the dictionary defines cloning as as a dna sequence such as a gene that is transfered from one organism to another and replicated by genetic engineering techniques. there are different types of cloning however, and cloning technologies hcan be used for other purposes besides producing the genetic twin of an organism. nevertheless, cloning does come with serious risks. these risks are hte reasons the government should enact laws to regulate and put perimeters on cloning research. the three most common tyes of cloning are recombinant dna technology or DNA cloning, reproductive cloning, and also therapeutic cloning. the second type of cloning mentioned above (reproducive cloning) is a technology used to generate an animal that has the same nuclear dna as another currently existing animal. a basic understanding of the different types of cloning is key to taking an informed stance on current public policy issues and making the best possible personal desicions. an example of reproductive cloning gone bad is dolly the sheep. solly, the first mammal ever to be cloned from adult dna was euthazined by lethal injection on february 14th 2003. dolly was borna and grew up apparently healthy after276 unsuccesful attempts to clone a sheep. before her death she had been suffering from several debilitatng deseases such as lung cancer and crippling arhtritis. she was only six years old at the time of her death. this seems strange considering the fact that the average life span of her breed of sheep (finn dorset) is approximitley 12 years of age. this raises the question of whether or not reproductive cloning played a role in her painful diseases that led to her early death. the sscientist ian wilmut who led the team that cloned dolly believes that it certainly did. another tragic axample of reproductive cloning gone bad are the several attempts to clone monkeys. a researcher at adanced cell technology (a.c.t.) even reffered o these cloned monkeys as a "galleery of horrors" tanja dominiko a researcher at a.c.t. attempted to discover what exactly as going wrong. she examined over 260 clones rhesus macaqe monkey embryos. dominiko followed the embryos development through many divisions all the way up to the 32 cell stage. her findings were very surprising. it turned out that the embryos didnt form distict nuclei containing all the chromosomes. instead, the chromosomes were scattered unevenly throughout the cells. on top of that, dominiko found that the cells continued to divide... they didnt stop. her basic conclusion was that the overall shock of extracting the nucleus was likely what produced the numerous dedfects of the embryos. the first type of clonging mentioned earlier (dna cloning) reffers to the process of transferring a dna fragment from one organism to a self replicating genetic element, such as a bacterial plasmid.plasmids and other types of cloning vectors are used to duplicate genes and other pieces of chromosomes to produce enough identical material for additional study. this particular type of cloning is used mainl tto find out about genes that cause diseases. this specific type of dna cloning, therefor, really does not pose ny huge underlying threat to living organisms such as humans & animals. therapeuic cloning (also known as embryo cloning) was the third type of cloning mentioned earlier. it is the production of human embryos for use in research and expiraments. with this type of cloning the stem cells are harvested from human embryos. this allows scientiststo study the human development fof the embryos and also gives them a remote possibilty of treatind or detecting diseases. in order for therapeutic cloning to potentially work, the stem cell must be extracted from the egg. with this extraction, the egg is completley and totally destroyed. this raises an array of ethical concerns, as well as concerns relating to public policy. many of the concerns about cloning focus on issues realted to "playing god"... interfering ith the natural order of life and of depriving a future individual of he right to a unique identity. also, many people believe that killing an embryo is like killing a human bieng. therfor to many people, research or any other activity that would destroy an embryo or even possibly harm it is considered very very wrong. an additional concern related to public policy is whether or not federal funds should be used for research that so many people deem truly unethical and very wrong. concerning public policy and regulation in the u.s., congress has bnned and researchers from using federal funds for human embryo research in july 2001 the hosue of representatives voted 265 to 162 to turn human clonging into a criminal offense; this includes cloning to create an ambryo for stem cell harvesting. however, in august 2002, president bush stated that federal support would indeed be made available for research using a limited number of already existing stem cell colonies. cloning not only has far too many risks that accompany ot, but also an over wheliming ammount of failed attempts. a few to mention are dolly the hseep and the rhesus macaque monkeys embryos. only a small percent of cloned annimals survive birth, and those that do are dominantly subjected to numerous health defects including obesity, pneumonia occuring often througout thier short lived lives, liver failure, bieng oversized at birth, abnormally large placentas, and also dying at a much younger age than there naturally bred counterparts. the countless failed attempts desperatley need to be examined and taken into account to help innitiate the government to respond and to enact additional laws to regulate and ut further perimeters on all cloning research.
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