From: Brett Paatsch (paatschb@ocean.com.au)
Date: Wed Jan 29 2003 - 07:39:20 MST
Perhaps there is an opportunity for an extropic public service.
Seems Clonaid just keep on making cloning claims without
providing evidence and the journos just keep on publishing them
anyway. This naturally gives Clonaid free publicity and plays straight
into the hands of those who use every story on irresponsible science
to try and tighten the laws against therapeutic cloning. See
http://abcnews.go.com/wire/SciTech/reuters20030108_502.html
(NB. A ban on "all human cloning" would ban therapeutic cloning too).
Extropians *should* care about this because if therapeutic cloning
was able to be performed more often in a discovery science context
it would almost certainly increase the rate at which biological
knowledge of cell differentiation processes would be understood
and allow us to better direct particular tissue growth. This knowledge
would feed directly into the rate at which tissue and organ replacements
are likely to become available for those that need them. IE. It *ought*
to hit extropes right where they live - literally. (If we could be sure
that the political and legislative environments in our countries would not
be used to place unnecessary prohibitions on medical and scientific
research in biotech it is very likely that we would be able to replace
all parts of our bodies excepting the brain and CNS within the next
30 years - using only the technique of applied biology. This would
buy time to address the problems of aging brains still within the life
times of many of us. Any input from singularities, friendly GAI, and
general purpose nanoassemblers would then, whilst gratefully and
happily accepted, be a bonus rather than a necessity.)
This link is from is an article in USA Today from the 27 January..
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=676&ncid=716&e=22&u=%2Fusat
oday%2F20030124%2Fts_usatoday%2F4808222
Reporter Elizabeth Weise saw fit to sign her article. Very nice of her.
In an unwitting spruik for Clonaid and probably an equally unwitting
eye-poke for therapeutic cloning she writes:
"The group that says it produced the world's first cloned children
says a third baby born Wednesday in Japan is a clone of a Japanese
couple's 2-year-old son who died 18 months ago.
None of the three alleged clonings has been independently verified"
That's right. So why is she still seeing it as worth reporting?
Answer. - She's probably not knowledgeable enough to ask the
sort of questions that would make her a better journalist. And
sensational stories like cloning still sells. There is no protocol for
her, or her media colleagues, to hold her accountable to, in the
public interest.
The article goes on to say..
"In a telephone interview from Toronto, Clonaid Director Brigette
Boisselier said the boy born Wednesday was carried by a surrogate
because the real mother was 41 and there was concern that a
miscarriage would be more likely because of her age.
When the boy died, Clonaid took cells from his body, cultured
them and used them to create the baby, Boisselier said."
This means had Boisselier kept some of the cultured cells which
were cloned from the original child and had she forwarded them
along with the placenta from the birth of the child to a lab capable of
extracting DNA from each of the tissue samples it would have been
possible to determine if the placental tissue (implies infant aged DNA)
and the cells (another older source of exactly the same DNA! ) it
would have been possible to determine if the two obviously different
tissue types from individuals of different ages contained exactly the
same genotype - without the need for any identification of the
individuals concerned at all.
Had the alleged clone been of the same sort as Clonaid's first
claim. Where the mother cloned herself and bore her clone. A toe
nail clipping from the mothers big toe (too large for an infant to
produce) and the placental material could have been forwarded
to a lab. The tissues in this case would also be (if the cloning had
actually occurred) of exactly the same genotype but an individual
able to produce adult sized toe nails is unlikely to have a placenta
with the same genotype lying about unless there has been a cloning
event. The different ages of the tissues containing the same DNA
would seem to be excellent evidence of a cloning event and requires
not disclosure of the identity of the child or parent concerned. They
could remain anonymous and need fear no prosecution. Proof of the
claim would serve Clonaid if it was true - they haven't been reporting
clones in the media for nothing - all publicity has been good so far.
So can you actually get DNA from a toenail? Seems you can.
I did a google on "toenail" + "forensic" + "dna" and found a link to
this 1999 article in the Journal of Forensic Sciences.
A Validation Study for the Extraction and Analysis of DNA from
Human Nail Material and its Application to Forensic Casework.
http://www.google.com.au/search?q=cache:xHF0Z3KuhWgC:aafs.micronexx.com/PDF/
JOFS/JFS4451053/JFS4451053.pdf+toenail+forensic+dna+&hl=en&ie=UTF-8
The success rate was only 76% and normally there are easier
sources of DNA so you'd need a good reason to try and extract
it from a toenail. But its clearly possible and the method for doing
it is published right there in this scientific journal.
So the next time Clonaid or anyone else you bump into on the
street reckons they've got a clone they produced in their back
shed. Ask them politely for the placenta and a toenail or ask
them politely to shut the hell up as they are using the media and
journalistic gullibility and opportunism in a way that if unchecked
may extend the delivery time on replacement tissues and organs
that one day *you* or someone else you care about might need.
If the jouno that wrote this article was in Australia I might follow up at
this point and invite her to clarify why she was still reporting Clonaid's
unverified claims. Wouldn't she prefer to demand proof of them? Then
very quicky I let her know the protocol. Actually, I would check out,
the viability of what I was proposing with the lab first, but I reckon the
sort of folks that mess about in labs like this one actually *like* to talk
to folk about this sort of application of their work.
If this protocol for proving (or disproving the existence of clones) is
valid and becomes public knowledge then journalists would be able to
respond to Clonaid or others with "put up or shut up". To not do so
would open them to the charge of irresponsible journalism against the
public interest. Especially as I could send the protocol to a bunch of
newpapers at the same time pointing out that there was now a way to
call Clonaid bluff and inviting them to consider the public service record
of their competitors who would report just for the hell of it. Or heck,
one could send it straight to Clonaid, Vincenti and a selection of the
worlds media in the same post with a little preparation. Then it would
be interesting to see who would approach who first and what sport
the non-approached media outlets might make of any colleague that
scooped them and gave the alleged Cloners some free publicity
without challenging them to put up.
I reckon if a few sciencey extropes QA'd my protocol then we could
work out a pretty effective bluff calling procedure that we could then
forward on to journalists. Perhaps this could give budding young
extropes interested in adding some political and media skills to their
repertoire of actions something to cut their political and activist teeth
on.
In democracies we only get one vote each (just like the President)
but we also get the right to free speech. Its how we use this right to
speak and what we actually say and to whom we actually say it that
determines how effective we are in propagating the changes we
desire in our societies. Some might think politics is a dirty game.
Those who oppose extropic aims might well be glad if they think so.
If we don't use our right to free speech and free association to learn
and to play the political game well but instead we leave the arena free
for others who are willing to step forward and use it, learn it and play
it. Picture a smiling beneficent Leon Kass. He know's what's best for
us. Personally, I'd rather have knowledge empowered extropes
working the various political and media hustings in as many democratic
countries as possible - they at least share most of my values.
Alas, if only we had a wiki, (sigh) where, (amongst other things) we
might be able to dig out some practical extropic knowledge, get it
down and leverage it in such a way as to empower each other to be
more effective in promoting extropic policies and outcomes in our
local communities :(
Brett
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