community and the public.
Cooperation in space offers us a new vision of global cooperation.
International cooperation in space offers a rare opportunity for nations to
pool their interests and resources in exciting and challenging ventures. Such
cooperation is a laudable successor to the dark conflict that characterized the
birth of the space program. The Apollo moon landing was, assuredly, an
American victory; yet it seemed then, as now, "a giant leap for all mankind."
The Cold War, however, did not end with Apollo. For years, the United
States and Russian space programs continued along their separate paths, not
really competitors, but not yet partners. Then the Berlin Wall came down.
the Soviet Union fell apart under its own weight, and the world changed
dramatically. The space programs of both countries had to adapt to a
changing world. Gradually, we came to see the space program as a tool for
building peace and international understanding rather than as a weapon of
the Cold War.
This is why, in 1984, the United States invited our close allies in
Europe, Japan, and Canada to join us in building a space station. And this is
3
00/17/00
CT202 0114
AIR a SPACE
U.UUO
why the Clinton Administration, a decade later, took the bold step of inviting
the Russians to be full partners in the International Space Station.
But what next? Are the glory days of the space program in front of us or
behind us? Although physicist Niels Bohrs warned that "It is very difficult to
make an accurate prediction, especially if it's about the future." I feel
confident in predicting that the best days of the space program are yet to
come. In the future. space will play an increasingly important role in our
daily lives, in our science, in our adventures, and in the security of this
nation. I would like to examine some of the ways in which space technology
will continue to change the world in which we live.
Today, we are in the midst of a digital revolution that promises to
transform the way we use and share information. Satellites, including the
new generations of hand-held mobile and broad-band communications
satellites, will play a critical role in this revolution. They will provide
affordable links to the global network from the most remote corners of the
planet. And they will help link existing terrestrial networks as well. The
result will be more open markets, more freedom of information, stronger
democracies, more productive workers, and a higher quality of life for
billions of people around the globe.
Satellites will help communications and computer companies to develop
ever more sophisticated products and services. A new generation of "infor-
mation appliances" will replace today's computers. cellular phones, and
televisions. Wallet-sized, wireless, personal digital assistants will help you
organize your life and keep in touch with your office; digital newspapers,
magazines, and books will be delivered directly to your laptop computer;
and new learning tools using virtual reality or providing access to huge
digital libraries of information will bc available. These new tools will enable
users to access and manipulate data in ways that we cannot even imagine
today.
We can see examples of what will be possible in the future in the
research community today, particularly among scientists using remote
sensing data and computer models. Because their work is so data-intensive
and because it requires interdisciplinary collaboration, researchers have
developed software and networking technology that enables people around
the country to access, manipulate, and share huge data files of imagery.
Experiments currently being conducted by NASA and industry on the
Advanced Communication Technology Satellite are demonstrating that
satellites too will play an important role in networked, high data rate com-
munications.
4
vorltou
- 0119
air a stace
FEE 009
In the future, we will continue our exploration of the solar system and
beyond. This exploration will, however, proceed in ways that would have
surprised, and I think fascinated, Wernher von Braun.
The von Braun paradigm-that humans were destined to physically
explore the solar system-which he so eloquently described in Colliers
Magazine in the early 1950's, was bold. His vision, however, was highly
constrained by the technology of his day. For von Braun, humans were the
most powerful and flexible exploration tool that he could imagine. Today
we have within our grasp technologies that will fundamentally redefine the
exploration paradigm. We have the ability to put our minds where our feet
can never go. We will soon be able to take ourselves in a virtual way-
anywhere from the interior of a molecule to the planets circling a nearby
star-and there exclaim, "Look honey, I shrunk the Universe!"
Today. the great challenge of space exploration and utilization is
making it affordable and efficient. I am happy to say that's exactly what
Dan Goldin and NASA are trying to do. The Jet Propulsion Lab, for
example, is now developing concepts for a ten-pound spacecraft that is no
bigger than your fist.
The next century will likely see the flowering of a new manufacturing
revolution, enabling an armada of tiny, intelligent machines to travel
outward from Earth to explore new worlds. These small spacecraft will
require less power and smaller, lower-cost launch systems. They will take
advantage of next generation on-board intelligence capabilities and will
have little need for elaborate terrestrial control and operations centers. The
result will be to greatly increase the science output while reducing the
physical and human resources required to develop and operate a mission.
There will even be occasions when we conduct dramatic new explora-
tion missions without ever sending spacecraft to distant worlds. In the not
too distant future, we may have the technology needed to image planets
that may he orbiting nearby stars. It might be possible to infer through
spectroscopic analysis of their atmospheres or the color of their occans
whether they are life-bearing. What a revelation that would be!
All of these options will greatly cnhance our research into the human
role in exploration. We arc firmly committed to the space station, not only
because it opens a door to new research, but because it is an essential step
in understanding how humans react to the space environment. Early in the
next century we will hopefully understand the difficult questions of bone
loss and blood chemistry that currently beset astronauts spending long
periods in space. With this knowledge and the knowledge obtained from
5
our robot explorers, we will be prepared to answer the important questions
about the next destination for humans in space.
As we set out to explore new worlds, we must also be good stewards of
the one world in which we all live and the only world we can count on. In
the words of Robert Burns:
O wad some Pow'r the giftie gie us
to see oursels as others see us!
it wad frae mony a blunder free us
Perhaps it was the view from space that Burns was imagining. One of the
space program's most important contributions is to increase our understand-
ing of our planet so that we may enhance life on Earth.
As the century ends, the United States and its international partners will
have an array of sensors in Earth orbit measuring the atmosphere, oceans,
biosphere, and land surfaces, as well as the interaction among these ele-
ments. These sensors will be linked by sophisticated information systems
providing data to scientists and researchers. This work will produce answers
to fundamental questions about Earth, how its systems interact, and how and
why it changes.
We will have powerful new tools for analyzing weather. for the longer-
term prediction of floods, drought. violent storms, and the dynamics of
biological change, such as disease and the migration of flora and fauna. We
will have a complete survey of the Antarctic ice sheet, and we will be
making the first assessments of changes in thickness of the Greenland ice
sheet and the first global rainfall assessment. In the future, routine forecast-
ing of El Nino occurrences and consequences will bc possible with enor-
mous potential for economic savings.
Soon we will hc able to perform repeated global inventories of land use
and land cover from space, evaluate the consequences of observed changes,
and analyze the consequences of different preventative and adaptive prac-
tices. We will use satellites for the first global assessment of air pollution in
the lower atmosphere, leading to continual assessment of changes in global
air quality.
In short, space technology can give us the information we need to
understand the role that human activities play in this complex cycle as well
as the influence of "natural phenomena." This knowledge is absolutely
essential if we are to be responsible stewards of this planet.
Space science and exploration has inspired and enriched us. What more
could we ask? Well, as they say, "happiness can't buy money. The current
6
AIR a
review of budgets and programs in the Administration and in Congress
Implies that even high priority programs, such as space science and explora-
tion, will be coming under increased scrutiny. That's the bad news. The
good news is that much of what we must do to develop an aggressive space
program for the future has already been started.
We are truly reinventing NASA. This means that we must take an
organization established during the Cold War as a federally mobilized
response to Sputnik and transform it into an agency that is more relevant to
today's economy and today's world. It must be an agency that will once
again define excellence in space science and technology. This task will be
difficult and it will not be done without some legitimate pain.
However, reducing the size of NASA is not an end in itself. We must
also work with NASA to change the way it does business. The aerospace
industry has matured considerably since the days of Apollo. As a result, the
private sector can now accomplish many of the tasks formerly done by the
government. Satellite communications, space launch, and remote sensing
were all originally government programs but are now being offered success-
fully by the private sector. In the future, we must ensure that NASA does
only those things that it does best.
NASA's 1996 budget contains a number of programs that already
incorporate this new approach. For example, the Reusable Launch Vehicle
(RLV) program will focus on developing low-cost. next-generation launch
vehicles, while the Discovery program will seek to advance the state of the
art of spacecraft for space exploration. Both of these programs have sought,
from the beginning, to include significant industry participation, manage-
ment, and funding.
Finally, we must to seek creative ways for the space programs of the
world to combine their talents, resources, and facilities to accomplish goals
that are beyond the reach of any one country. The space station and Mission
to Planet Earth provide us with early examples of this trend. In the future,
we must seek other opportunities to build durable links between our indi-
vidual efforts in space science and exploration.
In 1965, President Johnson asked: "As [man] draws nearer to the stars,
why should he not also draw nearer to his neighbor? As we push even more
deeply into the universe, we must constantly learn to cooperate across the
frontiers that really divide the earth's surface."
I look forward to participating with you in this important venture.
7
About the author
John H. Gibbons is the Assistant to the President for Science and
Technology and Director of the White House Office of Science and
Technology Policy. Dr. Gibbons is charged with providing expert
scientific, engineering, and technological advice to the President, federal
officals, and Congress, and with coordinating science and technology
policy throughout the federal government.
An internationally recognized scientist and an expert in energy and
environmental issues, Dr. Gibbons has a deep concem about support of
science and the impact of technology of society. After receiving a
doctorate in physics from Duke University in 1954. Dr. Gibbons spend
15 years at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee. In the late
1960s. he pioneered stuides on the use of technology to conserve energy
and minimize the environmental impact of energy production and
consumption. Hc became the first director of the Federal office of
Energy Conservation in 1973, but returned to Tennessee in 1975 to direct
the University of Tennessee Energy, Environmental and Resources
Center. In 1979, he returned to Washington to direct the Congressional
Office of Technology Assessment, which provides Congress with
nonpartisan, comprehensive analyses on a broad spectrum of issues
involving technology and public policy. His tenure there lasted until his
current Presidential appointment in February 1993.
8
THE WHITE HOUSE
WASHINGTON
ELI Atty
5/15
Terry Edmunds -
\ don't know IF you want to
consider this but Education
WILL Be Making amouncements
this wk on their Technology
LiTeracy Challenge Fund.
TYLL me IF THIS makes
sense FOR the Morgan
State TeCH theme. \ can
TRY To work SomeTHing OUT
with the Educat DEF.
KRIS B
67071
05/15/97 THU 12:36 FAX 202 401 / 1438
DEPT OF EDUCATION/OLCA1
001
fax- 456-2525
5 pagra sent
May 15, 1997
TO: Chris Balderson
CC: Frank Holleman
Kay Casstevens
FROM: Scott Fleming, 401-0032 Scott
RE: Technology Literacy Challenge Fund (TLCF) Grants - Plans for Upcoming Announcement
Attached you will find a copy of the Dear Colleague letter which Secretary Riley signed along
with several members of Congress in connection with next week's technology
reception/demonstration on the Hill. That is the event where we plan to have the Secretary
announce the remaining TLCF grants per our discussion this morning. Also you will see a copy
of the fax cover sheet we are planning to use in notifying Members of Congress of these grants
prior to the event. Finally, you will see a description of the TLCF program and an abstract (as
yet unedited) of the West Virginia plan.
Based on our conversation this morning, we will proceed as we have planned unless we hear
further from you.
05/15/97 THU 12:37 FAX 202 401 1438
DEPT OF EDUCATION/OLCA1
002
Congress of the United States
THashington. DC 20515
May 9, 1997
Dear Colleague:
We hope you will mark your calendar to join us for a:
Reception and Demonstration of
Innovative Education Technology Projects
Wednesday, May 21, 1997
5:30 to 7:00 p.m.
Rayburn Cafeteria
This event is part of an important three-day conference bringing together leaders from the Technology
Literacy Challenge Fund and the Technology Innovation Challenge Grant Programs, both supported by
funds appropriated by the Congress, along with representatives of educational organizations,
government agencies and businesses. The conference is designed to foster a collaborative process that
will help maximize the effective use of technology to strengthen American education. This event will
provide all of us an opportunity to interact with teams from each state who are working to connect
classrooms and computers, train teachers and administrators, and integrate the use of technology into
the curriculum in ways that will improve student achievement and make possible important savings in
the future.
The Hill reception will include hands-on demonstrations of a number of specific projects funded by the
Technology Innovation Challenge Grants program, administered by the Department of Education, along
with video presentations highlighting education technology applications from around the country.
You may be hearing from constituents who will be attending the conference and who plan to come to
this event. We hope that you will be able to be there as well to see the progress that is already being
made using technology to expand opportunities and resources available to American students.
Day Rahycle Jay Rockefeller
Sincerely,
Olympi Snowe
United States Senate
United Stat Senate
Dick Richard Rily W. Riley
Secretary of Education
Jompanyn Tom Sawyer
Amo Houghto
Member of Congress
Member of Congress
05/15/97 THU 12537 FAX
IDEPT OF EDUCATION/OLCA1
003
Page 1
Technology Literacy Challenge Fund
WEST VIRGINIA
$1,975,565
West Virginia will receive a $1.9 million Technology Literacy Challenge Fund grant to:
support educational technology-related professional development for teachers,
purchase modern computers for classrooms, connect classrooms to the information
superhighway, and purchase effective and software that will engage students fully in the
learning process and on-line learning resources. The primary goal of the State's
technology plan "is to focus on the ways technology can support the instructional
program in the school." South Carolina has been working hard in the area of
educational tehcnology for several years, the Technology Literacy Challenge Fund will
help the state actualize their vision.
TLCF funds will complement State educational technology efforts. Approximately 25%
of the TLCF grant will help support statewide teacher training that will be coordinated
with significant input from school districts and will be supported by the state's 13
Regional Technology Specialists who serve the school districts by providing hands-on
delivery of teacher and administrator training to complement professional development
and training services. The grant will also help districts have at least five modern
computers in the Library Media Centers and at least one modern computer in each
classroom. Sub-grantees will also be encouraged to purchase the equipment to
establish a local area network in the district office and in each school that will then
connect to the state network and the Internet. Finally, districts applying for TLCF
sub-grants will also be encouraged to use 25% of their grant to purchase modern
software for classroom use.
The South Carolina Department of Education contact number is 803/734-441.
The Superintendent of Education D.r Barabar S. Nielsen 803/734-8492.
05/15/97 THU 12:38 FAX 202 401 1438
DEPT OF EDUCATION/OLCA1
004
THE TECHNOLOGY LITERACY CHALLENGE FUND
"In our schools, every classroom in America must be connected to the
information superhighway, with computers and good software, and well-trained
teachers. / ask Congress to support this educational technology initiative so that
we can make sure this national partnership succeeds."
President Clinton, 1996 State of the Union Address
A NATIONAL MISSION TO MAKE EVERY YOUNG PERSON TECHNOLOGICALLY
LITERATE: President Clinton and Vice President Gore have challenged the nation to
assure that all children are technologically literate by the dawn of the 21st century,
equipped with the communication, math, science, reading, and critical thinking skills
essential for advancing learning and improving productivity and performance.
They have asked the private sector, schools, teachers, parents, students, communities
and governments to work together to achieve the President's four goals for educational
technology:
provide all teachers the training and support they need to help students learn
through computers and the information superhighway;
develop effective and engaging software and on-line learning resources as an
integral part of the school curriculum;
provide access to modern computers for all teachers and students; and,
connect every school and classroom in America to the information superhighway.
A NEW TECHNOLOGY LITERACY CHALLENGE FUND: The new Technology
Literacy Challenge Fund was launched this October with a $200 million appropriation.
President Clinton proposed this funding as the first installment of a $2 billion, five-year
Technology Literacy Challenge Fund to catalyze state, local and private sector efforts to
reach the four national goals for education technology. The challenge is designed to
motivate states, local communities, the private sector, schools and individuals to work
together to integrate technology into teaching and learning. While states are asked to
come forward with a statewide strategy to accomplish this national mission, they will
have maximum flexibility.
05/15/97 1238 FAX 401-1438
DEPT OF EDUCATION/OLCA1
1005
To receive funds, states are developing strategic plans for educational
technology. All 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, American Samoa,
Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, the Virgin Islands, and the Bureau of Indian
Affairs schools are eligible for funds, awarded on a rolling basis as their applications are
reviewed this year. States have until March 31. 1997 to apply for first-year funds. To
apply. states will:
Develop a comprehensive set of strategies to enable every school -- rural, urban,
and suburban -- to fully integrate technology into teaching and learning and
achieve the President's four national goals for educational technology.
Design a comprehensive set of strategies to finance educational technology
throughout the state, including collaboration with business and industry, higher
education, and libraries. Private sector partners can support educational
technology through innovative partnerships such as in-kind donations, volunteer
help, cost reductions and payments for Internet connections.
Target assistance supported by the Technology Literacy Challenge Fund to
communities with high rates of poverty and the greatest need for educational
technology so that their students will have access to the benefits of educational
technology.
Report annually to the public on state progress toward implementing its plan.
The maximum impact of the Technology Literacy Challenge Fund will be
experienced at the school level. Ninety five percent of a state's award under the
TLCF must go to local school districts. States will conduct grant competitions this spring
and summer to award grants to school districts to implement comprehensive technology
plans. States have flexibility to tailor their competitions to meet the unique conditions in
their state. All local applications will include long range strategic plans for educational
technology that address: equipment purchases; teacher training; strategies to integrate
technology into the curriculum; collaborative activities throughout the community,
including adult literacy providers; support services; timelines; budgets: strategies to
promote educational equity: and evaluation strategies.
05/15/97 THU 13:00 FAX 202 401 1438
DEPT OF EDUCATION/OLCA3
006
FAX TRANSMISSION
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION
DELIVATION OF PELICIES ATION
Office of Legislation and Congressional Affairs
600 Independence Ave., SW, Room 6337
*
Washington, DC 20202-3100
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
(202)401-1028
Fax: (202)401-1438
Date: May 19, 1997
FIELD(9)
To: Honorable FIELD(1) FIELD(2)
Attn: Education Staff/Press Secretary
From: Scott Fleming, Deputy Assistant Secretary
Number of Pages (including cover sheet):
If there are any problems with this transmission, please contact me at: (202)401-1028.
We are pleased to give you this advance notice -- on an embargoed basis until Wednesday,
May 21 of a Technology Literacy Challenge Fund Grant to your state.
Recently, your office received an invitation to attend a reception and demonstration of education
technology applications to be held in the Rayburn cafeteria from 5:30 to 7:00 P.M. on May 21.
Secretary Riley will be speaking at the reception, and in attendance will be state officials from
around the nation responsible for implementing state education technology plans utilizing these
funds. Also present will be representatives of the Challenge Grant for Technology Projects now
in operation with Department funding.
Since Secretary Riley will be officially announcing this grant and similar grants to over twenty
states at the reception, your office should feel free to invite reporters from your district to attend
and cover this announcement.
If you would like to arrange a time for a photograph with Secretary Riley and the
appropriate state officials, please call Rodney Capel of my staff at 401-0020. Given the
serious time constraints under which we will be operating, a photo time will be set for each state
in response to the first request from a Member of Congress from that state, We will then notify
the balance of the delegation that they are welcome to join in a photo at that time. Photos will be
possible between approximately 6:10 and 6:45 P.M. (While we will have a photographer
present, to expedite access to photos your office may also want to bring a camera as well.)
05/15/97 THU 13:00 FAX 202 401 1438
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To receive funds, states are developing strategic plans for educational
technology. All 50 states. the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, American Samoa,
Guam. the Northern Mariana Islands, the Virgin Islands, and the Bureau of Indian
Affairs schools are eligible for funds, awarded on a rolling basis as their applications are
reviewed this year. States have until March 31, 1997 to apply for first-year funds. To
apply. states will:
Develop a comprehensive set of strategies to enable every school -- rural, urban,
and suburban -- to fully integrate technology into teaching and learning and
achieve the President's four national goals for educational technology.
Design a comprehensive set of strategies to finance educational technology
throughout the state, including collaboration with business and industry. higher
education, and libraries. Private sector partners can support educational
technology through innovative partnerships such as in-kind donations, volunteer
help, cost reductions and payments for Internet connections.
Target assistance supported by the Technology Literacy Challenge Fund to
communities with high rates of poverty and the greatest need for educational
technology so that their students will have access to the benefits of educational
technology.
Report annually to the public on state progress toward implementing its plan.
The maximum impact of the Technology Literacy Challenge Fund will be
experienced at the school level. Ninety five percent of a state's award under the
TLCF must go to local school districts. States will conduct grant competitions this spring
and summer to award grants to school districts to implement comprehensive technology
plans. States have flexibility to tailor their competitions to meet the unique conditions in
their state. All local applications will include long range strategic plans for educational
technology that address: equipment purchases; teacher training; strategies to integrate
technology into the curriculum; collaborative activities throughout the community,
including adult literacy providers; support services; timelines; budgets: strategies to
promote educational equity; and evaluation strategies.
05/15/97 THU 12:59 FAX 202 401 1438
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THE TECHNOLOGY LITERACY CHALLENGE FUND
"In our schools, every classroom in America must be connected to the
information superhighway, with computers and good software, and well-trained
teachers. / ask Congress to support this educational technology initiative so that
we can make sure this national partnership succeeds."
President Clinton, 1996 State of the Union Address
A NATIONAL MISSION TO MAKE EVERY YOUNG PERSON TECHNOLOGICALLY
LITERATE: President Clinton and Vice President Gore have challenged the nation to
assure that all children are technologically literate by the dawn of the 21st century,
equipped with the communication, math, science, reading, and critical thinking skills
essential for advancing learning and improving productivity and performance.
They have asked the private sector, schools. teachers, parents, students, communities
and governments to work together to achieve the President's four goals for educational
technology:
provide all teachers the training and support they need to help students learn
through computers and the information superhighway;
develop effective and engaging software and on-line learning resources as an
integral part of the school curriculum;
provide access to modern computers for all teachers and students; and,
connect every school and classroom in America to the information superhighway.
A NEW TECHNOLOGY LITERACY CHALLENGE FUND: The new Technology
Literacy Challenge Fund was launched this October with a $200 million appropriation.
President Clinton proposed this funding as the first installment of a $2 billion, five-year
Technology Literacy Challenge Fund to catalyze state, local and private sector efforts to
reach the four national goals for education technology. The challenge is designed to
motivate states, local communities, the private sector, schools and individuals to work
together to integrate technology into teaching and learning. While states are asked to
come forward with a statewide strategy to accomplish this national mission, they will
have maximum flexibility.
05/15/97
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Page 1
Technology Literacy Challenge Fund
WEST VIRGINIA
$1,975,565
West Virginia will receive a $1.9 million Technology Literacy Challenge Fund grant to:
support educational technology-related professional development for teachers,
purchase modern computers for classrooms, connect classrooms to the information
superhighway, and purchase effective and software that will engage students fully in the
learning process and on-line learning resources. The primary goal of the State's
technology plan "is to focus on the ways technology can support the instructional
program in the school." South Carolina has been working hard in the area of
educational tehcnology for several years, the Technology Literacy Challenge Fund will
help the state actualize their vision.
TLCF funds will complement State educational technology efforts. Approximately 25%
of the TLCF grant will help support statewide teacher training that will be coordinated
with significant input from school districts and will be supported by the state's 13
Regional Technology Specialists who serve the school districts by providing hands-on
delivery of teacher and administrator training to complement professional development
and training services. The grant will also help districts have at least five modern
computers in the Library Media Centers and at least one modern computer in each
classroom. Sub-grantees will also be encouraged to purchase the equipment to
establish- a local area network in the district office and in each school that will then
connect to the state network and the Internet. Finally, districts applying for TLCF
sub-grants will also be encouraged to use 25% of their grant to purchase modern
software for classroom use.
The South Carolina Department of Education contact number is 803/734-441.
The Superintendent of Education D.r Barabar S. Nielsen 803/734-8492.
05/15/97 THU 12:59 FAX 202 401 1438
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Congress of the United States
Hashington, DC 20515
May 9, 1997
Dear Colleague:
We hope you will mark your calendar to join us for a:
Reception and Demonstration of
Innovative Education Technology Projects
Wednesday, May 21, 1997
5:30 to 7:00 p.m.
Rayburn Cafeteria
This event is part of an important three-day conference bringing together leaders from the Technology
Literacy Challenge Fund and the Technology Innovation Challenge Grant Programs, both supported by
funds appropriated by the Congress, along with representatives of educational organizations,
government agencies and businesses. The conference is designed to foster a collaborative process that
will help maximize the effective use of technology to strengthen American education. This event will
provide all of us an opportunity to interact with teams from each state who are working to connect
classrooms and computers, train teachers and administrators, and integrate the use of technology into
the curriculum in ways that will improve student achievement and make possible important savings in
the future.
