Did the recent cloning of a sleep catch the ethics community off guard?

I think many of my scientific and ethics colleagues on the Human Embryo Research Panel were of the opinion that human cloning was years off. The only cloning that was previously successful was in frogs. Mammalian cloning in general seemed a much iffier thing. Dr. Ian Wilmut made an end run around a lot of available science and technology. This is a dramatic, and ethically very important, development.

Unfortunately, we don't have many good ways of controlling the next steps in cloning. Legal prohibitions are too blunt an instrument; I don't think Congress or state legislatures know enough to determine what is good research and what is bad. It is also very hard to control private researchers or those in other countries. My own view is that the best way to influence the direction of cloning is to have federally funded research in this broad area of early embryological development. This allows the government, working hand in hand with scientists, ethicists, and others, to develop sound ethical guidelines. It also then gives the government "the power of the purse" to control research activities through institutional review boards (IRBs) and, if needed, even higher level National Institute of Health review. The Human Genome Project, where research is going forward with ongoing ethical oversight, is a good working model that could be applied to cloning.

—Professor Ronald Green,director of Dartmouth'sEthic Institute