The Hill reception will include hands-on demonstrations of a number of specific projects funded by the
Technology Innovation Challenge Grants program, administered by the Department of Education, along
with video presentations highlighting education technology applications from around the country.
You may be hearing from constituents who will be attending the conference and who plan to come to
this event. We hope that you will be able to be there as well to see the progress that is already being
made using technology to expand opportunities and resources available to American students.
Sincerely,
Jay Rockefeller
Olympi Snowe
United States Senate
United Senate
Dick Richard Rily W. Riley
Secretary of Education
Tom Sawyer
Amo Houghto
Member of Congress
Member of Congress
05/15/97 THU 12: 5 STEFAX 202 40F 1438 1438 DEPT OF EDUCATION/OLCAJON/OLCA3
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fax- 456-2525
5 pagra pent
May 15, 1997
TO: Chris Balderson
CC: Frank Holleman
Kay Casstevens
FROM: Scott Fleming, 401-0032 Scott
RE: Technology Literacy Challenge Fund (TLCF) Grants - Plans for Upcoming Announcement
Attached you will find a copy of the Dear Colleague letter which Secretary Riley signed along
with several members of Congress in connection with next week's technology
reception/demonstration on the Hill. That is the event where we plan to have the Secretary
announce the remaining TLCF grants per our discussion this morning. Also you will see a copy
of the fax cover sheet we are planning to use in notifying Members of Congress of these grants
prior to the event. Finally, you will see a description of the TLCF program and an abstract (as
yet unedited) of the West Virginia plan.
Based on our conversation this morning, we will proceed as we have planned unless we hear
further from you.
Wednesday,
February 26, 1997,
10:00am
DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES
NATIONAL INSTITUTES OF HEALTH
1998 House Appropriations Subcommittee Hearings
List of Witnesses
Dr. Harold Varmus, Director, NIH
accompanied by
Dr. Ruth Kirschstein, Deputy Director, NIH
Dr. Wendy Baldwin, Deputy Director for Extramural Research, NIH
Mr. Anthony Itteilag, Deputy Director for Management, NIH
Ms. Francine Little, Director, Office of Financial Management, NIH
and
Mr. Dennis P. Williams, Deputy Assistant Secretary, Budget, DHHS
Department of Health and Human Services
National Institutes of Health
Statement of the Director
I am pleased to present the President's budget request for the National Institutes
of Health for Fiscal Year 1998, a sum of $13.078 billion, an increase of $337 million (or
2.6%) above the FY1997 appropriation.
The pace of medical research: Retrospective
This is the fourth year that I have been privileged to represent the NIH at this
Committee's proceedings. As on previous occasions, the Institute Directors and I will
soon provide you with a summary of remarkable scientific accomplishments from the past
year and a description of some exciting paths our research is likely to take in the coming
year. This annual process of recounting our performance and predicting future
productivity is important, stimulating, and necessary. But it should not obscure some
essential features of our activities: that our ultimate task, the conquest of disease, is
formidable; that the course of progress is best measured over many years or decades,
rather than over a single year; that scientific advances require a long-term investment in
training and facilities, as well as research projects; and that the benefits of research are
unpredictable, demanding work on a broad range of topics to achieve success with even a
single problem.
Some of these features are dramatically illustrated by recent events in our battle
against the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and the acquired immunodeficiency
syndrome (AIDS). In the past year, the world has learned that many people with AIDS
can experience dramatic improvement after treatment with a new class of anti-HIV
drugs, called protease inhibitors, especially when combined with another class of drugs,
called reverse transcriptase inhibitors. Although far from perfect, such potent anti-viral
agents are unprecedented in the history of virology, and the achievements have been
appropriately heralded in many news stories, including New Year cover stories in the lay
press (Time magazine) and the science press (Science magazine).
But the history of these accomplishments encompasses much more than a single
year; it reaches back over many years and in many directions. It extends to the early
isolation of retroviruses from birds and rodents, as long ago as 1910. To the
identification in the 1970's of retroviral enzymes--reverse transcriptase and protease---
that now serve as targets for the anti-viral drugs. To the determination of the three-
dimensional structure of these enzymes a few years ago. To the development of
inhibitors of cellular proteases over twenty years ago for the treatment of hypertension.
To the lengthy training of investigators competent to pursue basic science, drug
discovery and development, and clinical testing. And to the strength of our nation's
laboratories, developed over decades, in governmental, academic, and industrial sectors.
The pace of medical research: Prospective
The breadth and depth of the investments required for the success of protease
inhibitors underscore the importance of the strong bipartisan support that the NIH has
received for the past fifty years. It is our responsibility to bring here each year new signs
that such continued confidence is warranted and likely to produce future dividends.
Thus, while we can take pride in end products, such as protease inhibitors, it is even
more important to showcase recent discoveries, especially those findings from which
many lines of investigation are likely to grow and measures to combat disease are likely
to develop.
To illustrate this point, I would like to refer again to the field of HIV research,
this time to describe a recent, long-awaited finding that holds special promise. Soon
after the discovery of HIV in the early 1980's, investigators found that CD4, a well-
known protein on the surface of certain T lymphocytes, was required for HIV to attach
to and infect target cells. But it was also learned that at least one other protein was
required, and those proteins---the so-called co-receptors---remained elusive for many
years.
About one year ago, a research group in the NIH intramural program used an
ingenious detection method to unveil co-receptors as members of a class of cell-surface
proteins we already knew a great deal about-proteins that normally allow cells to detect
secreted signaling molecules called chemokines. This discovery was especially exciting
because another group of NIH intramural scientists had shown that certain chemokines
could interfere with infection by HIV. Now we recognize that the interference is due to
blockade of a co-receptor. Recently, some individuals were found to carry mutations
that prevent production of a co-receptor. Because these people are actually resistant to
infection by HIV, yet otherwise normal, co-receptors have emerged as prime targets for
therapeutic and preventive strategies against HIV, stimulating a frenzy of experimental
activity towards those goals.
Recent culminations and inspirations
For dramatic purposes, I have chosen to present in detail two paradigms of
success--one representing culmination, another inspiration--from the domains of AIDS
research. But other examples abound.
The culminations are visible as practical health benefits, often accompanied by
economic benefits:
The first successful treatment for stroke, using recombinant tissue plasminogen
activator (tPA).
Increasing use of cell growth factors to protect patients against the bone marrow
toxicities of cancer and AIDS therapies.
Declining mortality rates for many cancers, including some common ones.
Reduction in disability rates among the elderly.
The virtual elimination of Hemophilus influenza as a cause of childhood meningitis,
due to widespread use of a new vaccine.
Recent inspirational discoveries are also legion, especially in the fields of genetics,
molecular biology, and neurosciences:
The genomes of baker's yeast and several bacteria (including the experimental
warhorse, Escherichia coli) have been fully sequenced; a detailed map of the human
genome as been assembled and posted on the Internet; and innovative technologies are
being harnessed to understand this genetic cornucopia.
The locations of still unknown genes implicated in Parkinson's disease, prostate
cancer, and other diseases, have been narrowed to small chromosomal regions, implying
imminent isolation; and genes involved in many other disorders (such as retinitis
pigmentosa, polycystic kidney disease, many birth defects, basal cell carcinoma,
hemochromatosis, and some forms of diabetes) have been isolated and characterized.
The precise changes that occur in genes during our lifetimes are telling us how
environmental agents, like tobacco and sunlight, cause cancer by inducing mutations, and
how normal mechanisms for correction of DNA can fail, allowing harmful mistakes to
persist in our genetic material.
Experimental manipulation of genes in mice has produced new animal models for
studying many diseases (including Alzheimer's Disease, cardiac and vascular diseases,
developmental defects, drug abuse, cancers, and others).
New imaging methods are informing our understanding of the central nervous
system during early development, behavioral change, learning, pain, and emotion, and in
a variety of disease states, including drug addiction.
Recently-identified molecules that govern the behavior of nerve and muscle cells
are providing new prospects for repairing injury and degeneration in the brain and spinal
cord.
Such advances inspire further work and support our request for appropriated
funds for FY1998. To help you see what these funds are likely to accomplish in the
immediate future, the Institute Directors and I have identified many of the most exciting
topics of on-going and anticipated research and grouped them within six broad Areas of
Research Emphasis: the biology of brain disorders, new approaches to pathogenesis,
preventive strategies against disease, therapeutics and drug development, genetics of
medicine, and advanced instrumentation and computers. These categories of research
reach beyond Institute boundaries to highlight the disciplines that we judge to show
special promise for further discovery and practical application. You will be hearing from
individual Institute Directors during the next two weeks about many specific examples
that illustrate why we believe these topics warrant such high priority.
Clinical research and the new Clinical Research Center
In my appearance before this Committee last year, I emphasized my concerns
about several aspects of clinical research, especially the need to reinvigorate, reorganize,
and rebuild the Clinical Center at the NIH. Since then, we have received $90 million in
FY1997 appropriated funds that allow us to proceed with the detailed planning and initial
construction of what will be the Mark O. Hatfield Clinical Research Center. We have
established a Board of Governors to oversee management of the Clinical Center, in
accord with the recommendations of last year's report by Dr. Helen Smits and her
colleagues to the Secretary of HHS, and we have initiated plans to collect third party
payment for care at the Clinical Center. We have continued to recruit outstanding
clinical scientists, improve instruction in clinical research, toughen the review of
protocols for clinical experiments, expand outreach to extramural clinical investigators,
and forge stronger ties with nearby academic health centers. In the past few months, we
have also developed a program to bring medical students to the NIH campus for one or
two years to participate in patient-oriented research, in accord with a recommendation by
the NIH Director's Panel for Clinical Research. (This important training program, to
begin this Fall, is our first collaborative effort with the newly-constituted Board of the
National Foundation for Biomedical Research, which received its first appropriated
funds, $200 thousand, in FY1997.)
The prospect of a new Clinical Research Center has re-energized clinical
investigators at the NIH. Two weeks ago, we held a full-day celebration of our clinical
research activities, with many presentations of past, present, and future projects on
metabolic, infectious, and genetic diseases; diagnostic methods developed with molecular
and novel imaging tools; therapies involving immune manipulation and gene transfer; and
various approaches to disorders of the nervous system. For this occasion, Institute
Directors prepared statements of their goals for patient-oriented research for the next
several years; post-doctoral fellows showed posters outlining recent work; and architects
and administrators described plans for the form and function of the new facility. In
addition, the intramural clinical research community has proposed measures to strengthen
our ability to recruit clinical investigators and to ensure a nurturing environment for them
at the NIH.
Other aspects of administrative oversight
Clinical research is only one of many areas that have benefitted from increased
administrative oversight during the past few years. The Institutes have recently pledged
to develop more interactive information systems, and the NIH is in the process of hiring a
Chief Information Officer. Directives from both this Committee and the Administration
to limit administrative costs have stimulated the adoption of streamlined methods for peer
review, accounting, and other activities; more widespread use of electronic
communication; sharing of resources through service centers; and reduced use of FTE
positions. In response to your request, Mr. Chairman, we are currently undertaking an
extensive study of all of our administrative functions, looking for opportunities to achieve
even greater efficiency, without impairing support of the research enterprise and our
traditional stewardship of Federal funds.
We have also been vigilant about oversight of our research activities. In the spirit
of the 1994 report on intramural research by the Marks-Cassell Committee and the 1995
Bishop-Calabresi report on the NCI, we have continued to review individual intramural
research programs; a report on the NIMH program was recently completed, and four
others are in progress. Complex activities--- gene therapy, the AIDS program, and
clinical research--have been subjected to detailed review, and many trans-Institute areas
of investigation---nutrition pain, sleep, and several specific diseases---are being
monitored by special coordinating committees. In addition, we have initiated a process
for evaluating the performance of Institute and Center Directors every five years; panels
are currently reviewing the activities of the seven Directors with the longest terms of
service.
Plans for the proposed budget for FY1998
The President's FY1998 budget for the NIH provides an increase of $337 million
over the current NIH appropriation. In line with our traditional priorities, we plan to
allocate about 80% of the additional funds ($271. million) to research project grants
(RPGs), increasing support for these awards by nearly 4% over FY1997. We expect to
increase the average size of both continuing and new awards by 2%, allowing us to
support about 7,100 new and competing grants and to achieve an all-time high total of
nearly 27,000 research grant awards. (Note that the Department of Commerce has
determined the Biomedical Research Development and Price Index [BRDPI] to have
been 2.6% in 1996, the lowest rate in many years, consistent with the recent decline in
the consumer price index; we project BRDPI values of about 3% for 1997 and 1998.)
The budget also includes a $30 million increase for the National Institute for Drug Abuse
as part of the Administration's efforts to address the problem of drug use.
We request $90 million to support continued construction of the Mark O.
Hatfield Clinical Research Center in FY1998, along with advanced appropriations of
$90 million for FY1999 and $40 million for FY2000, for a total of $310 million, which is
required to complete the project by 2002.
I will be pleased to answer any questions you and your colleagues might have.
THE WHITE HOUSE
WASHINGTON
MEMORANDUM
To:
Gene Sperling
Ann Lewis
John Podesta
From:
Tim Newell TAK m
Tom
Kalil
Re:
Morgan State commencement speech
Date:
May 7, 1997
Because this is one of the few speeches that the President is likely to give on science and
technology this year, we think he needs to articulate a broad vision on the role that science and
technology can play in achieving national goals. Below is a first cut at an outline.
I.
Continuing the scientific and technological revolution and strong government support for
research and technology is important for two fundamental reasons:
1.
Our curiosity our quest to know more about ourselves and the world around us -
is a very important part of what makes us human. At the same time, access to
knowledge and the freedom to act on that knowledge - is a fundamental
principle of democracy, and our commitment to innovation is an important part of
the American tradition.
2.
Science and technology play an important role in virtually every important
national goal - a growing, productive, high-wage economy; sustainable
development and environmental stewardship; improved health care and quality of
life; harnessing the Information Revolution; new opportunities for life-long
learning for every American; and ensuring global stability/security.
II.
The last century has seen remarkable scientific progress, propelling us from an
agricultural economy to the information age. However, there is still a lot we don't know:
-
How does the human brain work?
What are the biological origins of life here on Earth, and possibly on other
planets?
-
How can we manufacture products in ways that minimize pollution, or discover
cleaner, cost-effective sources of energy that do not contribute to global warming?
-
How can we use our understanding of the human genome to cure previously
incurable diseases?
-
How can we translate oceans of raw data in to easily understandable information?
As we enter the 21st century, it is vital that we rededicate ourselves to the pursuit of
knowledge and the frontiers of science and technology -- to achieve our national goals,
and to continue to rejuvenate the American dream of a better life for our children.
III.
It's very important to use technology in ways that support and reinforce our basic values
and sense of community. Just because we can use technology to do X (cloning, genetic
screening) does not mean that we should. Our decisions about how to use technology
need to be guided by ethical principles, expert advice, and reasoned/democratic decision-
making.
IV.
Potential announcements:
Having articulated these grand challenges, the President obviously has to say what he is
doing to advance these goals. Obviously, the Administration is constrained by the budget
agreement; analysts estimate that the President's FY98 budget would reduce federal
funding for R&D by 12 percent in real dollars between FY 1997 and 2002. Below are
some possible announcements -- in addition to any announcement on health-related issues
(e.g. diabetes, genetic screening legislation).
1.
National Prizes
Prizes have historically played an important role in advancing technology. For example,
New York hotel owner Raymond Orteig offered $25,000 as a prize for the first aviator to
cross the Atlantic from New York to Paris, a prize that was won by Charles A. Lindbergh
in 1927. The Department of Energy successfully used a "Golden Carrot" award to
encourage companies to make more efficient refrigerators -- one of the largest consumers
of electricity
The President could charge the National Academy of Sciences (or some other body) with
identifying a series of prizes that would focus the most creative scientists, engineers, and
entrepreneurs on making specific critical breakthroughs (e.g. cost-effective solar power).
Funding for the prizes could come jointly from Federal, industry, and philanthropic
sources.
2.
Harnessing the Information Revolution
a.
Supercomputer-on-a-chip
The Administration and the semiconductor industry have been exploring the possibility of
co-funding a number of university-based "centers of excellence" in areas of
semiconductor technology. These technologies will eventually allow semiconductor
companies to put hundreds of millions or even billions of transistors on a single chip the
size of one's fingernail. The potential applications are mind-boggling. As one
semiconductor company noted:
"With 125 million transistors on a chip, picture-phones, the proverbial Dick Tracy
wrist computer, or computers that recognize speech and make intelligent decisions
in the context of the speech, could be within the consumer's price range. Or,
imagine an automated teller machine that can recognize the user's face or do
fingerprint recognition, virtually eliminating the possibility of theft."
Although an agreement between the semiconductor industry and the Defense Department
to fund 2 of the (potentially) 6 centers has been reached -- no formal announcement has
been made. This model is also attractive because industry will invest $2-$3 dollars for
every $1 of government spending.
b.
Next Generation Internet
As part of the President's Next-Generation Internet initiative, NSF is close to
announcing grants that would connect 35 universities to a high-speed network that will
eventually be able to transmit all 30 volumes of the Encyclopedia Britannica in under a
second. This network will allow top researchers in universities and National Labs from all
over the country to work together -- contributing to the solutions to all of the "grand
challenges" of science and engineering that the President has articulated.
C.
Ethical, legal and social implications of the Information Revolution
As part of the Human Genome Project, the government funds research on the ethical,
legal, and social implications of genome research. Similarly, the Administration
established the National Bioethics Advisory Commission to consider broad ethical issues
related to human biological research. There are no equivalent initiatives on the
information and communications side -- although arguably the impacts on our economy,
society and culture will be as great or greater.
"We are not the only nation with compe-
TECHNOLOGY AND THE NATIONAL DEFENSE
tence in defense technology. To sustain
On the battlefield, technology can be the decisive edge. America's technological superior-
the lead which brought us victory during
ity has provided our men and women in uniform the wherewithal to protect the freedom,
Desert Storm recognizing that over time
democracy, and security of the United States. Beyond our own borders, U.S. military
other nations will develop comparable
strength-built on a foundation of high-technology-has enabled the United States to
capabilities, we must invest in the next
stand in defense of our allies, preserve the peace, deter hostilities, repel aggression, and
generation of defense technologies."
foster fledgling democracies across the globe.
William J. Perry
Secretary of Defense
During the Cold War, an arsenal of advanced weapons allowed the United States to field
a technologically superior force to counter the numerically superior Soviet threat. Today,
these high-technology weapons and the transportation and logistics systems that support
their deployment provide the United States with the ability to undertake global military
operations and conduct surgical strikes on strategic military targets-as in recent opera-
The top 15 U.S. pharmaceutical
tions in Iraq and Bosnia-while minimizing the risk to U.S. soldiers and civilians.
companies employed more than 350,000
people and earned profits of $13.3 billion
Continued technological leadership is essential to U.S. national security, military readi-
on sales of $84.8 billion in 1994.
ness, and global influence.
TECHNOLOGY AND AMERICA'S QUALITY OF LIFE
New technologies are also improving the quality of life for all Americans. Medical research
in pharmaceuticals, biotechnology, and medical devices promises new hope for the sick
and a healthier life for all. Environmental research offers cleaner air, water, and soil
through better monitoring, prevention, and remediation technologies. Advanced moni-
toring and forecasting technologies-from satellites to simulation-are helping save lives
and minimize property damage caused by hurricanes, blizzards, microbursts, and other
severe weather. Sophisticated traffic management systems for land, sea, and air trans-
portation enable the movement of more people and goods in less time.
Agricultural research is producing a cornucopia of safer, healthier, and tastier food products.
Automobile research is providing safer, cleaner, more energy efficient, and more intelligent
vehicles-saving lives, preserving natural resources, and keeping our environment cleaner.
Aeronautical technology is making air travel safer, less expensive, and environmentally com-
patible. Energy research is helping to deliver cleaner and less expensive fuels, reduce
Safer poultry products.
American dependence on foreign resources, and tap alternative sources of energy-solar,
nuclear, geothermal, biomass, and hydroelectric. Information and telecommunications tech-
nologies have enabled instantaneous communications across the globe. And the ability to
telecommute allows many American workers to spend more time with their families.
By 2001, there will be an estimated
15 million American telecommuters.
14
Technology in the National Interest
Chapter 1
OSTP
DRAFT 5/8/97
Possible Approach for Morgan State
I)
Our commitment to science and technology
Reiterate strategy of fiscal responsibility, streamlining government while at the same time
protecting investments in education and research. The enduring Federal commitment to
science, to technology, to learning, to research -- is the key to our future, essential to our
economy, health, environment, security. Our strategy is working. It's gratifying that
Congress is moving with us.
The pace of science, and the resulting technological advances, is accelerating SO rapidly
that textbooks are frequently obsolete before they're printed. Humankind places a
tremendous premium on (a) an increasingly sophisticated base of skilled human resources
and knowledge, (b) a well-functioning and resilient natural resource system. As
populations grow and economic activities expand, our hopes for sustained progress --
sustainable development hinge on human ingenuity.
With global linkages growing stronger, the rapid movement of people, goods,
information has permanently altered commerce, national security, demographics and
health. The cost of "natural" disasters that can be greatly lessened through S&T now
amounts for the U.S. alone to about $1 billion per week; how the potential of enormous
impacts of global climate change can be lessened with timely action; the opportunity to
capitalize on the revolutions in biology and biomedicine to improve human health,
agriculture, etc.]
II) Health and Disease
Evidence abounds of the returns from scientific research and potential for the future.
Today's doctors treat symptoms. The human body and its ailments are so complex that it
may be that we are better at diagnosing and curing what is wrong with our cars than with
ourselves. We need to give our doctors a toolbox as good as a mechanic's.
Tomorrow's doctors will have the tools to predict and prevent. Understanding the chain
of events that cause disease offers real insight into what can be done to cure it, or
preferably, prevent it from occurring in the first place. There is growing optimism
regarding new drugs to treat AIDS or a vaccine to prevent its spread. Chronic,
debilitating diseases such as diabetes, high blood pressure, arthritis and sickle cell anemia
may succumb to innovative new therapies.
III) Ethics
Our ethics must be as good as our science.
In American tradition, freedom of scientific inquiry is likened to freedom of speech and
holds very great respect. There is a practical dimension to this attitude in that allowing
scientific opportunity to guide research directions has proven benefits (examples of
unpredicted payoffs and those in unrelated fields).
Knowledge, in and of itself, is value-neutral;, but knowledge may be used for good or evil.
The very success of science and the technology that emerges from it is a distinct form of
power that must be nurtured and governed with a watchful eye.
We acknowledge the need for societal governance of the use of science and technology,
but we also acknowledge the imperative that such governance be thoughtful and careful,
that liberty and privacy (respect for persons, beneficence and justice), for example, be
protected. It is a complex line. Our choices carry great weight. That is why federal
oversight is necessary in some cases to ensure that societal values, informed by
cultural/religious views, are not trumped, while at the same time continuing our tradition
of freedom of scientific inquiry. It is for this reason that the President created NBAC.
Accounts of past abuses of the human subjects of research (Tuskegee, radiation) and the
desire to prevent abuse from ever occurring again, along with the increasing power of
technology to work with the forces of nature, joined to form an imperative need for
continuing thoughtful prospective governance of our Nation's biomedical and behavioral
research enterprise.
IV) Policy
Extension of NBAC charter
Diabetes initiative
Long-term goal for R&D support. Strengthening our S&T investments will reap ample
rewards. We must all be the constituency of the future.
Others
The gulf between the cultures of science and politics. Their different time perspectives.
Ozone depletion, global warming, loss of biodiversity have long time constants. While it
may take two decades for Nobel recognition or five decades for climate change, political
change often comes about in hours or days.
We are in the formative stages of coupling the physical, biological and social sciences in
the pursuit of global knowledge. C.P. Snow's admonition that we must bridge the gap
between our cultures of natural science and social science if we are to effectively tackle
the research challenges and opportunities ahead. The challenge is to build those bridges,
not only to the next century, but across the cultural divides that we must not allow to
separate us.
SCIENCE AND HUMAN GOALS IN THE 21ST CENTURY
INTERNATIONAL COUNCIL OF SCIENTIFIC UNIONS
SEPTEMBER 24, 1996
Health physical and mental well-being-- is among the
most desired and universal of the goals of individuals and
societies. / It is a goal towards which science contributes-
in the past, present, and future---in immensely important
ways.
But health is also a goal that requires consideration
of many other factors. (slide) Among these are:
political stability (war, dislocation)
the size and age-composition of populations
the economic, political, and educational status of
individuals and their societies
the way in which people live and the risks
to which they subject their health
and
the capacity of societies to care for the sick.
Within this set of complex determinants, the goal of medical
research is to provide knowledge that can permit
individuals, governments, and others to improve health by
preventive and therapeutic strategies.
Even a brief account of the role medical science is likely to
play in the future must consider the likelihood of change in
these many dimensions of society that affect health.
I
would like to concentrate my remarks today on a few broad
issues:
Longer life spans, increasing numbers of elderly people,
and an enlarging impact of chronic illness are certain to
change the approaches to health very profoundly in all
countries and cultures, in every part of the world.
Infectious diseases---most notably tuberculosis, AIDS,
and malaria- will continue to be important, especially in
the developing parts of the world, but the impact of
contagious illnesses will decline overall. The degree of
control that we can achieve is difficult to predict and may be
especially susceptible to scientific progress.
Sophisticated approaches to disease through molecular
biology and genetics will thrive in technically-advanced
but
countries, and will present significant ethical and economic
problems.
Patterns of behavior will continue to offer some of the
greatest opportunities for improving health, but changes in
those patterns may be difficult to achieve.
Profound differences among societies will invite different
kinds of efforts to improve health.
Demography: assessing the change in population size
and composition.
varied rates of reproduction (fertility index), with many
nations now below the replacement level of 2.1.
nevertheless, increased population virtually
every US where (longer life, immigration, as well as fertility);
decline in annual growth rate from around 1 to around
0.5%. Although trends are encouraging, the continuing
increases place obvious demands on agriculture, water
supplies, environment, etc., with strong implications for
health (nutrition, water and air quality, etc.)
more dramatic than population increases: changes in age
distribution:
US: change in profile from1975 to 2020 (baby boomer
effect)
especially dramatic over 85!
but changes not confined to US or other most
developed countries ten years ago, very dramatic
difference between the population distribution in adjacent
nations (US vs. Mexico in 1985)
now all countries are becoming more like US, Europe,
and Japan:
marked increases in life expectancy (from 40's to
60's, 70's, even 80 in most countries)
dramatic increases in numbers of aged
the most pronounced rates of increase in
less developed countries (bar graph)
as a consequence of these changes:
there will be major alterations in the distribution of
diseases responsible for death and disability world wide,
especially in developing world recently summarized in new
book by WHO, WB, HSPB (show cover of The Global Burden
of Disease)
communic
perioded
currently: big differences in deaths in broad cause
non
groups developed VS. developing countries
study measures impact (total burden of illness) in
DALY's---disability-adjusted life years---defined by loss of
life and impairment of life due to death and disability
pie chart shows anticipated increase in burden of
chronic illness, especially in developing regions, decline in
disease associated with poverty and childhood (e.g. many
infectious diseases), increase in impact of injury (especially
among young men, and especially due to automobiles, also
guns)
broken down to top ten causes of disease burden world
wide (note colors: blue shows declining rank, red indicates
steady or rising rank) these changes occurring most
rapidly in the developing world, catching up with the
developed world demographically and medically. also
reflected in the book's account of changes in major causes of
death: significant decrease in many infectious causes,
increase in death from cardiovascular diseases, cancers,
other chronic non-communucable ailments
changes reflect improved control of common infections,
better standards of living (nutrition), although
malnutrition and sanitation remain major
contributors to disability and death (chart)
study also reveals a major role for mental and other
neurological disorders in causing disability- of the top 10,
five are neuropsychiatric
langer life carter has
to impact 6 ture deseases (eg, depension
+ wino regarding )
Infectious diseases: declining but highly uncertain
role, with little evidence of progress against HIV,
TBC, malaria
The charts you have seen indicate that many common
infectious illnesses are likely to be less significant thirty
years from now than they are today.
In addition, well-
known advances through vaccines: smallpox gone, polio
almost gone, hepatitis B perhaps on the way out, improved
vaccines vs. hemophilus B and pertussis. / There remain at
least three prevalent, chronic, and deadly infectious
illnesses: malaria, TBC, AIDS.
Moreover, recent history
has shown that the possible appearance of unexpected
infectious agents, such as HIV, cannot be ignored.
Chart from James Chin.
1994: about 15 million
infected people and prob. 2-3 million cases of AIDS S/S shows
expected pattern better of increase of HIV infection top to over 20
million and disease (AIDS) to over 5 million, esp. in Asia and
Africa. (cf. NY Times story on spread of HIV in India in
some African countries, AIDS deaths will negate half of the
anticipated decline in death rates and will even raise death
rates among children.) This despite promising therapies
recently introduced in US and Europe (expensive, not fully
tested, resistance likely to be continued problem) and
to have signifi waid under effect
extensive knowledge about transmission patterns. Unitihity
on progections without vaccine.
Little change in numbers for malaria actually worse
for TBC (in part due to HIV as a contributing factor), despite
long study and some effective remedies.
These are diseases in which research findings could have
dramatic impact, especially if vaccine efforts succeed; could
be equally dramatic negative effects from changes in the
infectious agents.
Hence three different projections for
TBC from WHO report.
Molecular genetics
is a topic of immense research interest,
has great potential for application to health (risk
assessment, new therapeutic or preventive strategies),
even in the developing world c.f. hepatitis B vaccine), and
has already yielded some dividends (e.g. recombinant
growth factors, genetic testing).
also raises many ethical, social, legal issues
and cost: benefit analysis is not complete.
Non-genetic risk assessment is highly informative,
offers many individual options for behavioral changes that
most
have been difficult to achieve
McGinniss and Foege chart (most of these identifiable
causes can, in principle, be avoided, but the US population
has had limited success coping with them; tobacco a partial
success)
erry basing
New world-wide version from WHO study, anticipates
increasing importance of tobacco, while importance of
childhood diarrhea declines
Summing up and perspective
1) A self-evident truth: different cultures face different
problems, and research will differ accordingly in scale and
purpose
2) Just because health outcomes are determined by
many factors, it should not be underemphasized that
science has had a major role in the improvement and
prolongation of life e.g. Preston's conclusion re: infectious
diseases
3) Science and education have the potential to make
improvements in public health through prevention and
therapy. Many of the projections of disease burden in the
new book are just that (projections), and could be proven
wrong by scientific advances and effective public health
campaigns.
Consider the examples of coronary heart disease and stroke
in the US: identification and control of risk factors
(especially diet and serum cholesterol, hypertension, and
smoking) have caused dramatic declines in the mortality
rates for these two diseases.
scientiful
Major challenges: vaccines against refractory infectious
agents; control of insect vectors; deterring unhealthy
behaviors; making efficient and fair use of genetic
information; basing new therapies on deep knowledge of
cells and molecules; using talents in engineering and
materials science to rehabilitate and repair.
But these things will only be possible in a world that is
peaceable and prosperous.
For Release Upon Delivery
seems special
STATEMENT BY
HAROLD VARMUS, M.D.
loth at
DIRECTOR
openes by
NATIONAL INSTITUTES OF HEALTH
DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES
112ⁿ Directors
BEFORE THE
SENATE COMMITTEE ON LABOR AND HUMAN RESOURCES
MARCH 6, 1996
material from
opening statements by
Directors, NHLBI and NICHD
is attached.
I am Harold Varmus, Director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and I am
pleased to appear before you to discuss the revitalization of the NIH.
Organization and Purpose of the NIH
Bodeground
The NIH is a confederacy of twenty four organization units that seeks to expand fundamental
knowledge about the nature and behavior of living systems and to apply that knowledge to
improve the health of human beings. The research undertaken by the NIH assumes many forms,
occurs in many places, and employs many techniques. Some research is confined to the
laboratory, and often attempts to understand complex biological systems by examining
individual molecules, cells, or tissues; some addresses normal human biology and disease in the
context of living subjects; and some is based on the study of human populations. About ten
percent of NIH-funded research takes place in the NIH intramural program; the rest is conducted
at nearly 2000 institutions which receive grants, contracts, and cooperative agreements awarded
by the NIH after competitive expert review. Both intramural and extramural research activities
address a wide spectrum of biological questions with methods that range from structural analysis
of macromolecules to clinical trials to behavioral studies. In addition, the NIH takes
responsibility for the training of new medical scientists through programs designed to assist
undergraduates, graduate, and post-graduate students in both extramural and intramural settings.
These several genres of research activity are supported by funds allocated to twenty one
Institutes and Centers (IC's), each of which has authorities defined by earlier legislation. Seven
IC's address specific health problems: the National Cancer Institute, the National Institute of
Allergy and Infectious Diseases, the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney
Diseases, the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, the National Institute on
Drug Abuse, the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, and the National Institute
of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases. Four IC's are organized around biological
systems: the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, the National Eye Institute, the National
Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders and the National Institute of Dental
Research. Two IC's focus on stages of human development: the National Institute of Child
Health and Human Development and the National Institute on Aging. Five other IC's study
particular aspects of human health or area of science: the National Institute of Mental Health, the
National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, the National Institute of General Medical
Sciences, the National Institute for Nursing Research, and the National Center for Human
Genome Research.
Other IC's provide research infrastructure. The National Center for Research
Resources supports research infrastructure including shared instrumentation programs and
centers for clinical research located across the Nation; the Fogarty International Center fosters
international scientific collaborations; and the National Library of Medicine collects,
disseminates, and exchanges biomedical information. The NIH organization also includes three
independent Divisions without budgetary authority. The Division of Computer Research and
Technology and the Division of Research Grants carry out research management functions
involved in review of grant applications and maintenance of our information infrastructure; while
the NIH Clinical Center supports nearly 50 percent of all the federally-funded clinical research
beds in the Nation and helps translate basic science discoveries of intramural and extramural
investigators into clinical applications that advance human health;
A Seamless NIH
Although each of the IC's has a specific research orientation, there are many
commonalities. Most obvious are the shared technical approaches to medical research and the
common locations for research within the intramural and extramural programs. In addition, IC's
often address different aspects of the major health problems faced by our citizens. This feature
requires close interactions among the IC's; these may be informal, or they may be guided by
inter-IC committees or by NIH-wide coordinating offices, some of which are located within the
Office of the Director, NIH. This rich matrix of research activity requires collegial relations
among the IC's and thrives in an atmosphere that maximizes flexibility in the management of
research programs. A major objective of my administration at the NIH has been the enrichment
of these interactions and a strengthening of the sense of unified purpose.
My colleagues and I will attempt to display these attributes of the NIH in the presentations
to be made by each of the five panels that will testify during the remainder of this hearing. The
Committee will hear about four important problems in medical science---cancer, degenerative
diseases, neuroscience, and infectious diseases---and will learn about the physical and intellectual
infrastructure that supports our work. In each presentation, we will emphasize the
multidisciplinary approach that is undertaken by IC's working collaboratively to address the
Nation's health.
An Illustrative Example
I will begin with an illustration of how the NIH does research, describing a common
condition that almost everyone in our country worries about---obesity. To some, obesity may
appear to be a simple problem: too much fat in a body that ingests too much food. But, in fact,
obesity is a problem with complex origins and complex manifestations; as a result, it engages
the energies of many of our IC's, as well as other government agencies, and demands a wide
variety of technical approaches.
At least six major issues need to be confronted (Chart 1): the definition and prevalence of
obesity; the factors that contribute to its cause; the other medical conditions to which it
predisposes; and the preventive and therapeutic strategies that can be used to control it. At the
NIH, the National Institute of Diabetes, Digestive, and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK) leads the
efforts to confront most of these issues, both by supporting a great deal of research on obesity
and diabetes and by housing several organizations---th National Task Force on Prevention and
Treatment of Obesity, the Weight-Control Information Network, and the Office of Nutrition-
that help to coordinate research activities and interpret and disseminate the findings. But at least
2
ten other IC's support studies of obesity and its complications and participate in the coordinating
functions. In addition, several program offices in the Office of the Director, NIH---the Office of
Research on Minority Health, the Office of Research on Women's Health, the Office of Disease
Prevention, and the Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research---help to guide obesity
research in the areas of their expertise.
Largely through the work of the National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys,
conducted by our sister agency, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, we know that
obesity, as currently defined, afflicts about 50 million adults, roughly one third of the population
over 30 years of age. The condition disproportionately affects women, minorities, and the poor.
Unlike most other risk factors for cardiovascular disease, such as smoking, hypertension, and
blood lipid levels, obesity has become substantially more common in the past decade, especially
among children and adolescents.
The importance of obesity as a subject for research by the NIH is underscored by its
impact on the morbidity and mortality of our citizens (Chart 2). Obesity is second only to
tobacco as a risk factor for disease, accountable for about 300,000 deaths per year and an
economic cost of between 50 to 100 billion dollars. Of the diseases promoted by obesity,
cardiovascular disorders and diabetes (non-insulin dependent diabetes mellitus [NIDDM]) are
probably best known; but obesity also increases the likelihood of several cancers, stroke, gall
bladder disease, gout, and osteoarthritis, and is associated with eating, sleep, and mood disorders.
For these reasons, obesity is studied from many vantage points by a large number of the
organization units at the NIH.
The rising prevalence of obesity attests to our inability to control it effectively, despite the
fact that at any one time about one third of our adult population claims to be engaged in weight
control activities---dietary, pharmaceutical, and behavioral modification programs. A recent
NIH Consensus Conference, organized by the Office for Disease Prevention in collaboration with
the White House Council on Physical Fitness, strongly recommended greater attention to
increased physical activity as a means to control weight, in part because it provides health
benefits even in the presence of obesity. In addition, behavioral research shows long-term
benefits to obese children receiving family-based therapies. But, in general, weight loss is
transient with the methods now in widespread use, and the dangers of frequent cycles of weight
gain and loss have not been fully assessed.
In the long run, the best prospects for control of obesity reside in a better understanding of
its origins. Many factors are now known to contribute to obesity (Chart 3). Several of these
(such as gender or socio-economic status) are difficult or impossible to alter, but others (such as
dietary habits and physical activity) should be amenable to change through instruction. The
difficulty in achieving long-term behavioral changes accounts in part for the public excitement
about some remarkable recent discoveries of genetic factors controlling obesity and obesity-
associated NIDDM in animals.
3
Mice and rats with certain inherited mutations that predispose to obesity and NIDDM
(Chart 4) are now known to lack a hormonal mechanism for maintaining healthy patterns of
eating and activity. Through this mechanism, the animals---and, presumably, human beings
regulate diet and exercise through the brain's response to a hormone, called leptin, that is
produced by fat cells. Although it appears unlikely that this hormone is itself deficient in a
significant number of obese people, the isolation of the genes for leptin and the leptin receptor
has already deepened our understanding of metabolism and stimulated additional fundamental
research. Furthermore, applied studies already underway in the private sector may yield more
potent ways to control body fat and thereby prevent NIDDM and other complications of obesity.
Challenges to the Continued Productivity of American Medical Research
Throughout the course of these hearings, we will present many examples of excellence in
NIH-supported research programs, the basis for our Nation's uncontested role as the world leader
in medical research. But to remain strong, the NIH---and the American research enterprise
generally---must be capable of adapting to very substantial demographic, economic, and other
changes in our society. These changes are already beginning to affect the kinds of problems we
study, the way we finance medical research, and the recruitment and training of new scientists.
Demographic changes and disease incidence. Although public health has improved
dramatically over the past half-century, due in large part to NIH-supported biomedical research,
current demographic trends are creating new health problems. The aging of the U.S. population,
for example, is leading to an increase in chronic and degenerative diseases, as will be presented
by one of tomorrow's panels. More people are surviving acute illnesses and injuries that were
once invariably fatal. As the number of minorities in the U.S. grows, diseases such as diabetes
mellitus, which disproportionately affects members of some minority populations, will become
more prevalent. These changes and many others that affect the distribution of illness must
inevitably affect the emphasis we place on the study of various diseases. They also demand that
we have the flexibility to respond as an institution to new health threats and to recurrences of old
ones. Current concerns about emerging and re-emerging infections, as discussed by another of
tomorrow's panels, illustrate this problem well.
Changes in health care delivery and clinical research. Systemic changes in the
financing and delivery of health care also may be producing substantial effects on the Nation's
biomedical research capacity. Most NIH-supported medical research, especially clinical
investigation, is conducted at academic health centers. During the 1980s, these centers began to
rely heavily on clinical revenues to subsidize the costs of both teaching and research. As more
patients enroll in managed care organizations, however, referrals to the centers could decline,
because their multiple missions drive up service costs. As a result, less clinical revenue may be
available to support biomedical research. In addition, managed care providers are reluctant to
support the costs of clinical research by covering hospitalization and other health care needs for
patients enrolled in clinical trials.
4
These changes will affect the capacity of some academic medical centers to conduct
research, particularly patient-oriented research. They may also affect the availability of research
subjects for clinical trials. In addition, as the States increasingly adopt managed care plans under
their Medicaid Programs, recruitment of minorities and underserved populations into clinical
trials may be more difficult. These trends could slow the discovery of new treatments for many
diseases.
The NIH is attempting to respond to these changes by providing better oversight of clinical
research in both the extramural and intramural sectors. The NIH Director's Clinical Research
Panel is seeking new sources of funds to support clinical research, evaluating the programs for
recruitment and training of clinical investigators, and determining where clinical research can be
most effectively conducted. The NIH Clinical Center is also undergoing major changes in
governance, financing, and daily function, as a result of a recent REGO II evaluation, and it has
strengthened its training programs in clinical research.
Yesterday, the NIH and Department of Defense announced a demonstration project that
we believe could serve as a model for future partnerships in health care between the health
insurance industry and medical research community. The National Cancer Institute and the DoD
signed an agreement that formalizes the process by which patients who are beneficiaries of
DoD's health benefits program can participate in NCI-sponsored clinical trials.
Changes in the recruitment of new scientists. The number of scientists working in
fields supported by the NIH has increased in the past decade. As a result, research scientists
face more competition for jobs, especially in the academic sector; a lower likelihood of success
when applying for NIH grants; longer periods of graduate and post-doctoral training; and
considerable and justifiable anxiety about their long-term productivity and career prospects.
These problems have been offset somewhat by increased hiring in medical research industries--
including biotechnology, research supplies, and pharmaceutical companies. In addition, new
Ph.D.s and M.D.s have pursued new career options, including patent law, science policy,
journalism and business.
The need for research in the health sciences is unlikely to diminish in the decades ahead.
Our ability to maintain the momentum of recent scientific progress and our international
leadership in medical research depends on the continued production of new, highly trained
investigators. We do not plan to reduce our efforts to recruit new investigators, especially from
under-represented sectors of the population, or to curtail our training programs for graduate and
post-graduate students. We do, however, agree with a recent report from the National Research
Council that argues that trainees should be better acquainted with the wide variety of new career
opportunities that have been created by the remarkable success of medical science.
5
Proposed Authorization Legislation
I support the authorization process, and am pleased the Committee has undertaken these
hearings. Authorization can play a strong role in facilitating NIH's ability to conduct research.
NIH has been working with the Department to develop authorization proposals that will help
NIH advance scientific excellence in basic and clinical research. We look forward to sending the
Committee a letter from Secretary Shalala outlining these authorization proposals in the coming
weeks.
Our proposals will likely fall into four broad areas: research training; improving NIH's
administrative efficiency and flexibility; ensuring that all of NIH's Institutes, Centers, and
Divisions, including the National Center for Human Genome Research, possess similar
authorities; and extending the authorization of the NIH Office of AIDS Research. Each of the
authorization proposals HHS submits to the Congress will help NIH capitalize on new areas of
scientific opportunity. Extending the authorization of the Office of AIDS Research, which plans,
coordinates, and funds all NIH AIDS research, will guarantee that NIH has the flexibility to
respond immediately to the many promising new avenues of research that will help us fight
AIDS. Central to this flexibility is retention of the Office of AIDS Research's budgetary
authority.
Conclusion
When I first appeared before this Committee on November 2, 1993, as part of the process
leading to my confirmation as Director of the NIH, I pledged to remain firmly committed to
scientific excellence, to defend open-ended basic science, and to encourage the extension of
discoveries to clinical settings. I believe that you will see many examples of the fruits of that
pledge in the course of our testimony over the next two days. I hope we will convince you that
the NIH continues to thrive and that its reauthorization is richly deserved.
I look forward to working with the Committee on the reauthorization of NIH and would
be pleased to answer any questions you may have.
6
CHART 1
Obesity Issues
Definition
Prevalence
Causative Factors
Associated conditions
Prevention
Treatment
CHART 2
Conditions Associated with Obesity
Hypertension Stroke
Some Cancers
Heart Disease
Gall Bladder
Disease
Hyperlipidemia
Obesity
Gout
Non-insulin
dependent
Diabetes Mellitus
Eating Disorders
Osteoarthritis
Sleep Disorders
Mood Disorders
CHART 3
Causative Factors
Nutrition
Smoking Cessation
Activity Level
Gender
Pregnancy
Obesity
Race
Metabolic and
Socio-economic
Endocrine Status
Status
Genetic Factors
Age
EN down by geneti
CHART 4
from opening Statement by Director, NHLBI
promise of the future. For instance, it is becoming clear that development of asthma depends on
the pathways followed by the immune and pulmonary systems during early life. A person's
genetic background interacts with a predisposing environment at critical stages to determine the
pattern of response to these systems for the rest of life. Extension of such knowledge may
ultimately pinpoint the_timing and nature of preventive strategies
We are pleased to announce that scientists have now uncovered the location of major genes that
control the allergy and hyperreactivity of the airways, two important risk factors for asthma. The
genes are located in regions of chromosome 5 that are rich in cytokines, molecules that are
thought to regulate the process of inflammation that leads to development of asthma. In parallel
studies, a large number of families with well-defined asthma are being characterized in an
attempt to identify all the genes that confer susceptibility to asthma. Scientists will then proceed
to examine more closely specific genes of interest. These findings represent the first important
step in unraveling the genetic basis of asthma. With the genes in hand, it will then be possible to
explore their interactions with environmental factors that play such an important role in causing
the disease. Identification of the genes responsible for allergy and asthma is expected to lead to a
better understanding of the primary defects in asthma, to development of better techniques for
early diagnosis and disease prevention, and to new approaches for treatment.
Sickle cell disease. Sickle cell disease, the most common serious inherited blood disorder in the
United States, is also one of the most tenacious and inexorable of chronic diseases in that it
afflicts its victims from cradle to grave. It is characterized by recurrent bouts of pain ("crises"),
chronic anemia related to accelerated destruction of red blood cells, increased susceptibility to
certain infections, and acute or chronic damage to various organs. Children inherit sickle cell
disease when the gene for defective ("sickle") hemoglobin is passed on from both parents. In this
country the illness occurs predominantly, but not exclusively, in persons of African ancestry;
about 50,000 to 60,000 American blacks are affected. Health-care costs for patients with sickle
cell disease can be extremely high, quality of life is impaired, and loss of time from school or
employment is common. Thus, sickle cell disease is a problem of significant medical,
psychological, social, and economic importance.
Although NIH research on sickle cell disease began less than 25 years ago, progress has been
rapid. Few patients used to survive beyond the third decade, but now many are living into their
50s and beyond. In contrast to the situation with regard to heart disease and asthma, for which
molecular and genetic techniques are just beginning to be applied, our study of this disorder
began with sophisticated, fundamental investigations. In fact, in 1977 sickle cell disease became
the first human malady to be described at the level of DNA and RNA. Breakthroughs that
rapidly followed made it possible to apply gene mapping techniques to prenatal diagnosis and to
use placental tissue rather than fetal blood samples for this purpose. This substantially increased
the safety of prenatal diagnosis for sickle cell disease. and rapidly led to the application of
molecular genetics for prenatal diagnosis of other inherited diseases.
At the same time, basic research supported in scientific laboratories throughout the country
brought a tremendous revolution in our understanding of sickle cell disease at the molecular
level. One of the earliest NIH programs focused on research to determine the mechanisms that
regulate the "switch" from fetal to adult hemoglobin during infancy. It had been recognized for
some time that sickle cell patients who were fortunate enough to have inherited a tendency to
continue producing fetal hemoglobin beyond the first year of life had relatively benign disease.
Therefore, it seemed logical to pursue therapeutic modalities that would enable patients
producing adult sickle hemoglobin to "switch back" to producing normal fetal hemoglobin. This
research catalyzed the field of molecular biology, and became the cornerstone for development of
new therapeutic approaches. It produced news headlines last year when the results of a landmark
clinical trial showed that administration of hydroxyurea, a common chemotherapeutic agent that
boosts fetal hemoglobin production, not only reduces the frequency of crises and their attendant
hospitalizations, but also reduces episodes of acute chest syndrome, a pneumonia-like
complication, and the need for blood transfusions.
Very early on, it became apparent that although much was known about the molecular basis of
sickle cell disease, little was known about its natural history or clinical course. Only the sickest
patients were described in the medical literature, and most clinical reports of patient outcomes
were anecdotal and retrospective. The Cooperative Study of Sickle Cell Disease addressed many
of these unknowns. It clarified issues of growth and maturation patterns among children with
sickle cell disease; defined the causes of death in the pediatric population; described the
epidemiology of painful episodes and documented, for the first time, that the frequency with
which such crises occur is a predictor of premature death in adult patients; and pointed out the
risks of alloimmunization for sickle cell patients receiving repeated blood transfusions. This
research program redoubled efforts to search for new therapeutic agents, and also provided a
model, from our Comprehensive Sickle Cell Centers, for a revised management approach that
places the central focus on the patient. Care that was previously fragmented, impersonal, and
episodic has been replaced with a team approach, involving a cadre of trained personnel that
includes not only physicians, but also nurses. social workers, psychologists, nutritionists,
counselors, and allied health professionals.
Subsequent clinical research demonstrated the value of prophylactic penicillin in preventing
major infections in infants and young children. Before that discovery, approximately 30 percent
of sickle cell deaths occurred before 5 years of age, most in children under the age of 2, and the
majority were due to pneumococcal infection. This work also provided impetus for
recommending that all newborns be screened for sickle cell disease, which is currently being
carried out in 42 states. Infants at risk could then be referred for comprehensive care, and
prophylactic penicillin therapy could be given by 3 months of age. A followup study determined
that this therapy can safely be discontinued in most patients at 5 years of age, thereby decreasing
the risk of promoting drug-resistant infections in this vulnerable population.
We see a new era of optimism for treating and. indeed. curing sickle cell disease patients,
because we are on the threshold of moving molecular medicine even closer to the bedside. Gene
therapy and bone marrow transplantation offer great hopes for eliminating this disease. Bone
marrow transplantation has been successfully used by several investigators in Europe, as well as
a small number in the United States. Although early reports are promising, patient selection,
donor availability, and complications of the procedure continue to be potential problems that
prevent widespread use of this therapeutic modality today.
DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES
National Institutes of Health
Statement of the Director
National Institute of Child Health and Human Development
The NICHD is charged by Congress to conduct research on maternal and child
health, the population sciences, and medical rehabilitation. The NICHD supports a wide
range of research approaches to these areas, from the latest in molecular biology,
through clinical trials, to epidemiologic surveys of various populations in our society,
and development of new assistive technologies.
Last year, during the appropriations hearings, we reported good news of research
advances and the awarding of the Nobel prize to two of our grantees. We will be
continuing many of these themes this year, as these positive trends continue, including
reduction in the infant mortality rate and high honors for NICHD-supported scientists.
For example, following on the four percent decline in infant mortality in 1994
that we reported last year, the trend continued with a 6 percent decline from 1994 to
1995, and the preliminary data for 1996 look equally encouraging. Since the NICHD
was established in 1962, the U.S. infant mortality rate has declined by 70 percent.
NICHD research advances have played a major role, particularly improvements in
treating respiratory distress syndrome (RDS) and the "Back to Sleep" campaign aimed at
reducing the risk of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS).
The "Back to Sleep" campaign is based on NICHD research and, as its name
implies, recommends that healthy infants be placed on their backs to sleep to reduce the
risk of SIDS. Consequently, stomach sleeping has changed from 80 percent of babies to
25 percent, and deaths due to SIDS have fallen by more than 30 percent in the past three
years. New Mexico, with an intensive Back to Sleep campaign, had a reduction of over
60 percent in SIDS deaths. Prior to the campaign, about 5,000 babies were lost each
year to SIDS. Now, 1,600 fewer babies annually die of SIDS. The NICHD "Back to
Sleep" campaign is being intensified in FY 97 and 98 with the goal of having 95 percent
of babies sleeping on their backs and cutting SIDS deaths by more than half.
Many premature infants have trouble breathing. NICHD research previously
revealed that such infants lack surfactant, a surface factor that keeps the inside of the
lungs from sticking together and makes breathing easier. The development and
administration of surfactant has markedly reduced deaths due to RDS and saves about
$90 million a year in medical costs. Another new therapy, using inhaled nitric oxide, has
just been shown by NICHD research to rescue many infants with a breathing problem
called hypoxic respiratory failure and averts the need for a surgical procedure to
oxygenate their blood. Inhaled nitric oxide is also much less expensive than the riskier
surgery that often caused loss of one of the carotid arteries.
A brief historical note dramatically illustrates the progress from NICHD research.
In 1963, President Kennedy's son Patrick was born prematurely and died of respiratory
distress syndrome. Despite all his advantages, his doctors and his parents could only
watch helplessly as Patrick struggled to breathe, because the cause of RDS was not
understood and there was no treatment. Now, with treatment with surfactant, new
respirators, better isolettes, and advanced intravenous fluid therapy, premature babies
have a far better chance to live. When Patrick was born, an infant with RDS at his
weight and gestational age had a 95 percent chance of dying; today, an infant at that
weight and age has a 95 percent chance of living.
Executive Summary
"Our greatness is measured not only in how we
do right but also [in]
how we act when we know we've done the wrong thing; how we confront
our mistakes, make our apologies, and take action."
-President Clinton
October 3, 1995
In January 1994, President Clinton established the Advisory
Committee on Human Radiation Experiments (ACHRE) to examine
reports that the government had funded and conducted unethical
human radiation experiments and releases of radiation during the
Cold War. The President directed ACHRE to uncover the truth,
recommend steps to right past wrongs, and propose ways to prevent
unethical human subjects research from occurring in the future.
The Committee published its findings and recommendations in
The Administration
October 1995.
has adopted most of
ACHRE's recommen-
This report presents the Administration's actions to respond to
dations and has
ACHRE's findings and recommendations. The Committee found that
acted throughout
the government had conducted several thousand human radiation
the government to
experiments from 1944 to 1975. Although the majority of the
implement them.
experiments advanced biomedical science and were unlikely to have
caused harm, some were conducted unethically. ACHRE made 18
recommendations to improve openness in government, protect
human subjects in the future, and redress past wrongs. The Admin-
istration has adopted most of ACHRE's recommendations and has
acted throughout the government to implement them.
Opening the Record
ACHRE recommended that the government take a number of steps
to organize the historical records of human radiation experiments
and to give the public access to these records. ACHRE identified the
National Archives as the appropriate repository for documents. The
Committee also recommended an independent review of the CIA's
recordkeeping system and all of its documents related to human
radiation experiments.
V
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ONLINE
U.S.News
Cover Story
POLITICS OF BIOLOGY
U.S.N.
How the nature vs. nurture debate shapes public policy--and
our view of ourselves
Read the results of an all new U.S. News Survey on American attitudes
towards human behavior
BY WRAY HERBERT
Laurie Flynn uses the technology of neuroscience to light up the brains of
Washington lawmakers. As executive director of the National Alliance for
the Mentally Ill, she marshals everything from cost analysis to moral
pleading to make the case for laws banning discrimination against people
with mental illness. But her most powerful advocacy tool by far is the PET
scan. She takes a collection of these colorful brain images up to Capitol
Hill to put on a show, giving lawmakers a window on a "broken" brain in
action. "When they see that it's not some imaginary, fuzzy problem, but a
real physical condition, then they get it: 'Oh, it's in the brain."
The view of mental illness as a brain disease has been crucial to the effort
to destigmatize illnesses such as schizophrenia and depression. But it's just
one example of a much broader biologizing of American culture that's been
going on for more than a decade. For both political and scientific
reasons--and it's often impossible to disentangle the two--everything from
criminality to addictive disorders to sexual orientation is seen today less as
a matter of choice than of genetic destiny. Even basic personality is
looking more and more like a genetic legacy. Nearly every week there is a
report of a new gene for one trait or another. Novelty seeking, religiosity,
shyness, the tendency to divorce, and even happiness (or the lack of it) are
among the traits that may result in part from a gene, according to new
research.
This cultural shift has political and personal implications. On the personal
level, a belief in the power of genes necessarily diminishes the potency of
such personal qualities as will, capacity to choose, and sense of
responsibility for those choices--if it's in your genes, you're not
accountable. It allows the alcoholic, for example, to treat himself as a
helpless victim of his biology rather than as a willful agent with control of
his own behavior. Genetic determinism can free victims and their families
of guilt--or lock them in their suffering.
On the political level, biological determinism now colors all sorts of
public-policy debates on issues such as gay rights, health care, juvenile
justice, and welfare reform. The effort to dismantle social programs is
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fueled by the belief that government interventions (the nurturing side in the
nature-nurture debate) don't work very well--and the corollary idea that
society can't make up for every unfortunate citizen's bad luck. It's probably
no coincidence that the biologizing of culture has accompanied the
country's shift to the political right, since conservatives traditionally are
more dubious about human perfectability than are liberals. As Northeastern
University psychologist Leon Kamin notes, the simplest way to discover
someone's political leanings is to ask his or her view on genetics.
Even so, genetic determinism can have paradoxical consequences at times,
leading to disdain rather than sympathy for the disadvantaged, and
marginalization rather than inclusion. Cultural critics are beginning to sort
out the unpredictable politics of biology, focusing on four traits: violence,
mental illness, alcoholism, and sexual orientation.
The nature of violence. To get a sense of just how thorough--and how
politicized--the biologizing of culture has been, just look at the issue of
urban gang violence as it is framed today. A few years ago, Frederick
Goodwin, then director of the government's top mental health agency, was
orchestrating the so-called Federal Violence Initiative to identify inner-city
kids at biological risk for criminal violence, with the goal of intervening
with drug treatments for what are presumed to be nervous-system
aberrations. Goodwin got himself fired for comparing aggressive young
males with primates in the jungle, and the violence initiative died in the
resulting furor. But even to be proposing such a biomedical approach to
criminal justice shows how far the intellectual pendulum has swung toward
biology.
The eugenics movement of the 1930s was fueled at least in part by a desire
to get rid of habitual criminals, and many attempts have been made over
the years to identify genetic roots for aggression, violence, and criminality.
A 1965 study, for instance, found that imprisoned criminals were more
likely than other people to have an extra Y chromosome (and therefore
more male genes). The evidence linking this chromosomal aberration to
crime was skimpy and tenuous, but politics often runs ahead of the
evidence: Soon after, a Boston hospital actually started screening babies
for the defect, the idea being to intervene early with counseling should
personality problems become apparent. The screening was halted when
further study showed that XYY men, while slightly less intelligent, were
not unusually aggressive.
As with many psychopathologies, criminal aggression is difficult to define
precisely for research. Indeed, crime and alcohol abuse are so entangled
that it's often difficult to know whether genetic markers are associated with
drinking, criminality--or something else entirely, like a personality trait. A
1993 National Research Council study, for example, reported strong
evidence of genetic influence on antisocial personality disorder, but it also
noted that many genes are probably involved. Getting from those unknown
genes to an actual act of vandalism or assault--or a life of barbaric
violence--requires at this point a monstrous leap of faith.
Yet it's a leap that many are willing to make. When geneticist Xandra
Breakefield reported a possible genetic link to violent crime a few years
ago, she immediately started receiving phone inquiries from attorneys
representing clients in prison; they were hoping that such genetic findings
might absolve their clients of culpability for their acts.
Mutations and emotions. Just two decades ago, the National Institute of
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Mental Health was funding studies of economic recession, unemployment,
and urban ills as possible contributors to serious emotional disturbance. A
whole branch of psychiatry known as "social psychiatry" was dedicated to
helping the mentally ill by rooting out such pathogens as poverty and
racism. There is no longer much evidence of these sensibilities at work
today. NIMH now focuses its studies almost exclusively on brain research
and on the genetic underpinnings of emotional illnesses.
The decision to reorder the federal research portfolio was both scientific
and political. Major advances in neuroscience methods opened up research
that wasn't possible a generation ago, and that research has paid off in
drugs that very effectively treat some disorders. But there was also a
concerted political campaign to reinterpret mental illness. A generation
ago, the leading theory about schizophrenia was that this devastating
emotional and mental disorder was caused by cold and distant mothering,
itself the result of the mother's unconscious wish that her child had never
been born. A nationwide lobbying effort was launched to combat such
unfounded mother blaming, and 20 years later that artifact of the Freudian
era is entirely discredited. It's widely accepted today that psychotic
disorders are brain disorders, probably with genetic roots.
But this neurogenetic victory may be double edged. For example, family
and consumer groups have argued convincingly that schizophrenia is a
brain disease like epilepsy, one piece of evidence being that it is treatable
with powerful antipsychotic drugs. Managed-care companies, however,
have seized upon the disease model, and now will rarely authorize
anything but drug treatment: it's efficient, and justified by the arguments of
biological psychiatry. The American Psychiatric Association just this
month issued elaborate guidelines for treating schizophrenia, including not
only drugs but an array of psychosocial services--services the insurance
industry is highly unlikely to pay for.
The search for genes for severe mental disorders has been inconclusive.
Years of studies of families, adoptees, and twins separated at birth suggest
that both schizophrenia and manic-depressive illness run in families. But if
that family pattern is the result of genes, it's clearly very complicated,
because most of the siblings of schizophrenics (including half of identical
twins, who have the same genes) don't develop the disorder. Behavioral
geneticists suspect that several genes may underlie the illness, and that
some environmental stress--perhaps a virus or birth complications--also
might be required to trigger the disorder.
On several occasions in the past, researchers have reported "linkages"
between serious mental illness and a particular stretch of DNA. A
well-known study of the Amish, for example, claimed a link between
manic-depression and an aberration on chromosome 11. But none of these
findings has held up when other researchers attempted to replicate them.
Even if one accepts that there are genetic roots for serious delusional
illnesses, critics are concerned about the biologizing of the rest of
psychiatric illness. Therapists report that patients come in asking for drugs,
claiming to be victims of unfortunate biology. In one case, a patient
claimed he could "feel his neurons misfiring"; it's an impossibility, but the
anecdote speaks to the thorough saturation of the culture with biology.
Some psychiatrists are pulling back from the strict biological model of
mental illness. Psychiatrist Keith Russell Ablow has reintroduced the idea
of "character" into his practice, telling depressed patients that they have the
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responsibility and capacity to pull themselves out of their illness.
Weakness of character, as Ablow sees it, allows mental illness to grow.
Such sentiment is highly controversial within psychiatry, where to suggest
that patients might be responsible for some of their own suffering is taboo.
Besotted genes. The best that can be said about research on the genetics of
alcoholism is that it's inconclusive, but that hasn't stopped people from
using genetic arguments for political purposes. The disease model for
alcoholism is practically a secular religion in this country, embraced by
psychiatry, most treatment clinics, and (perhaps most important) by
Alcoholics Anonymous. What this means is that those seeking help for
excessive drinking are told they have a disease (though the exact nature of
the disease is unknown), that it's probably a genetic condition, and that the
only treatment is abstinence.
But the evidence is not strong enough to support these claims. There are
several theories of how genes might lead to excessive drinking. A genetic
insensitivity to alcohol, for example, might cause certain people to drink
more; or alcoholics might metabolize alcohol differently; or they may have
inherited a certain personality type that's prone to risk-taking or
stimulus-seeking. While studies of family pedigrees and adoptees have on
occasion indicated a familial pattern for a particular form of alcoholism
(early-onset disorder in men, for example), just as often they reveal no
pattern. This shouldn't be all that surprising, given the difficulty of
defining alcoholism. Some researchers identify alcoholics by their
drunk-driving record, while others focus on withdrawal symptoms or daily
consumption. This is what geneticists call a "dirty phenotype"; people
drink too much in SO many different ways that the trait itself is hard to
define, so family patterns are all over the place, and often contradictory.
Given these methodological problems, researchers have been trying to
locate an actual gene (or genes) that might be involved in alcoholism. A
1990 study reported that a severe form of the disorder (most of the subjects
in the study had cirrhosis of the liver) was linked to a gene that codes for a
chemical receptor for the neurotransmitter dopamine. The researchers even
developed and patented a test for the genetic mutation, but subsequent
attempts to confirm the dopamine connection have failed.
The issues of choice and responsibility come up again and again in
discussions of alcoholism and other addictive disorders. Even if scientists
were to identify a gene (or genes) that create a susceptibility to alcoholism,
it's hard to know what this genetic "loading" would mean. It certainly
wouldn't lead to alcoholism in a culture that didn't condone
drinking--among the Amish, for example--so it's not deterministic in a
strict sense. Even in a culture where drinking is common, there are clearly
a lot of complicated choices involved in living an alcoholic life; it's
difficult to make the leap from DNA to those choices. While few would
want to return to the time when heavy drinking was condemned as strictly
a moral failing or character flaw, many are concerned that the widely
accepted disease model of alcoholism actually provides people with an
excuse for their destructive behavior. As psychologist Stanton Peele
argues: "Indoctrinating young people with the view that they are likely to
become alcoholics may take them there more quickly than any inherited
reaction to alcohol would have."
Synapses of desire. It would be a mistake to focus only on biological
explanations of psychopathology; the cultural shift is much broader than
that. A generation ago, the gay community was at war with organized
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psychiatry, arguing (successfully) that sexual orientation was a lifestyle
choice and ought to be deleted from the manual of disorders. Recently the
same community was celebrating new evidence that homosexuality is a
biological (and perhaps genetic) trait, not a choice at all.
Three lines of evidence support the idea of a genetic basis for
homosexuality, none of them conclusive. A study of twins and adopted
siblings found that about half of identical twins of homosexual men were
themselves gay, compared with 22 percent of fraternal twins and 11
percent of adoptees; a similar pattern was found among women. While
such a pattern is consistent with some kind of genetic loading for sexual
orientation, critics contend it also could be explained by the very similar
experiences many twins share. And, of course, half the identical twins did
not become gay--which by definition means something other than genes
must be involved.
A well-publicized 1991 study reported a distinctive anatomical feature in
gay men. Simon LeVay autopsied the brains of homosexual men and
heterosexual men and women and found that a certain nucleus in the
hypothalamus was more than twice as large in heterosexual men as in gay
men or heterosexual women. Although LeVay couldn't explain how this
neurological difference might translate into homosexuality, he speculates
that the nucleus is somehow related to sexual orientation. The
hypothalamus is known to be involved in sexual response.
The only study so far to report an actual genetic connection to
homosexuality is a 1993 study by Dean Hamer, a National Institutes of
Health biologist who identified a genetic marker on the X chromosome in
75 percent of gay brothers. The functional significance of this piece of
DNA is unknown, and subsequent research has not succeeded in
duplicating Hamer's results.
Homosexuality represents a bit of a paradox when it comes to the
intertwined issues of choice and determinism. When Hamer reported his
genetic findings, many in the gay community celebrated, believing that
society would be more tolerant of behavior rooted in biology and DNA
rather than choice. LeVay, himself openly gay, says he undertook his
research with the explicit agenda of furthering the gay cause. And Hamer
testified as an expert witness in an important gay-rights case in Colorado
where, in a strange twist, liberals found themselves arguing the
deterministic position, while conservatives insisted that homosexuality is a
choice. The argument of gay-rights advocates was that biological status
conveyed legal status--and protection under the law.
History's warning. But history suggests otherwise, according to biologist
and historian Garland Allen. During the eugenics movement of the 1920s
and 1930s, both in the United States and Europe, society became less, not
more, tolerant of human variation and misfortune. Based on racial theories
that held Eastern Europeans to be genetically inferior to Anglo-Saxon
stock, Congress passed (and Calvin Coolidge signed) a 1924 law to restrict
immigration, and by 1940 more than 30 states had laws permitting forced
sterilization of people suffering from such conditions as
feeblemindedness, pauperism, and mental illness. The ultimate outcome
of the eugenics craze in Europe is well known; homosexuals were not
given extra sympathy or protection in the Third Reich's passion to purify
genetic stock.
Allen is concerned about the possibility of a "new eugenics" movement,
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though he notes that it wouldn't be called that or take the same form. It
would more likely take the form of rationing health care for the
unfortunate. The economic and social conditions today resemble
conditions that provided fertile ground for eugenics between the wars, he
argues; moreover, in Allen's view, California's Proposition 187 recalls the
keen competition for limited resources (and the resulting animosity toward
immigrants) of the '20s. Further, Allen is quick to remind us that eugenics
was not a marginal, bigoted movement in either Europe or the United
States; it was a Progressive program, designed to harness science in the
service of reducing suffering and misfortune and to help make society
more efficient.
These concerns are probably justified, but there are also some signs that we
may be on the crest of another important cultural shift. More and more
experts, including dedicated biologists, sense that the power of genetics
has been oversold and that a correction is needed. What's more, there's a
glimmer of evidence that the typical American may not be buying it
entirely. According to a recent U.S. News/Bozell poll, less than 1 American
in 5 believes that genes play a major role in controlling behavior; three
quarters cite environment and society as the more powerful shapers of our
lives. Whether the behavior under question is a disorder like addiction,
mental illness, or violence, or a trait like homosexuality, most believe that
heredity plays some role, but not a primary one. Indeed, 40 percent think
genes play no role whatsoever in homosexuality, and a similar percentage
think heredity is irrelevant to drug addiction and criminality. Across the
board, most believe that people's lives are shaped by the choices they
make.
These numbers can be interpreted in different ways. It may be that
neurogenetic determinism has become the "religion of the intellectual
class," as one critic argues, but that it never really caught the imagination
of the typical American. Or we may be witnessing a kind of cultural
self-correction, in which after a period of infatuation with neuroscience and
genetics the public is becoming disenchanted, or perhaps even anxious
about the kinds of social control that critics describe.
Whatever's going on, it's clear that this new mistrust of genetic power is
consonant with what science is now beginning to show. Indeed, the very
expression "gene for" is misleading, according to philosopher Philip
Kitcher, author of The Lives to Come. Kitcher critiques what he calls "gene
talk," a simplistic shorthand for talking about genetic advances that has led
to the widespread misunderstanding of DNA's real powers. He suggests
that public discourse may need to include more scientific jargon--not a lot,
but some--so as not to oversimplify the complexity of the
gene-environment interaction. For example, when geneticists say they've
found a gene for a particular trait, what they mean is that people carrying a
certain "allele" a variation in a stretch of DNA that normally codes for a
certain protein--will develop the given trait in a standard environment. The
last few words--"in a standard environment". very important, because
what scientists are not saying is that a given allele will necessarily lead to
that trait in every environment. Indeed, there is mounting evidence that a
particular allele will not produce the same result if the environment
changes significantly; that is to say, the environment has a strong influence
on whether and how a gene gets "expressed."
It's hard to emphasize too much what a radical rethinking of the
nature-nurture debate this represents. When most people think about
heredity, they still think in terms of classical Mendelian genetics: one gene,
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one trait. But for most complex human behaviors, this is far from the
reality that recent research is revealing. A more accurate view very likely
involves many different genes, some of which control other genes, and
many of which are controlled by signals from the environment. To
complicate matters further, the environment is very complicated in itself,
ranging from the things we typically lump under nurture (parenting, family
dynamics, schooling, safe housing) to biological encounters like viruses
and birth complications, even biochemical events within cells.
The relative contributions of genes and the environment are not additive, as
in such-and-such a percentage of nature, such-and-such a percentage of
experience; that's the old view, no longer credited. Nor is it true that full
genetic expression happens once, around birth, after which we take our
genetic legacy into the world to see how far it gets us. Genes produce
proteins throughout the lifespan, in many different environments, or they
don't produce those proteins, depending on how rich or harsh or
impoverished those environments are. The interaction is so thoroughly
dynamic and enduring that, as psychologist William Greenough says, "To
ask what's more important, nature or nurture, is like asking what's more
important to a rectangle, its length or its width."
The emerging view of nature--nurture is that many complicated behaviors
probably have some measure of genetic loading that gives some people a
susceptibility--for schizophrenia, for instance, or for aggression. But the
development of the behavior or pathology requires more, what National
Institute of Mental Health Director Stephen Hyman calls an environmental
"second hit." This second hit operates, counterintuitively, through the
genes themselves to "sculpt" the brain. So with depression, for example, it
appears as though a bad experience in the world--for example, a
devastating loss--can actually create chemical changes in the body that
affect certain genes, which in turn affect certain brain proteins that make a
person more susceptible to depression in the future. Nature or nurture?
Similarly, Hyman's own work has shown that exposure to addictive
substances can lead to biochemical changes at the genetic and molecular
levels that commandeer brain circuits involving volition--and thus
undermine the very motivation needed to take charge of one's destructive
behavior. So the choice to experiment with drugs or alcohol may, in certain
people, create the biological substrate of the addictive disorder. The
distinction between biology and experience begins to lose its edge.
Nurturing potentials. Just as bad experiences can turn on certain
vulnerability genes, rich and challenging experiences have the power to
enhance life, again acting through the genes. Greenough has shown in rat
studies that by providing cages full of toys and complex structures that are
continually rearranged--"the animal equivalent of Head Start"--he can
increase the number of synapses in the rats' brains by 25 percent and blood
flow by 85 percent. Talent and intelligence appear extraordinarily
malleable.
Child-development experts refer to the life circumstances that enhance (or
undermine) gene expression as "proximal processes," a term coined by
psychologist Urie Bronfenbrenner. Everything from lively conversation to
games to the reading of stories can potentially get a gene to turn on and
create a protein that may become a neuronal receptor or messenger
chemical involved in thinking or mood. "No genetic potential can become
reality," says Bronfenbrenner, "unless the relationship between the
organism and its environment is such that it is permitted to be expressed."
Unfortunately, as he details in his new book, The State of Americans, the
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circumstances in which many American children are living are becoming
more impoverished year by year.
If there's a refrain among geneticists working today, it's this: The harder we
work to demonstrate the power of heredity, the harder it is to escape the
potency of experience. It's a bit paradoxical, because in a sense we end up
once again with the old pre-1950s paradigm, but arrived at with infinitely
more-sophisticated tools: Yes, the way to intervene in human lives and
improve them, to ameliorate mental illness, addictions, and criminal
behavior, is to enrich impoverished environments, to improve conditions in
the family and society. What's changed is that the argument is coming not
from left-leaning sociologists, but from those most intimate with the
workings of the human genome. The goal of psychosocial interventions is
optimal gene expression.
So assume for a minute that there is a cluster of genes somehow associated
with youthful violence. The kid who carries those genes might inhabit a
world of loving parents, regular nutritious meals, lots of books, safe
schools. Or his world might be a world of peeling paint and gunshots
around the corner. In which environment would those genes be likely to
manufacture the biochemical underpinnings of criminality? Or for that
matter, the proteins and synapses of happiness?
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http://www.usnews.com/usnews/issue/970310/10CLON.HTM
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The world after cloning
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A reader's guide to what Dolly hath wrought
(Breaking News: President
Clinton bans federally funded
research on human cloning)
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BY WRAY HERBERT,
JEFFERY L. SHELER, AND
TRACI WATSON
At first it was just plain
startling. Word from Scotland
last week that a scientist
named Ian Wilmut had
succeeded in cloning an adult
mammal--a feat long thought
impossible--caught the
imagination of even the most
jaded technophobe. The
laboratory process that
produced Dolly, an
unremarkable-looking sheep,
theoretically would work for
humans as well. A world of
clones and drones, of The
Boys From Brazil and Multiplicity, was suddenly within reach. It was
science fiction come to life. And scary science fiction at that.
In the wake of Wilmut's shocker, governments scurried to formulate
guidelines for the unknown, a future filled with mind-boggling
possibilities. The Vatican called for a worldwide ban on human cloning.
President Clinton ordered a national commission to study the legal and
ethical implications. Leaders in Europe, where most nations already
prohibit human cloning, began examining the moral ramifications of
cloning other species.
Like the splitting of the atom, the first space flight, and the discovery of
"life" on Mars, Dolly's debut has generated a long list of difficult puzzles
for scientists and politicians, philosophers and theologians. And at dinner
tables and office coolers, in bars and on street corners, the development of
wild scenarios spun from the birth of a simple sheep has only just begun.
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U.S. News sought answers from experts to the most intriguing and
frequently asked questions.
Why would anyone want to clone a human being in the first place?
The human cloning scenarios that ethicists ponder most frequently fall into
two broad categories: 1) parents who want to clone a child, either to
provide transplants for a dying child or to replace that child, and 2) adults
who for a variety of reasons might want to clone themselves.
Many ethicists, however, believe that after the initial period of uproar, there
won't be much interest in cloning humans. Making copies, they say, pales
next to the wonder of creating a unique human being the old-fashioned
way.
Could a human being be cloned today? What about other animals?
It would take years of trial and error before cloning could be applied
successfully to other mammals. For example, scientists will need to find
out if the donor egg is best used when it is resting quietly or when it is
growing.
Will it be possible to clone the dead?
Perhaps, if the body is fresh, says Randall Prather, a cloning expert at the
University of Missouri--Columbia. The cloning method used by Wilmut's
lab requires fusing an egg cell with the cell containing the donor's DNA.
And that means the donor cell must have an intact membrane around its
DNA. The membrane starts to fall apart after death, as does DNA. But, yes,
in theory at least it might be possible.
Can I set up my own cloning lab?
Yes, but maybe you'd better think twice. All the necessary chemicals and
equipment are easily available and relatively low-tech. But out-of-pocket
costs would run $100,000 or more, and that doesn't cover the pay for a
skilled developmental biologist. The lowest-priced of these scientists,
straight out of graduate school, makes about $40,000 a year. If you tried to
grow the cloned embryos to maturity, you'd encounter other difficulties.
The Scottish team implanted 29 very young clones in 13 ewes, but only one
grew into a live lamb. So if you plan to clone Fluffy, buy enough cat food
for a host of surrogate mothers.
Would a cloned human be identical to the original?
Identical genes don't produce identical people, as anyone acquainted with
identical twins can tell you. In fact, twins are more alike than clones would
be, since they have at least shared the uterine environment, are usually
raised in the same family, and so forth. Parents could clone a second child
who eerily resembled their first in appearance, but all the evidence suggests
the two would have very different personalities. Twins separated at birth do
sometimes share quirks of personality, but such quirks in a cloned son or
daughter would be haunting reminders of the child who was lost--and the
failure to re-create that child.
Even biologically, a clone would not be identical to the "master copy." The
clone's cells, for example, would have energy-processing machinery
(mitochondria) that came from the egg donor, not from the nucleus donor.
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But most of the physical differences between originals and copies wouldn't
be detectable without a molecular-biology lab. The one possible exception
is fertility. Wilmut and his coworkers are not sure that Dolly will be able to
have lambs. They will try to find out once she's old enough to breed.
Will a cloned animal die sooner or have other problems because its
DNA is older?
Scientists don't know. For complex biological reasons, creating a clone
from an older animal differs from breeding an older animal in the usual
way. So clones of adults probably wouldn't risk the same birth defects as
the offspring of older women, for example. But the age of the DNA used
for the clone still might affect life span. The Scottish scientists will monitor
how gracefully Dolly ages.
What if parents decided to clone a child in order to harvest organs?
Most experts agree that it would be psychologically harmful if a child
sensed he had been brought into the world simply as a commodity. But
some parents already conceive second children with nonfatal bone marrow
transplants in mind, and many ethicists do not oppose this. Cloning would
increase the chances for a biological match from 25 percent to nearly 100
percent.
If cloned animals could be used as organ donors, we wouldn't have to
worry about cloning twins for transplants. Pigs, for example, have organs
similar in size to humans'. But the human immune system attacks and
destroys tissue from other species. To get around that, the Connecticut
biotech company Alexion Pharmaceuticals Inc. is trying to alter the pig's
genetic codes to prevent rejection. If Alexion succeeds, it may be more
efficient to mass-produce porcine organ donors by cloning than by current
methods, in which researchers inject pig embryos with human genes and
hope the genes get incorporated into the embryo's DNA.
Wouldn't it be strange for a cloned twin to be several years younger
than his or her sibling?
When the National Advisory Board on Ethics in Reproduction studied a
different kind of cloning a few years ago, its members split on the issue of
cloned twins separated in time. Some thought the children's individuality
might be threatened, while others argued that identical twins manage to
keep their individuality intact.
John Robertson of the University of Texas raises several other issues worth
pondering: What about the cloned child's sense of free will and parental
expectations? Since the parents chose to duplicate their first child, will the
clone feel obliged to follow in the older sibling's footsteps? Will the older
child feel he has been duplicated because he was inadequate or because he
is special? Will the two have a unique form of sibling rivalry, or a special
bond? These are, of course, just special versions of questions that come up
whenever a new child is introduced into a family.
Could a megalomaniac decide to achieve immortality by cloning an
"heir"?
Sure, and there are other situations where adults might be tempted to clone
themselves. For example, a couple in which the man is infertile might opt
to clone one of them rather than introduce an outsider's sperm. Or a single
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woman might choose to clone herself rather than involve a man in any way.
In both cases, however, you would have adults raising children who are
also their twins--a situation ethically indistinguishable from the
megalomaniac cloning himself. On adult cloning, ethicists are more united
in their discomfort. In fact, the same commission that was divided on the
issue of twins was unanimous in its conclusion that cloning an adult's twin
is "bizarre narcissistic and ethically impoverished." What's more, the
commission argued that the phenomenon would jeopardize our very sense
of who's who in the world, especially in the family.
How would a human clone refer to the donor of its DNA?
"Mom" is not right, because the woman or women who supplied the egg
and the womb would more appropriately be called Mother. "Dad" isn't
right, either. A traditional father supplies only half the DNA in an
offspring. Judith Martin, etiquette's "Miss Manners," suggests, "Most
honored sir or madame." Why? "One should always respect one's
ancestors," she says, "regardless of what they did to bring one into the
world."
That still leaves some linguistic confusion. Michael Agnes, editorial
director of Webster's New World Dictionary, says that "clonee" may sound
like a good term, but it's too ambiguous. Instead, he prefers "original" and
"copy." And above all else, advises Agnes, "Don't use "Xerox."
A scientist joked last week that cloning could make men superfluous. Is
it true?
Yes, theoretically. A woman who wanted to clone herself would not need a
man. Besides her DNA, all she would require are an egg and a womb--her
own or another woman's. A man who wanted to clone himself, on the other
hand, would need to buy the egg and rent the womb--or find a very
generous woman.
What are the other implications of cloning for society?
The gravest concern about the misuse of genetics isn't related to cloning
directly, but to genetic engineering--the deliberate manipulation of genes to
enhance human talents and create human beings according to certain
specifications. But some ethicists also are concerned about the creation of a
new (and stigmatized) social class: "the clones." Albert Jonsen of the
University of Washington believes the confrontation could be comparable
to what occurred in the 16th century, when Europeans were perplexed by
the unfamiliar inhabitants of the New World and endlessly debated their
status as humans.
Whose pockets will cloning enrich in the near future?
Not Ian Wilmut's. He's a government employee and owns no stock in PPL
Therapeutics, the British company that holds the rights to the cloning
technology. On the other hand, PPL stands to make a lot of money. Also
likely to cash in are pharmaceutical and agricultural companies and maybe
even farmers. The biotech company Genzyme has already bred goats that
are genetically engineered to give milk laced with valuable drugs. Wilmut
and other scientists say it would be much easier to produce such animals
with cloning than with today's methods. Stock breeders could clone
champion dairy cows or the meatiest pigs.
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Could cloning be criminally misused?
If the technology to clone humans existed today, it would be almost
impossible to prevent someone from cloning you without your knowledge
or permission, says Philip Bereano, professor of technology and public
policy at the University of Washington. Everyone gives off cells all the
time--whenever we give a blood sample, for example, or visit the
dentist--and those cells all contain one's full complement of DNA. What
would be the goal of such "drive-by" cloning? Well, what if a woman were
obsessed with having the child of an apathetic man? Or think of the
commercial value of a dynasty-building athletic pedigree or a heavenly
singing voice. Even though experience almost certainly shapes these talents
as much as genetic gifts, the unscrupulous would be unlikely to be deterred.
Is organized religion opposed to cloning?
Many of the ethical issues being raised about cloning are based in theology.
Concern for preserving human dignity and individual freedom, for
example, is deeply rooted in religious and biblical principles. But until last
week there had been surprisingly little theological discourse on the
implications of cloning per se. The response SO far from the religious
community, while overwhelmingly negative, has been far from monolithic.
Roman Catholic, Protestant, and Jewish theologians all caution against
applying the new technology to humans, but for varying reasons. Catholic
opposition stems largely from the church's belief that "natural moral law"
prohibits most kinds of tampering with human reproduction. A 1987
Vatican document, Donum Vitae, condemned cloning because it violates
"the dignity both of human procreation and of the conjugal union."
Protestant theology, on the other hand, emphasizes the view that nature is
"fallen" and subject to improvement. "Just because something occurs
naturally doesn't mean it's automatically good," explains Max Stackhouse
of Princeton Theological Seminary. But while they tend to support using
technology to fix flaws in nature, Protestant theologians say cloning of
humans crosses the line. It places too much power in the hands of sinful
humans, who, says philosophy Prof. David Fletcher of Wheaton College in
Wheaton, III., are subject to committing "horrific abuses."
Judaism also tends to favor using technology to improve on nature's
shortcomings, says Rabbi Richard Address of the Union of American
Hebrew Congregations. But cloning humans, he says, "is an area where we
cannot go. It violates the mystery of what it means to be human."
Doesn't cloning encroach on the Judeo-Christian view of God as the
creator of life? Would a clone be considered a creature of God or of
science?
Many theologians worry about this. Cloning, at first glance, seems to be a
usurpation of God's role as creator of humans "in his own image." The
scientist, rather than God or chance, determines the outcome. "Like Adam
and Eve, we want to be like God, to be in control," says philosophy Prof.
Kevin Wildes of Georgetown University. "The question is, what are the
limits?"
But some theologians argue that cloning is not the same as creating life
from scratch. The ingredients used are alive or contain the elements of life,
says Fletcher of Wheaton College. It is still only God, he says, who creates
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life.
Would a cloned person have its own soul?
Most theologians agree with scientists that a human clone and its DNA
donor would be separate and distinct persons. That means each would have
his or her own body, mind, and soul.
Would cloning upset religious views about death, immortality, and
even resurrection?
Not really. Cloned or not, we all die. The clone that outlives its "parent"--or
that is generated from the DNA of a dead person, if that were
possible--would be a different person. It would not be a reincarnation or a
resurrected version of the deceased. Cloning could be said to provide
immortality, theologians say, only in the sense that, as in normal
reproduction, one might be said to "live on" in the genetic traits passed to
one's progeny.
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05/08/97 13:59:00
U.S. News 03/10/97: Human cloning? A bioethicist says don't just say no
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Human cloning? Don't just say no
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Sure, it's a new technology. But there's no evidence yet that
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BY RUTH MACKLIN
Last week's news that scientists had cloned a sheep sent academics and the
public into a panic at the prospect that humans might be next. That's an
understandable reaction. Cloning is a radical challenge to the most
fundamental laws of biology, so it's not unreasonable to be concerned that
it might threaten human society and dignity. Yet much of the ethical
opposition seems also to grow out of an unthinking disgust--a sort of "yuk
factor." And that makes it hard for even trained scientists and ethicists to
see the matter clearly. While human cloning might not offer great benefits
to humanity, no one has yet made a persuasive case that it would do any
real harm, either.
Theologians contend that to clone a human would violate human dignity.
That would surely be true if a cloned individual were treated as a lesser
being, with fewer rights or lower stature. But why suppose that cloned
persons wouldn't share the same rights and dignity as the rest of us? A
leading lawyer-ethicist has suggested that cloning would violate the "right
to genetic identity." Where did he come up with such a right? It makes
perfect sense to say that adult persons have a right not to be cloned without
their voluntary, informed consent. But if such consent is given, whose
"right" to genetic identity would be violated?
Many of the science-fiction scenarios prompted by the prospect of human
cloning turn out, upon reflection, to be absurdly improbable. There's the
fear, for instance, that parents might clone a child to have "spare parts" in
case the original child needs an organ transplant. But parents of identical
twins don't view one child as an organ farm for the other. Why should
cloned children's parents be any different?
Vast difference. Another disturbing thought is that cloning will lead to
efforts to breed individuals with genetic qualities perceived as exceptional
(math geniuses, basketball players). Such ideas are repulsive, not only
because of the "yuk factor" but also because of the horrors perpetrated by
the Nazis in the name of eugenics. But there's a vast difference between
"selective breeding" as practiced by totalitarian regimes (where the urge to
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propagate certain types of people leads to efforts to eradicate other types)
and the immeasurably more benign forms already practiced in democratic
societies (where, say, lawyers freely choose to marry other lawyers). Banks
stocked with the frozen sperm of geniuses already exist. They haven't
created a master race because only a tiny number of women have wanted
to impregnate themselves this way. Why think it will be different if human
cloning becomes available?
So who will likely take advantage of cloning? Perhaps a grieving couple
whose child is dying. This might seem psychologically twisted. But a
cloned child born to such dubious parents stands no greater or lesser
chance of being loved, or rejected, or warped than a child normally
conceived. Infertile couples are also likely to seek out cloning. That such
couples have other options (in vitro fertilization or adoption) is not an
argument for denying them the right to clone. Or consider an example
raised by Judge Richard Posner: a couple in which the husband has some
tragic genetic defect. Currently, if this couple wants a genetically related
child, they have four not altogether pleasant options. They can reproduce
naturally and risk passing on the disease to the child. They can go to a
sperm bank and take a chance on unknown genes. They can try in vitro
fertilization and dispose of any afflicted embryo--though that might be
objectionable, too. Or they can get a male relative of the father to donate
sperm, if such a relative exists. This is one case where even people
unnerved by cloning might see it as not the worst option.
Even if human cloning offers no obvious benefits to humanity, why ban it?
In a democratic society we don't usually pass laws outlawing something
before there is actual or probable evidence of harm. A moratorium on
further research into human cloning might make sense, in order to consider
calmly the grave questions it raises. If the moratorium is then lifted, human
cloning should remain a research activity for an extended period. And if it
is ever attempted, it should--and no doubt will--take place only with
careful scrutiny and layers of legal oversight. Most important, human
cloning should be governed by the same laws that now protect human
rights. A world not safe for cloned humans would be a world not safe for
the rest of us.
Ruth Macklin is professor of bioethics at Albert Einstein College of
Medicine.
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Is this what we want?
by James D. Watson
The notion that man might sometime soon be
reproduced asexually upsets many people. The main
public effect of the remarkable clonal frog produced
some ten years ago in Oxford by the zoologist John
Gurdon has not been awe of the elegant scientific
implication of this frog's existence, but fear that a
similar experiment might someday be done with human
cells. Until recently, however, this foreboding has
seemed more like a science fiction scenario than a real
problem which the human race has to live with.
For the embryological development of man does not
occur free in the placid environment of a freshwater
pond, in which a frog's eggs normally turn into tadpoles
and then into mature frogs. Instead, the crucial steps in
human embryology always occur in the highly
inaccessible womb of a human female. There the
growing fetus enlarges unseen, and effectively out of
range of almost any manipulation except that which is
deliberately designed to abort its existence. As long as
all humans develop in this manner, there is no way to
take the various steps necessary to insert an adult
diploid nucleus from a pre-existing human into a human
egg whose maternal genetic material has previously
been removed. Given the continuation of the normal
processes of conception and development, the idea that
we might have a world populated by people whose
genetic material was identical to that of previously
existing people can belong only to the domain of the
novelist or moviemaker, not to that of pragmatic
scientists who must think only about things which can
happen.
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Today, however, we must face up to the fact that the
unexpectedly rapid progress of R. G. Edwards and P.S.
Steptoe in working out the conditions for routine
test-tube conception of human eggs means that human
embryological development need no longer be a process
shrouded in secrecy. It can become instead an event
wide-open to a variety of experimental manipulations.
Already the two scientists have developed many
embryos to the eight-cell stage, and a few more into
blastocysts, the stage where successful implantation
into a human uterus should not be too difficult to
achieve. In fact, Edwards and Steptoe hope to
accomplish implantation and subsequent growth into
abnormal baby within the coming year.
The question naturally arises, why should any woman
willingly submit to the laparoscopy operation which
yields the eggs to be used in test-tube conceptions?
There is clearly some danger involved every time
Steptoe operates. Nonetheless, he and Edwards believe
that the risks are more than counterbalanced by the fact
that their research may develop methods which could
make their patients able to bear children. All their
patients, though having normal menstrual cycles, are
infertile, many because they have blocked oviducts
which prevent passage of eggs into the uterus. If so, in
vitro growth of their eggs up to the blastocyst stage may
circumvent infertility, thereby allowing normal
childbirth. Moreover, since the sex of a blastocyst is
easily determined by chromosomal analysis, such
women would have the possibility of deciding whether
to give birth to a boy or a girl.
Clearly, if Edwards and Steptoe succeed, their success
will be followed up in many other places. The number
of such infertile women, while small on a relative
percentage basis, is likely to be large on an absolute
basis. Within the United States there could be 100,000
or so women who would like a similar chance to have
their own babies. At the same time, we must anticipate
strong, if not hysterical, reactions from many quarters.
The certainty that the ready availability of this medical
technique will open up the possibility of hiring out
unrelated women to carry a given baby to term is bound
to outrage many people. For there is absolutely no
reason why the blastocyst need be implanted in the
same woman from whom the pre-ovulatory eggs were
obtained. Many women with anatomical complications
which prohibit successful childbearing might be
strongly tempted to find a suitable surrogate. And it is
easy to imagine that other women who just don't want
the discomforts of pregnancy would also seek this very
different form of motherhood. Of even greater concern
would be the potentialities for misuse by an inhumane
totalitarian government.
Some very hard decisions may soon be upon us. It is
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not obvious, for example, that the vague potential of
abhorrent misuse should weigh more strongly than the
unhappiness which thousands of married couples feel
when they are unable to have their own children.
Different societies are likely to view the matter
differently, and it would be surprising if all should
come to the same conclusion. We must, therefore,
assume that techniques for the in vitro manipulation of
human eggs are likely to become general medical
practice, capable of routine performance in many major
countries, within some ten to twenty years.
The situation would then be ripe for extensive efforts,
either legal or illegal, at human cloning. But for such
experiments to be successful, techniques would have to
be developed which allow the insertion of adult diploid
nuclei into human eggs which previously have had their
maternal haploid nucleus removed. At first sight, this
task is a very tall order since human eggs are much
smaller than those of frogs, the only vertebrates which
have so far been cloned. Insertion by micropipettes, the
device used in the case of the frog, is always likely to
damage human eggs irreversibly. Recently, however,
the development of simple techniques for fusing animal
cells has raised the strong possibility that further
refinements of the cell-fusion method will allow the
routine introduction of human diploid nuclei into
enucleated human eggs. Activation of such eggs to
divide to become blastocysts, followed by implantation
into suitable uteri, should lead to the development of
healthy fetuses, and subsequent normal-appearing
babies.
The growing up to adulthood of these first clonal
humans could be a very startling event, a fact already
appreciated by many magazine editors, one of whom
commissioned a cover with multiple copies of Ringo
Starr, another of whom gave us overblown multiple
likenesses of the current sex goddess, Raquel Welch. It
takes little imagination to perceive that different people
will have highly different fantasies, some perhaps
imagining the existence of countless people with the
features of Picasso or Frank Sinatra or Walt Frazier or
Doris Day. And would monarchs like the Shah of Iran,
knowing they might never be able to have a normal
male heir, consider the possibility of having a son
whose genetic constitution would be identical to their
own?
Clearly, even more bizarre possibilities can be thought
of, and so we might have expected that many biologists,
particularly those whose work impinges upon this
possibility, would seriously ponder its implication, and
begin a dialogue which would educate the world's
citizens and offer suggestions which our legislative
bodies might consider in framing national science
policies. On the whole, however, this has not happened.
Though a number of scientific papers devoted to the
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problem of genetic engineering have casually
mentioned that clonal reproduction may someday be
with us, the discussion to which I am party has been so
vague and devoid of meaningful time estimates as to be
virtually soporific.
Does this effective silence imply a conspiracy to keep
the general public unaware of a potential threat to their
basic ways of life? Could it be motivated by fear that
the general reaction will be a further damning of all
science, thereby decreasing even more the limited
money available for pure research? Or does it merely
tell us that most scientists do live such an ivory-tower
existence that they are capable of thinking rationally
only about pure science, dismissing more practical
matters as subjects for the lawyers, students, clergy, and
politicians to face up to?
One or both of these possibilities may explain why
more scientists have not taken cloning before the
public. The main reason, I suspect, is that the prospect
to most biologists still looks too remote and chancy --
not worthy of immediate attention when other matters,
like nuclear-weapon overproliferation and pesticide and
auto-exhaust pollution, present society with immediate
threats to its orderly continuation. Though scientists as
a group form the most future-oriented of all professions,
there are few of us who concentrate on events unlikely
to become reality within the next decade or two.
To almost all the intellectually most adventurous
geneticists, the seemingly distant time when cloning
might first occur is more to the point than its far
reaching implication, were it to be practiced seriously.
For example, Stanford's celebrated geneticist, Joshua
Lederberg, among the first to talk about cloning as a
practical matter, now seems bored with further talk,
implying that we should channel our limited influence
as public citizens to the prevention of the wide-scale,
irreversible damage to our genetic material that is now
occurring through increasing exposure to man-created
mutagenic compounds. To him, serious talk about
cloning is essentially crying wolf when a tiger is
already inside the walls.
This position, however, fails to allow for what I believe
will be a frenetic rush to do experimental manipulation
with human eggs once they have be come a readily
available commodity. And that is what they will be
within several years after Ed wards-Steptoe methods
lead to the-birth-of the first healthy baby by a
previously infertile woman. Isolated human eggs will
be found in hundreds of hospitals, and given the fact
that Steptoe's laparoscopy technique frequently yields
several eggs from a single woman donor, not all of the
eggs SO obtained, even if they could be cultured to the
blastocyst stage, would ever be reimplanted into female
bodies. Most of these excess eggs would likely be used
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for a variety of valid experimental purposes, many, for
example, to perfect the Edwards-Steptoe techniques.
Others could be devoted to finding methods for curing
certain genetic diseases, conceivably through use of
cell-fusion methods which now seem to be the correct
route to cloning. The temptation to try cloning itself
thus will always be close at hand.
No reason, of course, dictates that such cloning
experiments need occur. Most of the medical people
capable of such experimentation would probably steer
clear of any step which looked as though its real
purpose were to clone. But it would be short sighted to
assume that everyone would instinctively recoil from
such purposes. Some people may sincerely believe the
world desperately needs many copies of really
exceptional people if we are to fight our- way out of the
ever-increasing computer-mediated complexity that
makes our individual brains so frequently inadequate.
Moreover, given the widespread development of the
safe clinical procedures for handling human eggs,
cloning experiments would not be prohibitively
expensive. They need not be restricted to the super
powers. All smaller countries now possess the re
sources required for eventual success. Furthermore.
there need not exist the coercion of a totalitarian state to
provide the surrogate mothers. There al ready are such
widespread divergences regarding the sacredness of the
act of human reproduction that the boring.
meaninglessness of the lives of many women would be
sufficient cause for their willingness to participate in
such experimentation, be it legal or illegal. Thus, if the
matter proceeds in its current nondirected fashion, a
human being born of clonal reproduction most likely
will appear on the earth within the next twenty to fifty
years, and even sooner, if some nation should actively
promote the venture.
The first reaction of most people to the arrival of these
asexually produced children, I suspect, would be one of
despair. The nature of the bond between parents and
their children, not to mention everyone's values about
the individual's uniqueness, could be changed beyond
recognition, and by a science which they never
understood but which until recently appeared to provide
more good than harm. Certainly to many people,
particularly those with strong religious backgrounds,
our most sensible course of action. would be to
de-emphasize all those forms of research which would
circumvent the normal sexual reproductive process. If
this step were taken, experiments on cell fusion might
no longer be supported by federal funds or tax-exempt
organizations. Prohibition of such research would most
certainly put off the day when diploid nuclei could
satisfactorily be inserted into enucleated human eggs.
Even more effective would be to take steps quickly to
make illegal, or to reaffirm the illegality of, any
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experimental work with human embryos.
Neither of the prohibitions, however, is likely to take
place. In the first place, the cell-fusion technique now
offers one of the best avenues for understanding the
genetic basis of cancer. Today, all over the world,
cancer cells are being fused with normal cells to
pinpoint those specific chromosomes responsible for
given forms of cancer. In addition, fusion techniques
are the basis of many genetic efforts to unravel the
biochemistry of diseases like cystic fibrosis or multiple
sclerosis. Any attempts now to stop such work using the
argument that cloning represents a greater threat than a
disease like cancer is likely to be considered
irresponsible by virtually anyone able to understand the
matter.
Though more people would initially go along with a
prohibition of work on human embryos, many may
have a change of heart when they ponder the mess
which the population explosion poses. The current
projections are so horrendous that responsible people
are likely to consider the need for more basic
embryological facts much more relevant to our
self-interest than the not-very-immediate threat of a few
clonal men existing some decades ahead. And the
potentially militant lobby of infertile couples who see
test-tube conception as their only route to the joys of
raising children of their own making would carry even
more weight. So, scientists like Edwards are likely to
get a go-ahead signal even if, almost perversely, the
immediate consequences of their
"population-money"-supported research will be the
production of still more babies.
Complicating any effort at effective legislative
guidance is the multiplicity of places where work like
Edwards' could occur, thereby making unlikely the
possibility that such manipulations would have the
same legal (or illegal) status throughout the world. We
must assume that if Edwards and Steptoe produce a
really workable method for restoring fertility, large
numbers of women will search out those places where it
is legal (or possible), just as now they search out places
where abortions can be easily obtained.
Thus, all nations formulating policies to handle the
implications of in vitro human embryo experimentation
must realize that the problem is essentially an
international one. Even if one or more countries should
stop such research, their action could effectively be
neutralized by the response of a neighboring country.
This most disconcerting impotence also holds for the
United States. If our congressional representatives,
upon learning where the matter now stands, should
decide that they want none of it and pass very strict
laws against human embryo experimentation, their
action would not seriously set back the current
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scientific and medical momentum which brings us close
to the possibility of surrogate mothers, if not human
clonal reproduction. This is because the relevant
experiments are being done not in the United States, but
largely in England. That is part]y a matter of chance,
but also a consequence of the advanced state of English
cell biology, which in certain areas is far more
adventurous and imaginative than its American
counterpart. There is no American university which has
the strength in experimental embryology that Oxford
possesses.
We must not assume, however, that today the important
decisions lie only before the British government. Very
soon we must anticipate that a number of biologists and
clinicians of other countries, sensing the potential
excitement, will move into this area of science. So even
if the current English effort were stifled, similar
experimentation could soon begin elsewhere. Thus it
appears to me most desirable that as many people as
possible be informed about the new ways of human
reproduction and their potential consequences, both
good and bad.
This is a matter far too important to be left solely in the
hands of the scientific and medical communities. The
belief that surrogate mothers and clonal babies are
inevitable because science always moves forward, an
attitude expressed to me recently by a scientific
colleague, represents a form of laissez-faire nonsense
dismally reminiscent of the creed that American
business, if left to itself, will solve everybody's
problems. Just as the success of a corporate body in
making money need not set the human condition ahead,
neither does every scientific advance automatically
make our lives more "meaningful." No doubt the person
whose experimental skill will eventually bring forth a
clonal baby will be given wide notoriety. But the child
who grows up knowing that the world wants another
Picasso may view his creator in a different light.
I would thus hope that over the next decade
wide-reaching discussion would occur, at the informal
as well as formal legislative level, about the manifold
problems which are bound to arise if test-tube
conception becomes a common occurrence. A blanket
declaration of the worldwide illegality of human
cloning might be one result of a serious effort to ask the
world in which direction it wished to move. Admittedly
the vast effort required for even the most limited
international arrangement, will turn off some people --
those who believe the matter is of marginal importance
now, and that it is a red herring designed to take our
minds off our callous attitudes toward war, poverty, and
racial prejudice. But if we do not think about it now, the
possibility of our having a free choice will one day
suddenly be gone.
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Dally
Slouching Towards Creation
Cloning 1-2-3
Future
Ethics of Creation:
Ribber
Mc Clibinis or Not tool
Question: In a TIME/CNN poll, two-thirds of the
respondents said they believe cloning sheep is
immoral. Is there any ethical question at all
involved in cloning non-human animals?
Primates?
Daniel Callahan: I suppose there would be a
question about harming the diversity of the species if
this was done in a large scale way, but I don't believe
animals have personalities or individuality or the
kind of consciousness that human beings do, so I do
not believe there is any moral question here that
cloning would damage their identity.
Mary Mahowald: But we do have moral
responsibilities toward non-human animals and I
believe most of us recognize that non-human animals
are at times treated inhumanly unjustifiably. What I
would like to see is that this cloning success be
utilized to solve really important human problems
like world hunger. That would be an application
around which we could treat both sheep and humans
appropriately.
Callahan: Well, that would be wonderful if it could
happen, but I'm not sure that cloning offers a solution
to world hunger, most of which stems from political,
rather than scientific reasons.
Mahowald: Obviously it doesn't offer a solution, but
it could reduce the problem.
Question: What would be the purpose of cloning
humans? For body parts or organ donations?
Callahan: I suspect at least the imaginative think
there are a lot of possibilities. Some parents might
want a child who resembles someone in the family.
There could be organ farms, there could be research
into how to avoid genetic disease. There have been
suggestions that ultimately this methodology may be
used for genetic cleansing of the species. The
imaginative possibilities are very broad.
Mahowald: I think the fear of Eugenics in general
with the human genome project, the proliferation of
tests and human gene therapys, including germ line
gene therapies, is another area worth worrying about.
But, most of these worries have been raised already
with regard to other practices and we just need to
keep addressing them.
Question: Would cloning humans interfere with
the process of evolution?
Callahan: Typically geneticists like diversity. They
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like diversity because they believe that it contributes
to the vitality and survivability of species. So the
concern really is that by getting uniformity, you
actually weaken a species. I really think, though, that
is not a serious worry. The likelihood that we would
see cloning of future humans SO widespread as to be
that signficiant is very unlikely.
Mahowald: I agree entirely that human cloning will
not interfere with the ongoing evolution. Human
cloning is really a radically conservative postition, in
that it closes off to the extent that it can human
diversity, but it is extremely unlikely to influence the
subsequent evolutionary process.
Question: How does (or would) cloning degenerate
the personhood of the clone, considering the clone
would, in fact, just be another baby entering the
world?
Callahan: I think the threat really is to the identity of
the person who is cloned. The baby has been
fundamentally designed by another human being who
has given it a particular set of traits. That makes the
clone baby different from the other babies who are
born in the natural lottery of normal birth. This baby
has been designed to have certain traits and may have
somewhat more limited possibilities.
Mahowald: I think that is a very good question
because it addresses the fact that persons are not
defined by genetics, but by their life experiences and
their development within the womb and beyond it.
The example of identical twins is evidence of this
even without this new kind of human cloning.
Callahan: I myself would be curious whether
identical twins would have CHOSEN to be identical
twins. I think the estimates are that twins are likely
even in traits to have something like 50 percent
common social traits. Genetics DOES make a
difference, and to pretend that it is utterly irrelevant
is ridiculous.
Mahowald: Of course genetics is not irrelevant, but
it is totally inadequate to define personal identity.
Callahan: Well, of course if you look exactly like
somebody else but everything else is different, you
still would be decisively marked by appearance
alone.
Mahowald: To some extent, some people already
designed the children they wish, they do that through
sex selection, through prenatal diagnosis, some even
do it by using sperm from the Nobel sperm bank.
Question: Would human clones have souls? Are
there any ethically acceptable uses of human
cloning?
Callahan: I don't believe there are any. I don't
believe we should clone, therefore I don't believe
there are any ethical uses of cloning. I mean human
beings, of course. I don't have a problem with
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cloning animals.
Mahowald: I think there are ethically acceptable
uses of NON-HUMAN animal cloning for drug
development, etc. But for human cloning, I see no
really good social purpose served. I think human
cloning can be done, and probably will be done, but I
don't think it should be done. I don't see any good
purpose served. I see a narcissism and a radical
conservatism of values that ought not to be
supported.
Question: How would cloning humans alter
relationships between parent and child, between
husbands and wives?
Callahan: That's a matter of utter speculation. I
would imagine that we might feel differently toward
a clone, simply knowing of its peculiar origins, than
we would toward somebody else, but we can only
speculate at this point.
Mahowald: Just looking at the sheep experiment, it's
interesting to ask who the parent is. In fact, the adult
female ewe is both the genetic mother and the genetic
father of Dolly. And the female from whom the egg
came and the female who gestated Dolly and gave
birth to her are two more maternal figures, both of
whom are biologically related to her. Which of those
we would even call the parent to Dolly, I don't know.
I think it would probably be the sheep who nurses her
and that could be another still.
Callahan: I suppose under one scenario, if you're
cloning someone to replace a child who died, then
you might love the new child especially dearly. But
the new child might not particularly like the fact that
was the reason it was born.
Question: Have scientists mislead the public about
the potential for human cloning?
Callahan: I don't think so. I found it interesting that
scientists say they don't believe that there will be a
movement to do it with human beings. I'm interested
that they believe that, though whether that will turn
out to be the case is another matter.
Mahowald: A lot of people who got their Nobel
Laureate sperm were pretty disappointed in the
outcome.
Question: Several European nations have
outlawed or are hurrying to outlaw cloning of
humans. Will this happen soon in the United
States?
Callahan: I don't believe it will happen in the United
States. I believe there have been court decisions
which protect scientific research as a protected form
of freedom of speech.
Mahowald: The President has asked the Bioethics
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commission to address the issue. I suspect they will
come up with guidelines that will support research on
non-human cloning, but be very restrictive about
human cloning and possibly, depending upon the
political implications, prohibit or refuse to support
human cloning. I think public reaction will be quite
influential. But there are federal regulations on
embryo research.
Callahan: My guess would be that a commission
would not recommend banning, simply because it is
too difficult to do in this country. The most
predictable course of such a commission would
basically be to allow it to go forward.
Mahowald: Too difficult to enforce? I don't think
that's entirely true. There are scientists who would
retrieve organs commercially, for example, and use
them experimentally. But they are not permitted to do
so and that is especially true in embryo research.
Political realities at times over-ride the desires of
scientists. In the area of reproductive technologies
that is especially true.
Callahan: But embryo research goes on in the
private sector, and is not supported by government
grants. I think that the typical compromise in this
country is that the government doesn't do it, but we
allow the private sector to do it.
Mahowald: It is unlikely that there will be federal
support, but it will likely go on under private
auspices. Some rich sheep farmer might do it first!
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Dolly
Slouching Towards Creation
Cluning 1-2-3
Future
Dolly:
Ethlcs
Am United
When Dr. Ian Wilmut and his team from the Roslin
Institute created a lamb named Dolly, they
accomplished what many experts thought was a
scientific impossibility. Unlike offspring produced
in the usual fashion, Dolly does not merely take
after her biological mother. She is a carbon copy, a
laboratory counterfeit so exact that she is in essence
her mother's identical twin.
PHOTO BY ROBERT WALLIS-SABA FOR TIME
PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY LARRY AUERBACH FOR
TIME ONLINE
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Dolly
Slouching Towards Creation
Chanding 1.2.7
Future
Noning 1-P-3:
Ethics
it. EMITE
Creating a lamb from the DNA of an adult sheep
was such a simple process that any in-vitro
fertilization lab could have done the same thing. Yet
for more than 50 years, scientists were convinced it
was not possible, even after they began cloning
animals from embryonic cells. The fundamental
difference: if scientists can duplicate mammals
using cells taken from adults, they can choose the
mature model they want to duplicate, rather than
take their chances with the beginnings of a life.
Colin Stewart, a research scientist at the National
Cancer Institute in Frederick, Maryland, wrote the
editorial accompanying the article that Dr. Ian
Wilmut published in Nature describing the
extraordinary breakthrough.
PHOTO BY ROBERT WALLIS-SABA FOR TIME
Click on the arrow to see a chart explaining how Dr.
PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY LARRY AUERBACH FOR
TIME ONLINE
Wilmut's team created Dolly. Press the audio
buttons below the graph to hear Dr. Stewart explain
how the process functioned, why the scientists made
the decisions they did, and why the process may not
be so easily replicated in other mammals, including
humans.
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TIME
MARCH 10, 1997 VOL. 149 NO. 10
SPECIAL REPORT
WILL WE FOLLOW THE
SHEEP?
IT WILL BE UP TO SCIENCE TO DETERMINE IF HUMAN
CLONING CAN BE DONE. IT IS UP TO THE REST OF US TO
DETERMINE IF IT SHOULD BE
BY JEFFREY KLUGER
It's a busy morning in the cloning laboratory of the big-city hospital. As always, the list of people
seeking the lab's services is a long one--and, as always, it's a varied one. Over here are the Midwestern
parents who have flown in specially to see if the lab can make them an exact copy of their six-year-old
daughter, recently found to be suffering from leukemia so aggressive that only a bone-marrow transplant
can save her. The problem is finding a compatible donor. If, by reproductive happenstance, the girl had
been born an identical twin, her matching sister could have produced all the marrow she needed. But
nature didn't provide her with a twin, and now the cloning lab will try. In nine months, the parents, who
face the very likely prospect of losing the one daughter they have, could find themselves raising two of
her--the second created expressly to help keep the first alive.
Just a week after Scottish embryologists announced that they had succeeded in cloning a sheep from a
single adult cell, both the genetics community and the world at large are coming to an unsettling
realization: the science is the easy part. It's not that the breakthrough wasn't decades in the making. It's
just that once it was complete--once you figured out how to transfer the genetic schematics from an adult
cell into a living ovum and keep the fragile embryo alive throughout gestation--most of your basic
biological work was finished. The social and philosophical temblors it triggers, however, have merely
begun.
Only now, as the news of Dolly, the sublimely oblivious sheep, becomes part of the cultural debate, are
we beginning to come to terms with those soulquakes. How will the new technology be regulated? What
does the sudden ability to make genetic stencils of ourselves say about the concept of individuality? Do
the ants and bees and Maoist Chinese have it right? Is a species simply an uberorganism, a collection of
multicellular parts to be die-cast as needed? Or is there something about the individual that is lost when
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the mystical act of conceiving a person becomes standardized into a mere act of photocopying one?
Last week President Clinton took the first tentative step toward answering these questions, charging a
federal commission with the task of investigating the legal and ethical implications of the new
technology and reporting back to him with their findings within 90 days. Later this week the House
subcommittee on basic research will hold a hearing to address the same issues. The probable tone of
those sessions was established last week when Harold Varmus, director of the National Institutes of
Health (NIH), told another subcommittee that cloning a person is "repugnant to the American public."
Though the official responses were predictable--and even laudable--they may have missed the larger
point. The public may welcome ways a government can regulate cloning, but what's needed even more is
ways a thinking species can ethically fathom it. "This is not going to end in 90 days," says Princeton
University president Harold Shapiro, chairman of President Clinton's committee. "Now that we have this
technology, we have some hard thinking ahead of us."
Also waiting in the cloning lab this morning is the local industrialist. Unlike the Midwestern parents, he
does not have a sick child to worry about; indeed, he has never especially cared for children. Lately,
however, he has begun to feel different. With a little help from the cloning lab, he now has the
opportunity to have a son who would bear not just his name and his nose and the color of his hair but
every scrap of genetic coding that makes him what he is. Now that appeals to the local industrialist. In
fact, if this first boy works out, he might even make a few more.
Of all the reasons for using the new technology, pure ego raises the most hackles. It's one thing to want
to be remembered after you are gone; it's quite another to manufacture a living monument to ensure that
you are. Some observers claim to be shocked that anyone would contemplate such a thing. But that's
naive--and even disingenuous. It's obvious that a lot of people would be eager to clone themselves.
"It's a horrendous crime to make a Xerox of someone," argues author and science critic Jeremy Rifkin.
"You're putting a human into a genetic straitjacket. For the first time, we've taken the principles of
industrial design--quality control, predictability--and applied them to a human being."
But is it really the first time? Is cloning all that different from genetically engineering an embryo to
eliminate a genetic disease like cystic fibrosis? Is it so far removed from in vitro fertilization? In both
those cases, after all, an undeniable reductiveness is going on, a shriveling of the complexity of the
human body to the certainty of a single cell in a Petri dish. If we accept this kind of tinkering, can't we
accept cloning? Harvard neurobiologist Lisa Geller admits that intellectually, she doesn't see a difference
between in vitro technology and cloning. "But," she adds, "I admit it makes my stomach feel nervous."
More palatable than the ego clone to some bioethicists is the medical clone, a baby created to provide
transplant material for the original. Nobody advocates harvesting a one-of-a-kind organ like a heart from
the new child--an act that would amount to creating the clone just to kill it. But it's hard to argue against
the idea of a family's loving a child so much that it will happily raise another, identical child so that one
of its kidneys or a bit of its marrow might allow the first to live. "The reasons for opposing this are not
easy to argue," says John Fletcher, former ethicist for the NIH.
The problem is that once you start shading the cloning question--giving an ethical O.K. to one
hypothetical and a thumbs-down to another--you begin making the sort of ad hoc hash of things the
Supreme Court does when it tries to define pornography. Suppose you could show that the baby who
was created to provide marrow for her sister would forever be treated like a second-class sibling--well
cared for, perhaps, but not well loved. Do you prohibit the family from cloning the first daughter,
accepting the fact that you may be condemning her to die? Richard McCormick, a Jesuit priest and
professor of Christian ethics at the University of Notre Dame, answers such questions simply and
honestly when he says, "I can't think of a morally acceptable reason to clone a human being."
In a culture in which not everyone sees things SO straightforwardly, however, some ethical
accommodation is going to have to be reached. How it will be done is anything but clear. "Science is
close to crossing some horrendous boundaries," says Leon Kass, professor of social thought at the
University of Chicago. "Here is an opportunity for human beings to decide if we're simply going to stand
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in the path of the technological steamroller or take control and help guide its direction."
Following the local industrialist on the appointments list is the physics laureate. He is terminally ill.
When he dies, one of the most remarkable minds in science will die with him. Reproductive chance
might one day produce another scientist just as gifted, but there is no telling when. The physics laureate
does not like that kind of uncertainty. He has come to the cloning lab today to see if he can't do
something about it.
If the human gene pool can be seen as a sort of species-wide natural resource, it's only sensible for the
rarest of those genes to be husbanded most carefully, preserved so that every generation may enjoy their
benefits. Even the most ardent egalitarians would find it hard to object to an Einstein appearing every 50
years or a Chopin every century. It would be better still if we could be guaranteed not just an Einstein
but the Einstein. If a scientific method were developed so that the man who explained general relativity
in the first half of the century could be brought back to crack the secrets of naked singularities in the
second, could we resist using it? And suppose the person being replicated were researching not just
abstruse questions of physics but pressing questions of medicine. Given the chance to bring back Jonas
Salk, would it be moral not to try?
Surprisingly, scientific ethicists seem to say yes. "Choosing personal characteristics as if they were
options on a car is an invitation to misadventure," says John Paris, professor of bioethics at Boston
College. "It is in the diversity of our population that we find interest and enthusiasm."
Complicating things further, the traits a culture values most are not fixed. If cloning had existed a few
centuries ago, men with strong backs and women with broad pelvises would have been the first ones
society would have wanted to reproduce. During the industrial age, however, brainpower began to count
for more than muscle power. Presumably the custodians of cloning technology at that historical juncture
would have faced the prospect of letting previous generations of strapping men and fecund women die
out and replacing them with a new population of intellectual giants. "What is a better human being?"
asks Boston University ethicist George Annas. "A lot of it is just fad."
Even if we could agree on which individuals would serve as humanity's templates of perfection, there's
no guarantee that successive copies would be everything the originals were. Innate genius isn't always so
innate, after all, coming to nothing if the person born with the potential for excellence doesn't find the
right environment and blossom in it. A scientific genius who's beaten as a child might become a mad
genius. An artist who's introduced to alcohol when he's young might merely become a drunk. A
thousand track switches have to click in sequence for the child who starts out toward greatness to wind
up there. If a single one clicks wrong, the high-speed rush toward a Nobel Prize can dead-end in a
makeshift shack in the Montana woods. Says Rabbi Moshe Tendler, professor of both biology and
biblical law at Yeshiva University in New York City: "I can make myself an Albert Einstein, and he may
turn out to be a drug addict."
The despot will not be coming to the cloning lab today. Before long, he knows, the lab's science will
come to him--and not a moment too soon. The despot has ruled his little country for 30 years, but now
he's getting old and will have to pass his power on. That makes him nervous; he's seen what can happen
to a cult of personality if too weak a personality takes over. Happily, in his country that's not a danger.
As soon as the technology of the cloning lab goes global--as it inevitably must--his people can be
assured of his leadership long after he's gone.
This is the ultimate nightmare scenario. The Pharaohs built their pyramids, the Emperors built Rome,
and Napoleon built his Arc de Triomphe--all, at least in part, to make the permanence of stone
compensate for the impermanence of the flesh. But big buildings and big tombs would be a poor second
choice if the flesh could be made to go on forever. Now, it appears, it can.
The idea of a dictator's being genetically duplicated is not new--not in pop culture, anyhow. In Ira
Levin's 1976 book The Boys from Brazil a zealous ex-Nazi bred a generation of literal Hitler
Youth--boys cloned from cells left behind by the Fuhrer. Woody Allen dealt with a similar premise a lot
more playfully in his 1973 film Sleeper, in which a futuristic tyrant is killed by a bomb blast, leaving
nothing behind but his nose--a nose that his followers hope to clone into a new leader. Even as the
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fiction of one decade becomes the technology of another, it's inevitable that this technology will be
used--often by the wrong people.
"I don't see how you can stop these things," says bioethicist Daniel Callahan of the Hastings Center in
Briarcliff Manor, New York. "We are at the mercy of these technological developments. Once they're
here, it's hard to turn back."
Hard, perhaps, but not impossible. If anything will prevent human cloning--whether of dictator,
industrialist or baby daughter--from becoming a reality, it's that science may not be able to clear the
ethical high bar that would allow basic research to get under way in the first place. Cutting, coring and
electrically jolting a sheep embryo is a huge moral distance from doing the same to a human embryo. It
took 277 trials and errors to produce Dolly the sheep, creating a cellular body count that would look like
sheer carnage if the cells were human. "Human beings ought never to be used as experimental subjects,"
Shapiro says simply.
Whether they will or not is impossible to say. Even if governments ban human cloning outright, it will
not be so easy to police what goes on in private laboratories that don't receive public money--or in pirate
ones offshore. Years ago, Scottish scientists studying in vitro fertilization were subjected to such intense
criticism that they took their work underground, continuing it in seclusion until they had the technology
perfected. Presumably, human-cloning researchers could also do their work on the sly, emerging only
when they succeed.
Scientists don't pretend to know when that will happen, but some science observers fear it will be soon.
The first infant clone could come squalling into the world within seven years according to Arthur
Caplan, director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania. If he's right, science had
better get its ethical house in order quickly. In calendar terms, seven years from now is a good way off;
in scientific terms, it's tomorrow afternoon.
--Reported by Dick Thompson/Washington, with other bureaus
For more about the ethics of cloning, visit time.com/cloning on the World Wide Web
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MARCH 10, 1997 VOL. 149 NO. 10
SPECIAL REPORT
THE AGE OF CLONING
A LINE HAS BEEN CROSSED, AND REPRODUCTIVE
BIOLOGY WILL NEVER BE THE SAME FOR PEOPLE OR FOR
SHEEP
BY J. MADELEINE NASH
Even now, a week after news of the achievement first flew around the globe, traces of astonishment
linger in the air like a contrail. The landmark paper published late last week in the journal Nature
confirmed what the headlines had been screaming for days: researchers at the Roslin Institute near
Edinburgh, Scotland, had indeed pulled off what many experts thought might be a scientific
impossibility. From a cell in an adult ewe's mammary gland, embryologist Ian Wilmut and his
colleagues managed to create a frisky lamb named Dolly (with apologies to Ms. Parton), scoring an
advance in reproductive technology as unsettling as it was startling. Unlike offspring produced in the
usual fashion, Dolly does not merely take after her biological mother. She is a carbon copy, a laboratory
counterfeit so exact that she is in essence her mother's identical twin.
What enabled the Scottish team to succeed where so many others have failed was a trick so ingenious,
yet so simple, that any skilled laboratory technician should be able to master it--and therein lies both the
beauty and the danger: once Wilmut and his colleagues figured out how to cross that biological barrier,
they ensured that others would follow. And although the Roslin researchers had to struggle for more
than 10 years to achieve their breakthrough, it took political and religious leaders around the world no
time at all to grasp its import: if scientists can clone sheep, they can probably clone people too.
Without question, this exotic form of reproductive engineering could become an extremely useful tool.
The ability to clone adult mammals, in particular, opens up myriad exciting possibilities, from
propagating endangered animal species to producing replacement organs for transplant patients.
Agriculture stands to benefit as well. Dairy farmers, for example, could clone their champion cows,
making it possible to produce more milk from smaller herds. Sheep ranchers could do the same with
their top lamb and wool producers.
But it's also easy to imagine the technology being misused, and as news from Roslin spread, apocalyptic
scenarios proliferated. Journalists wrote seriously about the possibility of virgin births, resurrecting the
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dead and women giving birth to themselves. On the front page of the New York Times, a cell biologist
from Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, named Ursula Goodenough quipped that if cloning
were perfected, "there'd be no need for men."
Scientists have long dreamed of doing what the Roslin team did. After all, if starfish and other
invertebrates can practice asexual reproduction, why can't it be extended to the rest of the animal
kingdom? In the 1980s, developmental biologists at what is now Allegheny University of the Health
Sciences came tantalizingly close. From the red blood cells of an adult frog, they raised a crop of lively
tadpoles. These tadpoles were impressive creatures, remembers University of Minnesota cell biologist
Robert McKinnell, who followed the work closely. "They swam and ate and developed beautiful eyes
and hind limbs," he says. But then, halfway through metamorphosis, they died.
Scientists who have focused their cloning efforts on more forgiving embryonic tissue have met with
greater success. A simple approach, called embryo twinning (literally splitting embryos in half), is
commonly practiced in the cattle industry. Coaxing surrogate cells to accept foreign DNA is a bit
trickier. In 1952 researchers in Pennsylvania successfully cloned a live frog from an embryonic cell.
Three decades later, researchers were learning to do the same with such mammals as sheep and calves.
"What's new," observes University of Wisconsin animal scientist Neal First, "is not cloning mammals.
It's cloning mammals from cells that are not embryonic."
Embryo cells are infinitely easier to work with because they are, in the jargon of cell biologists, largely
"undifferentiated." That is, they have not yet undergone the progressive changes that turn cells into skin,
muscles, hair, brain and so on. An undifferentiated cell can give rise to all the other cells in the body, say
scientists, because it is capable of activating any gene on any chromosome. But as development
progresses, differentiation alters the way DNA--the double-stranded molecule that makes up
genes--folds up inside the nucleus of a cell. Along with other structural changes, folding helps make vast
stretches of DNA inaccessible, ensuring that genes in adult cells do not turn on at the wrong time or in
the wrong tissue.
The disadvantage of embryonic cloning is that you don't know what you are getting. With adult-cell
cloning, you can wait to see how well an individual turns out before deciding whether to clone it.
Cloning also has the potential to make genetic engineering more efficient. Once you produce an animal
with a desired trait--a pig with a human immune system, perhaps--you could make as many copies as
you want.
In recent years, some scientists have speculated that the changes wrought by differentiation might be
irreversible, in which case cloning an adult mammal would be biologically impossible. The birth of
Dolly not only proves them wrong but also suggests that the difficulty scientists have had cloning adult
cells may have less to do with biology than with technique.
To create Dolly, the Roslin team concentrated on arresting the cell cycle--the series of choreographed
steps all cells go through in the process of dividing. In Dolly's case, the cells the scientists wanted to
clone came from the udder of a pregnant sheep. To stop them from dividing, researchers starved the cells
of nutrients for a week. In response, the cells fell into a slumbering state that resembled deep
hibernation.
At this point, Wilmut and his colleagues switched to a mainstream cloning technique known as nuclear
transfer. First they removed the nucleus of an unfertilized egg, or oocyte, while leaving the surrounding
cytoplasm intact. Then they placed the egg next to the nucleus of a quiescent donor cell and applied
gentle pulses of electricity. These pulses prompted the egg to accept the new nucleus--and all the DNA it
contained--as though it were its own. They also triggered a burst of biochemical activity, jump-starting
the process of cell division. A week later, the embryo that had already started growing into Dolly was
implanted in the uterus of a surrogate ewe.
An inkling that this approach might work, says Wilmut, came from the success his team experienced in
producing live lambs from embryonic clones. "Could we do it again with an adult cell?" wondered
Wilmut, a reserved, self-deprecating man who likes gardening, hiking in the highlands and drinking
good single-malt Scotch (but who was practical enough to file for a patent before he went public).
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It was a high-risk project, and in the beginning Wilmut proceeded with great secrecy, limiting his core
team to four scientists. His caution proved to be justified; the scientists failed far more often than they
succeeded. Out of 277 tries, the researchers eventually produced only 29 embryos that survived longer
than six days. Of these, all died before birth except Dolly, whose historic entry into the world was
witnessed by a handful of researchers and a veterinarian.
Rumors that something had happened in Roslin, a small village in the green, rolling hills just south of
Edinburgh, started circulating in scientific circles a few weeks ago. It was only last week, when the
rumors were confirmed and the details of the experiment revealed, that the real excitement erupted. Cell
biologists, like everybody else, were struck by the simple boldness of the experiment. But what intrigued
them even more was what it suggested about how cells work.
Many scientists had suspected that the key to getting a donor cell and egg to dance together was
synchronicity--getting them started on the same foot. Normal eggs and sperm don't have that problem;
they come pre-divided, ready to combine. An adult cell, though, with its full complement of genes, has
to be coaxed into entering an embryonic state. That is probably what Wilmut did by putting the donor
cell to sleep, says Colin Stewart, an embryologist at the National Cancer Institute. Somehow, in ways
scientists have yet to understand, this procedure seems to have reprogrammed the DNA of the donor
cell. Thus when reawakened by the Roslin team, it was able to orchestrate the production of all the cells
needed to make up Dolly's body.
Like most scientists who score major breakthroughs, Wilmut and his colleagues have raised more
questions than they have answered. Among the most pressing are questions about Dolly's health. She is
seven months old and appears to be perfectly fine, but no one knows if she will develop problems later
on. For one thing, it is possible that Dolly may not live as long as other sheep. After all, observes NCI's
Stewart, "she came from a six-year-old cell. Will she exhibit signs of aging prematurely?" In addition, as
the high rate of spontaneous abortion suggests, cloning sometimes damages DNA. As a result, Dolly
could develop any number of diseases that could shorten her life.
Indeed, cloning an adult mammal is still a difficult, cumbersome business--so much so that even
agricultural and biomedical applications of the technology could be years away. PPL Therapeutics, the
small biotechnical firm based in Edinburgh that provided a third of the funding to create Dolly, has its
eye on the pharmaceutical market. Cloning, says PPL's managing director Ron James, could provide an
efficient way of creating flocks of sheep that have been genetically engineered to produce milk laced
with valuable enzymes and drugs. Among the pharmaceuticals PPL is looking at is a potential treatment
for cystic fibrosis.
Nobody at Roslin or PPL is talking about cloning humans. Even if they were, their procedure is
obviously not practical--not as long as dozens of surrogates need to be impregnated for each successful
birth. And that is probably a good thing, because it gives the public time to digest the news--and
policymakers time to find ways to prevent abuses without blocking scientific progress. If the
policymakers succeed, and if their guidelines win international acceptance, it may take a lot longer than
the editorial writers and talk-show hosts think before a human clone emerges--even from the shadows of
some offshore renegade lab. "How long?" asks PPL's James. "Hopefully, an eternity."
-With reporting by Helen Gibson/Roslin and Dick Thompson/Washington
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MARCH 10, 1997 VOL. 149 NO. 10
SPECIAL REPORT
CAN SOULS BE XEROXED?
YOUR CLONE MIGHT BE EERILY LIKE YOU. OR PERHAPS
EERILY LIKE SOMEONE ELSE
BY ROBERT WRIGHT
The world has had a week to conjure up nightmare scenarios, yet no one has articulated the most
frightening peril posed by human cloning: rampant self-satisfaction. Just consider. If cloning becomes an
option, what kind of people will use it? Exactly--people who think the world could use more of them;
people so chipper that they have no qualms about bestowing their inner life on a dozen members of the
next generation; people, in short, with high self-esteem. The rest of us will sit there racked with doubt,
worried about inflicting our tortured psyches on the innocent unborn, while all around us shiny, happy
people proliferate like rabbits. Or sheep, or whatever.
Of course, this assumes that psyches get copied along with genes. That seems to be the prevailing
assumption. People nod politely to the obligatory reminder about the power of environment in shaping
character. But many then proceed to talk excitedly about cloning as if it amounts to Xeroxing your soul.
What makes the belief in genetic identity so stubborn? In part a natural confusion over headlines. There
are zillions of them about how genes shape behavior, but the underlying stories spring from two
different sciences. The first, behavioral genetics, studies genetic differences among people. (Do you
have the thrill-seeking gene? You do? Mind if I drive?) Behavioral genetics has demonstrated that genes
matter. But does that mean that genes are destiny, that your clone is you?
Enter the second science, evolutionary psychology. It dwells less on genetic difference than on
commonality. In this view, the world is already chock-full of virtual clones. My next-door neighbor--or
the average male anywhere on the globe--is a 99.9%-accurate genetic copy of me. And paradoxically,
many of the genes we share empower the environment to shape behavior and thus make us different
from one another. Natural selection has preserved these "malleability genes" because they adroitly tailor
character to circumstance.
Thus, though some men are more genetically prone to seek thrills than others, men in general take fewer
risks if married with children than if unattached. Though some people may be genetically prone to high
self-esteem, everyone's self-esteem depends heavily on social feedback. Genes even mold personality to
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our place in the family environment, according to Frank Sulloway, author of Born to Rebel, the much
discussed book on birth order. Parents who clone their obedient oldest child may be dismayed to find
that the resulting twin, now lower in the family hierarchy, grows up to be Che Guevara.
This malleability could, in a roundabout way, produce clones who are indeed soul mates. Your clone
would, after all, look like you. And certain kinds of faces and physiques lead to certain kinds of
experiences that exert certain effects on the mind. Early in this century, a fledgling effort at behavioral
genetics divided people into such classes as mesomorphs--physically robust, psychologically
assertive--and ectomorphs--skinny, nervous, shy. But even if these generalizations hold some water, it
needn't mean that ectomorphs have genes for shyness. It may just mean that skinny people get pushed
around on the junior-high playground and their personality adapts. (This is one problem with those
identical-twins-reared-apart studies by behavioral geneticists: Do the twins' characters correlate because
of "character genes" or sometimes just because appearance shapes experience which shapes character?)
People who assume that genes are us seem to think that if you reared your clone, you would experience a
kind of mind meld--not quite a fusion of souls, maybe, but an uncanny empathy with your budding
carbon copy. And certainly empathy would at times be intense. You might know exactly how nervous
your frail, gawky clone felt before the high school prom or exactly how eager your attractive, athletic
clone felt.
On the other hand, if you really tried, you could similarly empathize with people who weren't your
clone. We've all felt an adolescent's nervousness, and we've all felt youthfully eager, because these
feelings are part of the generic human mind, grounded in the genes that define our species. It's just that
we don't effortlessly transmute this common experience into empathy except in special cases--with
offspring or siblings or close friends. And presumably with clones.
But the cause of this clonal empathy wouldn't be that your inner life was exactly like your clone's (it
wouldn't be). The catalyst, rather, would be seeing that familiar face--the one in your high school
yearbook, except with a better haircut. It would remind you that you and your clone were essentially the
same, driven by the same hopes and fears. You might even feel you shared the same soul. And in a
sense, this would be true. Then again, in a sense, you share the same soul with everyone.
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MARCH 10, 1997 VOL. 149 NO. 10
SPECIAL REPORT
A SPECIAL REPORT ON
CLONING
BY CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER
One doesn't expect Dr. Frankenstein to show up in wool sweater, baggy parka, soft British accent and
the face of a bank clerk. But there in all banal benignity he was: Dr. Ian Wilmut, the first man to create
fully formed life from adult body parts since Mary Shelley's mad scientist.
The creator wore chinos. Wilmut may not look the part, but he plays it. He took a cell nucleus from a
six-year-old ewe, fashioned from it a perfect twin--adding the nice Frankenstein touch of passing an
electric charge through the composite cell to get it growing--and called it Dolly.
Dolly, the clone, is an epochal--a cataclysmic--creature. Not because of the technology that produced it.
Transferring nuclei has been done a hundred times. But because of the science. Dolly is living proof that
an adult cell can revert to embryonic stage and produce a full new being. This was not supposed to
happen.
It doesn't even happen in amphibians, those wondrously regenerative little creatures, some of which can
regrow a cut-off limb or tail. Try to grow an organism from a frog cell, and what do you get? You get, to
quote biologist Colin Stewart, "embryos rather ignominiously dying (croaking!) around the tadpole
stage."
And what hath Wilmut wrought? A fully formed, perfectly healthy mammal--a mammal!--born from a
single adult cell. Not since God took Adam's rib and fashioned a helpmate for him has anything so
fantastic occurred.
What, then, was the reaction to this breakthrough of biblical proportions?
There is a mischievous story (told mostly in England) that a leading Scottish newspaper reported the
Titanic sinking with the headline GLASGOW MAN LOST AT SEA. Well, here was a story that
deserved the headline MAN CREATES LIFE. And how does it play? A Wall Street Journal headline
urgently asks, WHO WILL CASH IN ON BREAKTHROUGH IN CLONING? (Answer: "Tiny
company could emerge a big winner.") The President of the U.S. calls for a committee of experts to
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gather and pull their beards.
And the New York Times, in a lovely coda to its editorial titled CLONING FOR GOOD OR EVIL,
advises that "society will need to sort through what is acceptable and what is the nightmare beyond."
Well, yes. The most portentous scientific achievement since Alamogordo will need a weighing of pros
and cons. No kidding.
And, no doubt, the pro-and-con weighing, the pontificating and the chin pulling will now go into high
gear. Wilmut will spawn more ethics conclaves than cloned sheep. No matter. There is nothing to stop
cloning, not even of humans.
What the politicians do not understand is that Wilmut discovered not so much a technical trick as a new
law of nature. We now know that an adult mammalian cell can fire up all the dormant genetic
instructions that shut down as it divides and specializes and ages, and thus can become a source of new
life.
You can outlaw technique; you cannot repeal biology. And even the outlawing of this
technique--Britain, for example, forbids the cloning of humans--will fail. It is too simple, too replicable.
No amount of regulation by the FDA or the NIH or even the FBI will stop it.
Why? Not just because it is SO easy, but because its potential for good is SO immense. The study of
cloning can give the world deep insights into such puzzles as spinal cords, heart muscle and brain tissue
that won't regenerate after injury, or cancer cells that revert to embryonic stage and multiply
uncontrollably. Replicating Wilmut's work will elucidate what he along the way did right that nature, in
these pathologies, does wrong.
Of course, the potential for evil is infinitely greater. But there will be no stopping that either. Ban human
cloning in America, as in England, and it will develop on some island of Dr. Moreau. The possibilities
are as endless as they are ghastly: human hybrids, clone armies, slave hatcheries, "delta" and "epsilon"
sub-beings out of Aldous Huxley's Brave New World.
But you don't have to be mad to be tantalized. Being human will do. Think of it: what Dolly--fat,
insensible Dolly--promises is not quite a second chance at life (you don't reproduce yourself; you just
reproduce a twin) but another soul's chance at your life. Every parent tries to endow his child with the
wisdom of his own hard-earned experience. Here is the opportunity to pour all the accumulated learning
of your life back into a new you, to raise your exact biological double, to guide your very flesh through a
second existence.
Oh, the temptation to know what might have been. Or to produce an Einstein, a Dr. King, for every
generation. Or to raise a Jefferson in a clearing, a cross between Jurassic Park and Williamsburg, an
artificial environment re-creating 18th century Virginia. Create, nurture and wait. Then bring him out
one day, fully grown, to answer the question of the ages: What would Jefferson do today?
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TIME Magazine
December 4, 1995 Volume 146, No. 23
Return to Contents page
COVER STORY
WHEN LIFE EXPLODED
For billions of years, simple creatures like plankton, bacteria and algae ruled the
earth. Then, suddenly, life got very complicated
BY J. MADELEINE NASH
An hour later and he might not have noticed the rock, much less stooped to pick it up. But the early
morning sunlight slanting across the Namibian desert in southwestern Africa happened to illuminate
momentarily some strange squiggles on a chunk of sandstone. At first Douglas Erwin, a paleobiologist at
the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, wondered if the meandering markings might be dried-up
curls of prehistoric sea mud. But no, he decided after studying the patterns for a while, these were
burrows carved by a small, wormlike creature that arose in long-vanished subtropical seas--an archaic
organism that, as Erwin later confirmed, lived about 550 million years ago, just before the geological
period known as the Cambrian.
As such, the innocuous-seeming creature and its curvy spoor mark the threshold of a critical interlude in
the history of life. For the Cambrian is a period distinguished by the abrupt appearance of an astonishing
array of multicelled animals--animals that are the ancestors of virtually all the creatures that now swim,
fly and crawl through the visible world.
Indeed, while most people cling to the notion that evolution works its magic over millions of years,
scientists are realizing that biological change often occurs in sudden fits and starts. And none of those
fitful starts was more dramatic, more productive or more mysterious than the one that occurred shortly
after Erwin's wormlike creature slithered through the primordial seas. All around the world, in layers of
rock just slightly younger than that Erwin discovered, scientists have found the mineralized remains of
organisms that represent the emergence of nearly every major branch in the zoological tree. Among
them: bristle worms and roundworms, lamp shells and mollusks, sea cucumbers and jellyfish, not to
mention an endless parade of arthropods, those spindly legged, hard-shelled ancient cousins of crabs and
lobsters, spiders and flies. There are even occasional glimpses--in rock laid down not long after Erwin's
Namibian sandstone--of small, ribbony swimmers with a rodlike spine that are unprepossessing
progenitors of the chordate line, which leads to fish, to amphibians and eventually to humans.
Where did this extraordinary bestiary come from, and why did it emerge so quickly? In recent years, no
question has stirred the imagination of more evolutionary experts, spawned more novel theories or
spurred more far-flung expeditions. Life has occupied the planet for nearly 4 billion of its 4.5 billion
years. But until about 600 million years ago, there were no organisms more complex than bacteria,
multicelled algae and single-celled plankton. The first hint of biological ferment was a plethora of
mysterious palm-shape, frondlike creatures that vanished as inexplicably as they appeared. Then, 543
million years ago, in the early Cambrian, within the span of no more than 10 million years, creatures
with teeth and tentacles and claws and jaws materialized with the suddenness of apparitions. In a burst of
creativity like nothing before or since, nature appears to have sketched out the blueprints for virtually the
whole of the animal kingdom. This explosion of biological diversity is described by scientists as
biology's Big Bang.
Over the decades, evolutionary theorists beginning with Charles Darwin have tried to argue that the
appearance of multicelled animals during the Cambrian merely seemed sudden, and in fact had been
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preceded by a lengthy period of evolution for which the geological record was missing. But this
explanation, while it patched over a hole in an otherwise masterly theory, now seems increasingly
unsatisfactory. Since 1987, discoveries of major fossil beds in Greenland, in China, in Siberia, and now
in Namibia have shown that the period of biological innovation occurred at virtually the same instant in
geologic time all around the world.
What could possibly have powered such a radical advance? Was it something in the organisms
themselves or the environment in which they lived? Today an unprecedented effort to answer these
questions is under way. Geologists and geochemists are reconstructing the Precambrian planet, looking
for changes in the atmosphere and ocean that might have put evolution into sudden overdrive.
Developmental biologists are teasing apart the genetic toolbox needed to assemble animals as disparate
as worms and flies, mice and fish. And paleontologists are exploring deeper reaches of the fossil record,
searching for organisms that might have primed the evolutionary pump. "We're getting data," says
Harvard University paleontologist Andrew Knoll, "almost faster than we can digest it."
Every few weeks, it seems, a new piece of the puzzle falls into place. Just last month, in an article
published by the journal Nature, an international team of scientists reported finding the exquisitely
preserved remains of a 1-in.- to 2-in.-long animal that flourished in the Cambrian oceans 525 million
years ago. From its flexible but sturdy spinal rod, the scientists deduced that this animal--dubbed
Yunnanozoon lividum, after the Chinese province in which it was found--was a primitive chordate, the
oldest ancestor yet discovered of the vertebrate branch of the animal kingdom, which includes Homo
sapiens.
Even more tantalizing, paleontologists are gleaning insights into the enigmatic years that immediately
preceded the Cambrian explosion. Until last spring, when John Grotzinger, a sedimentologist from
M.I.T., led Erwin and two dozen other scientists on an expedition to the Namibian desert, this fateful
period was obscured by a 20 million--year gap in the fossil record. But with the find in Namibia, as
Grotzinger and three colleagues reported in the Oct. 27 issue of Science, the gap suddenly filled with
complex life. In layer after layer of late Precambrian rock, heaved up in the rugged outcroppings the
Namibians call kopfs (after the German word for "head"), Grotzinger's team has documented the
existence of a flourishing biological community on the cusp of a startling transformation, a community
in which small wormlike somethings, small shelly somethings--perhaps even large frondlike
somethings--were in the process of crossing over a shadow line into uninhabited ecospace.
Here, then, are highlights from the tale that scientists are piecing together of a unique and dynamic time
in the history of the earth, when continents were rifting apart, genetic programs were in flux, and tiny
organisms in vast oceans dreamed of growing large.
THE WEIRD WONDERS
Inside locked cabinets at the Smithsonian Institution nestle snapshots in stone as vivid as any
photograph. There, engraved on slices of ink-black shale, are the myriad inhabitants of a vanished world,
from plump Aysheaia prancing on caterpillar-like legs to crafty Ottoia, lurking in a burrow and
extending its predatory proboscis. Excavated in the early 1900s from a geological formation in the
Canadian Rockies known as the Burgess Shale, these relics of the earliest animals to appear on earth are
now revered as priceless treasures. Yet for half a century after their discovery, the Burgess Shale fossils
attracted little scientific attention as researchers concentrated on creatures that were larger and easier to
understand--like the dinosaurs that roamed the earth nearly 300 million years later.
Then, starting in the late 1960s, three paleontologists--Harry Whittington of the University of
Cambridge in England and his two students, Derek Briggs and Simon Conway Morris--embarked on a
methodical re-examination of the Burgess Shale fossils. Under bright lights and powerful microscopes,
they coaxed fine-grain anatomical detail from the shale's stony secrets: the remains of small but
substantial animals that were overtaken by a roaring underwater mudslide 515 million years ago and
swept into water so deep and oxygen-free that the bacteria that should have decayed their tissues couldn't
survive. Preserved were not just the hard-shelled creatures familiar to Darwin and his contemporaries but
also the fossilized remains of soft-bodied beasts like Aysheaia and Ottoia. More astonishing still were
remnants of delicate interior structures, like Ottoia's gut with its last, partly digested meal.
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Soon, inspired reconstructions of the Cambrian bestiary began to create a stir at paleontological
gatherings. Startled laughter greeted the unveiling of oddball Opabinia, with its five eyes and
fire-hose-like proboscis. Credibility was strained by Hallucigenia, when Conway Morris depicted it as
dancing along on needle-sharp legs, and also by Wiwaxia, a whimsical armored slug with two rows of
upright scales. And then there was Anomalocaris, a fearsome predator that caught its victims with spiny
appendages and crushed them between jaws that closed like the shutter of a camera. "Weird wonders,"
Harvard University paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould called them in his 1989 book, Wonderful Life,
which celebrated the strangeness of the Burgess Shale animals.
But even as Wonderful Life was being published, the discovery of new Cambrian-era fossil beds in
Sirius Passet, Greenland, and Yunnan, China, was stripping some of the weirdness from the wonders.
Hallucigenia's impossibly pointed legs, for example, were unmasked as the upside-down spines of a
prehistoric velvet worm. In similar fashion, Wiwaxia, some scientists think, is probably allied with
living bristle worms. And the anomalocaridids--whose variety is rapidly expanding with further
research--appear to be cousins, if not sisters, of the amazingly diverse arthropods.
The real marvel, says Conway Morris, is how familiar so many of these animals seem. For it was during
the Cambrian (and perhaps only during the Cambrian) that nature invented the animal body plans that
define the broad biological groupings known as phyla, which encompass everything from classes and
orders to families, genera and species. For example, the chordate phylum includes mammals, birds and
fish. The class Mammalia, in turn, covers the primate order, the hominid family, the genus Homo and
our own species, Homo sapiens.
EVOLVING AT SUPERSONIC SPEED
Scientists used to think that the evolution of phyla took place over a period of 75 million years, and even
that seemed impossibly short. Then two years ago, a group of researchers led by Grotzinger, Samuel
Bowring from M.I.T. and Harvard's Knoll took this long-standing problem and escalated it into a crisis.
First they recalibrated the geological clock, chopping the Cambrian period to about half its former
length. Then they announced that the interval of major evolutionary innovation did not span the entire 30
million years, but rather was concentrated in the first third. "Fast," Harvard's Gould observes, "is now a
lot faster than we thought, and that's extraordinarily interesting."
What Knoll, Grotzinger and colleagues had done was travel to a remote region of northeastern Siberia
where millenniums of relentless erosion had uncovered a dramatic ledger of rock more than half a mile
thick. In ancient seabeds near the mouth of the Lena River, they spotted numerous small, shelly fossils
characteristic of the early Cambrian. Even better, they found cobbles of volcanic ash containing
minuscule crystals of a mineral known as zircon, possibly the most sensitive timepiece nature has yet
invented.
Zircon dating, which calculates a fossil's age by measuring the relative amounts of uranium and lead
within the crystals, had been whittling away at the Cambrian for some time. By 1990, for example, new
dates obtained from early Cambrian sites around the world were telescoping the start of biology's Big
Bang from 600 million years ago to less than 560 million years ago. Now, with information based on the
lead content of zircons from Siberia, virtually everyone agrees that the Cambrian started almost exactly
543 million years ago and, even more startling, that all but one of the phyla in the fossil record appeared
within the first 5 million to 10 million years. "We now know how fast fast is," grins Bowring. "And
what I like to ask my biologist friends is, How fast can evolution get before they start feeling
uncomfortable?"
FREAKS OR ANCESTORS?
The key to the Cambrian explosion, researchers are now convinced, lies in the Vendian, the geological
period that immediately preceded it. But because of the frustrating gap in the fossil record, efforts to
explore this critical time interval have been hampered. For this reason, no one knows quite what to make
of the singular frond-shape organisms that appeared tens of millions of years before the beginning of the
Cambrian, then seemingly died out. Are these puzzling life-forms--which Yale University paleobiologist
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Adolf Seilacher dubbed the "vendobionts"--linked somehow to the creatures that appeared later on, or do
they represent a totally separate chapter in the history of life?
Seilacher has energetically championed the latter explanation, speculating that the vendobionts represent
a radically different architectural solution to the problem of growing large. These "creatures"--which
reached an adult size of 3 ft. or more across--did not divide their bodies into cells, believes Seilacher, but
into compartments SO plumped with protoplasm that they resembled air mattresses. They appear to have
had no predators, says Seilacher, and led a placid existence on the ocean floor, absorbing nutrients from
seawater or manufacturing them with the help of symbiotic bacteria.
UCLA paleontologist Bruce Runnegar, however, disagrees with Seilacher. Runnegar argues that the
fossil known as Ernietta, which resembles a pouch made of wide-wale corduroy, may be some sort of
seaweed that generated food through photosynthesis. Charniodiscus, a frond with a disklike base, he
classifies as a colonial cnidarian, the phylum that includes jellyfish, sea anemones and sea pens. And
Dickinsonia, which appears to have a clearly segmented body, Runnegar tentatively places in an
ancestral group that later gave rise to roundworms and arthropods. The Cambrian explosion did not erupt
out of the blue, argues Runnegar. "It's the continuation of a process that began long before."
The debate between Runnegar and Seilacher is about to get even more heated. For, as pictures that
accompany the Science article reveal, researchers have returned from Namibia with hard evidence that a
diverse community of organisms flourished in the oceans at the end of the Vendian, just before nature
was gripped by creative frenzy. Runnegar, for instance, is currently studying the fossil of a puzzling
conical creature that appears to be an early sponge. M.I.T.'s Beverly Saylor is sorting through sandstones
that contain a menagerie of small, shelly things, some shaped like wine goblets, others like miniature
curtain rods. And Guy Narbonne of Queen's University in Ontario, Canada, is trying to make sense of
Dickinsonia-like creatures found just beneath the layer of rock where the Cambrian officially begins.
What used to be a gap in the fossil record has turned out to be teeming with life, and this single, stunning
insight into late-Precambrian ecology, believes Grotzinger, is bound to reframe the old argument over
the vendobionts. For whether they are animal ancestors or evolutionary dead ends, says Grotzinger,
Dickinsonia and its cousins can no longer be thought of as sideshow freaks. Along with the multitudes
of small, shelly organisms and enigmatic burrowers that riddled the sea floor with tunnels and trails, the
vendobionts have emerged as important clues to the Cambrian explosion. "We now know," says
Grotzinger, "that evolution did not proceed in two unrelated pulses but in two pulses that beat together
as one."
BREAKING THROUGH THE ALGAE
To human eyes, the world on the eve of the Cambrian explosion would have seemed an exceedingly
hostile place. Tectonic forces unleashed huge earthquakes that broke continental land masses apart, then
slammed them back together. Mountains the size of the Himalayas shot skyward, hurling avalanches of
rock, sand and mud down their flanks. The climate was in turmoil. Great ice ages came and went as the
chemistry of the atmosphere and oceans endured some of the most spectacular shifts in the planet's
history. And in one way or another, says Knoll, these dramatic upheavals helped midwife complex
animal life by infusing the primordial oceans with oxygen.
Without oxygen to aerate tissues and make vital structural components like collagen, notes Knoll,
animals simply cannot grow large. But for most of earth's history, the production of oxygen through
photosynthesis--the metabolic alchemy that allowed primordial algae to turn carbon dioxide, water and
sunlight into energy-- was almost perfectly balanced by oxygen-depleting processes, especially organic
decay. Indeed, the vast populations of algae that smothered the Precambrian oceans generated tons of
vegetative debris, and as bacteria decomposed this slimy detritus, they performed photosynthesis in
reverse, consuming oxygen and releasing carbon dioxide, the greenhouse gas that traps heat and helps
warm the planet.
For oxygen to rise, then, the planet's burden of decaying organic matter had to decline. And around 600
million years ago, that appears to be what happened. The change is reflected in the chemical
composition of rocks like limestone, which incorporate two isotopes of carbon in proportion to their
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abundance in seawater--carbon 12, which is preferentially taken up by algae during photosynthesis, and
carbon 13, its slightly heavier cousin. By sampling ancient limestones, Knoll and his colleagues have
determined that the ratio of carbon 12 to carbon 13 remained stable for most of the Proterozoic Eon, a
boggling expanse of time that stretched from 2.5 billion years ago to the end of the Vendian. But at the
close of the Proterozoic, just prior to the Cambrian explosion, they pick up a dramatic rise in carbon 13
levels, suggesting that carbon 12 in the form of organic material was being removed from the oceans.
One mechanism, speculates Knoll, could have been erosion from steep mountain slopes. Over time, he
notes, tons of sediment and rock that poured into the sea could have buried algal remains that fell to the
sea floor. In addition, he says, rifting continents very likely changed the geometry of ocean basins so that
water could not circulate as vigorously as before. The organic carbon that fell to the sea floor, then,
would have stayed there, never cycling back to the ocean surface and into the atmosphere. As levels of
atmospheric carbon dioxide dropped, the earth would have cooled. Sure enough, says Knoll, a major ice
age ensued around 600 million years ago--yet another link in a complex chain that connects geological
and geochemical events to a momentous advance in biology.
Biology also influenced geochemistry, says Indiana University biochemist John Hayes. In fact, in a
paper published in Nature earlier this year, Hayes and his colleagues argue that guts, those simple
conduits that take food in at one end and expel wastes at the other, may be the key to the Cambrian
explosion. Their reasoning goes something like this: animals grazed on the algae, packaging the leftover
organic material into fecal pellets. These pellets dropped to the ocean depths, depriving
oxygen-depleting bacteria of their principal food source. The evidence? Organic lipids in ancient rocks,
notes Hayes, underwent a striking change in carbon-isotope ratios around 550 million years ago. Again,
the change suggests that food sources rich in carbon 12, like algae, were being "express mailed" to the
ocean floor.
THE GENETIC TOOL KIT
The animals that aerated the precambrian oceans could have resembled the wormlike something that left
its meandering marks on the rock Erwin lugged back from Namibia. More advanced than a flatworm,
which was not rigid enough to burrow through sand, this creature would have had a sturdy, fluid-filled
body cavity. It would have had musculature capable of strong contractions. It probably had a heart, a
well-defined head with an eye for sensing light and, last but not least, a gastrointestinal tract with an
opening at each end. What kind of genetic machinery, Erwin wondered, did nature need in order to patch
together such a creature?
Over the summer, Erwin pondered this problem with two paleontologist friends, David Jablonski of the
University of Chicago and James Valentine of the University of California, Berkeley. Primitive
multicelled organisms like jellyfish, they reasoned, have three so-called homeotic homeobox genes, or
Hox genes, which serve as the master controllers of embryonic development. Flatworms have four,
arthropods like fruit flies have eight, and the primitive chordate Branchiostoma (formerly known as
Amphioxus) has 10. So around 550 million years ago, Erwin and the others believe, some wormlike
creature expanded its Hox cluster, bringing the number of genes up to six. Then, "Boom!" shouts
Jablonski. "At that point, perhaps, life crossed some sort of critical threshold." Result: the Cambrian
explosion.
The proliferation of wildly varying body plans during the Cambrian, scientists reason, therefore must
have something to do with Hox genes. But what? To find out, developmental biologist Sean Carroll's lab
on the University of Wisconsin's Madison campus has begun importing tiny velvet worms that inhabit
rotting logs in the dry forests of Australia. Blowing bubbles of spittle and waving their fat legs in the air,
they look, he marvels, virtually identical to their Cambrian cousin Aysheaia, whose evocative portrait
appears in the pages of the Burgess Shale. Soon Carroll hopes to answer a pivotal question: Is the
genetic tool kit needed to construct a velvet worm smaller than the one the arthropods use? Already
Carroll suspects that the Cambrian explosion was powered by more than a simple expansion in the
number of Hox genes. Far more important, he believes, were changes in the vast regulatory networks
that link each Hox gene to hundreds of other genes. Think of these genes, suggests Carroll, as the chips
that run a computer. The Cambrian explosion, then, may mark not the invention of new hardware, but
rather the elaboration of new software that allowed existing genes to perform new tricks.
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Unusual-looking arthropods, for example, might be cobbled together through variations of the genetic
software that codes for legs. "Arthropods," observes paleoentomologist Jarmila Kukalova-Peck of
Canada's Carleton University, "are all legs"--including the "legs" that evolved into jaws, claws and even
sex organs.
BEYOND DARWINISM
Of course, understanding what made the Cambrian explosion possible doesn't address the larger question
of what made it happen SO fast. Here scientists delicately slide across data-thin ice, suggesting scenarios
that are based on intuition rather than solid evidence. One favorite is the so-called empty barrel, or open
spaces, hypothesis, which compares the Cambrian organisms to homesteaders on the prairies. The
biosphere in which the Cambrian explosion occurred, in other words, was like the American West, a
huge tract of vacant property that suddenly opened up for settlement. After the initial land rush subsided,
it became more and more difficult for naive newcomers to establish footholds.
Predation is another popular explanation. Once multicelled grazers appeared, say paleontologists, it was
only a matter of time before multicelled predators evolved to eat them. And, right on cue, the first signs
of predation appear in the fossil record exactly at the transition between the Vendian and the Cambrian,
in the form of bore holes drilled through shelly organisms that resemble stacks of miniature ice-cream
cones. Seilacher, among others, speculates that the appearance of protective shells and hard, sharp parts
in the late Precambrian signaled the start of a biological arms race that did in the poor, defenseless
vendobionts.
Even more speculative are scientists' attempts to address the flip side of the Cambrian mystery: why this
evolutionary burst, SO stunning in speed and scope, has never been equaled. With just one possible
exception--the Bryozoa, whose first traces turn up shortly after the Cambrian--there is no record of new
phyla emerging later on, not even in the wake of the mass extinction that occurred 250 million years ago,
at the end of the Permian period.
Why no new phyla? Some scientists suggest that the evolutionary barrel still contained plenty of
organisms that could quickly diversify and fill all available ecological niches. Others, however, believe
that in the surviving organisms, the genetic software that controls early development had become too
inflexible to create new life-forms after the Permian extinction. The intricate networks of developmental
genes were not so rigid as to forbid elaborate tinkering with details; otherwise, marvels like winged
flight and the human brain could never have arisen. But very early on, some developmental biologists
believe, the linkages between multiple genes made it difficult to change important features without lethal
effect. "There must be limits to change," says Indiana University developmental biologist Rudolf Raff.
"After all, we've had these same old body plans for half a billion years."
The more scientists struggle to explain the Cambrian explosion, the more singular it seems. And just as
the peculiar behavior of light forced physicists to conclude that Newton's laws were incomplete, so the
Cambrian explosion has caused experts to wonder if the twin Darwinian imperatives of genetic variation
and natural selection provide an adequate framework for understanding evolution. "What Darwin
described in the Origin of Species," observes Queen's University paleontologist Narbonne, "was the
steady background kind of evolution. But there also seems to be a non-Darwinian kind of evolution that
functions over extremely short time periods--and that's where all the action is."
In a new book, At Home in the Universe (Oxford University Press; $25), theoretical biologist Stuart
Kauffman of the Santa Fe Institute argues that underlying the creative commotion during the Cambrian
are laws that we have only dimly glimpsed--laws that govern not just biological evolution but also the
evolution of physical, chemical and technological systems. The fanciful animals that first appeared on
nature's sketchpad remind Kauffman of early bicycles, with their odd-size wheels and strangely angled
handlebars. "Soon after a major innovation," he writes, "discovery of profoundly different variations is
easy. Later innovation is limited to modest improvements on increasingly optimized designs."
Biological evolution, says Kauffman, is just one example of a self-organizing system that teeter-totters
on the knife edge between order and chaos, "a grand compromise between structure and surprise." Too
much order makes change impossible; too much chaos and there can be no continuity. But since
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balancing acts are necessarily precarious, even the most adroit tightrope walkers sometimes make one
move too many. Mass extinctions, chaos theory suggests, do not require comets or volcanoes to trigger
them. They arise naturally from the intrinsic instability of the evolving system, and superior fitness
provides no safety net.
In fact, some of prehistory's worst mass extinctions took place during the Cambrian itself, and they
probably occurred for no obvious reason. Rather, just as the tiniest touch can cause a steeply angled sand
pile to slide, so may a small evolutionary advance that gives one species a temporary advantage over
another be enough to bring down an entire ecosystem. "These patterns of speciations and extinctions,
avalanching across ecosystems and time," warns Kauffman, are to be found in every chaotic
system--human and biological. "We are all part of the same pageant," as he puts it. Thus, even in this
technological age, we may have more in common than we care to believe with the weird--and ultimately
doomed--wonders that radiated so hopefully out of the Cambrian explosion.
Copyright 1995 Time Inc. All rights reserved.
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Out-takes
A Twist of Lemon
February 27, 1997
Intellectual
Capital.com
This Issue TOC
Hello, Dolly!
An Introduction to the Exciting New Politics of
Cloning
Home
by The Barnburner
It started the moment Dolly's sheepish figure
clone me!
appeared on the front page of every newspaper
Search IC
in America, with the news that a Scots scientist
had engineered the first successful cloning of a
mammal. Before the ethicists, the theologians,
or even the wool subsidy lobby had weighed in,
Washington was abuzz over the political
implications of cloning Dolly's human cousins.
Cloning Washington
The polling industry told us that 87% of Americans thought
human cloning should not be allowed: a figure slightly above
the White House threshold for identifying a Policy Consensus
and triggering a response from the bully pulpit, or maybe a
tax credit proposal or two. It was generally assumed that the
10% of Americans favoring human cloning were heavily
centered in Washington, the City of Big Egos, where genetic
engineering, tempered by social climbing, has always dwarfed
such quotidian concerns as physical attraction or common
interests in determining mating decisions.
The Washington Post's Style section quickly published an
article suggesting that Vice President Al Gore might be the
first politician to clone himself or might even be a clone of
himself, himself. Though there is no real evidence for the
Multiple Als hypothesis, it would help explain how the vice
president mustered the self-control to intone "a risky tax
scheme that would blow a hole in the deficit" 8,249 times
during the 1996 campaign without so much as a single smirk.
Even without self-cloning, Washington's campaign
consultants literally are beside themselves with excitement
about the new tools that human self-reproduction could give
their all-important craft. 1996 represented the high-water
mark of their ability to clone political "messages." At any
given moment in the fall of 1996, roughly 150 Democratic
Congressional candidates were simultaneously saying the
words "stop Newt Gingrich from slashing Medicare to give a
tax cut to the rich." On the other side of the partisan divide,
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the hypnotic drone of "Liberal, liberal, liberal" echoed across
the land like the thrumming of cicadas. So: if you can clone
the message, why not clone the messenger?
The Ideal Candidate
The search for the Ideal Candidate is already on. Republicans
are looking for a female Catholic anti-tax activist and soccer
coach, who's rich as Croesus. Democrats are looking for a
male Protestant war hero entrepreneur and child care expert,
who's rich as Croesus. Both sides are scanning foundation
and civic club records to find individuals with Olympic-class
stamina for fundraising dinners.
There is, of course, a demand-side to political cloning as well
as a supply-side. For eons, Democratic and Republican
activists have fantasized about building a durable majority by
"expanding the base." Translated out of pol-speak, that
means increasing the pool of voters who vibrate like tuning
forks the moment you bash the opposition as "godless
tax-and-spend socialists" or as "mean-spirited religious
extremists," instead of having to appeal to swing voters with
their messy and unpredictable interest in "issues" and
"governing." Up until now, "expanding the base" has
involved either expensive and unproductive GOTV efforts, or
lashing your partisans into a crazed hate frenzy that runs the
risk of "energizing" your opponent's base, while annoying
Ted Koppel.
Is there no end ?
But what if you could just clone the base? Party activists, who
are often as self-centered as their representatives in
Washington, would undoubtedly respond to a patriotic appeal
-- perhaps jointly sent to subscribers of Mother Jones and The
American Spectator -- to reproduce themselves genetically for
the Good of the Cause. To be sure, the Federal Elections
Commission would have to regulate these efforts, lest the
Census of 2030 suddenly reveal that 42% of Americans are
Latino lesbian holistic healers, and another 41% are angry
white male Baptist gun dealers. Given the relatively low odds
of spontaneous natural reproduction among these two groups,
cloning would have to become almost universal.
More than one political consultant probably gazed at Dolly's
placid, shaggy face on Page One, and glimpsed an even more
exciting possibility: cloning humans with the genetic material
of sheep. Hello, Dolly! -- an electorate ready to be led, and
willing to be shorn. Even now, I can imagine a
fourth-generation Bill Clinton addressing the wildly bleating
delegates of the 2096 Democratic National Convention:
"Black or white, straight or gay, ram or ewe, you're going to
get up in the morning, go to work and start building a bridge
to the twenty-second century!"
B-a-a-a-a-a-a!
The Barnburner is a regular commentator for IntellectualCapital.com.
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