NAS cloning hearing disappoints participants.

Abstract

The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is arguably the most important scientific association in the United States. For decades it has been a key source of sound policy advice and solidly grounded opinion on matters pertaining to science, medicine, and engineering to the federal government. Early in August the NAS held a hearing on cloning. The report that will result from that hearing (due by the end of 2001) will no doubt receive keen attention from Congress. How did it happen that on a topic of crucial currency the NAS saw fit to welcome as equals into its ranks a group with so little scientific credibility? And why has the scientific community had so little to say about this puzzling collapse of standards with respect to who is asked to speak publicly on matters of science and medicine? The group in question is Brigitte Boisselier, Panayiotis Zavos, and Severino Antinori. Boisselier does not have a single Medline or Biosis publication. None of them has produced any Medline or Biosis indexed publications on cloning. None of the three has done any animal experimentation published in any Medline or Biosis indexed publications that would permit them to offer relevant information about the feasibility of cloning (for example, the embryological problems with the reprogramming of gene expression or attempts at animal cloning). When the leading organization of scientists and physicians in the United States invites unqualified persons to sit as equals meriting the same consideration due to those who actually have conducted responsible research on the topic at issue, and when, as happened at the hearing, those on the fringe are permitted to deprecate the work of those who actually have published research on cloning, then the distinctions between science, pseudoscience, and nonscience (if not nonsense) are eroded. No doubt the testimony of the real experts who were present during the hearing will lead, in the published report, to a resounding condemnation of the claims and assertions of Zavos, Boisselier, and Antinori. But the decision to treat these people as scientific equals in order to hear from them was wrong. Perhaps the greatest damage that can occur when the scientific community fails to clearly demarcate real science from nonscience is that bad public policy results. Already bills are moving through Congress, in state legislatures, and in international organizations to ban or prohibit all forms of cloning with human DNA, whether for reproduction or any other scientific purpose. Perhaps it is prudent to enact such bans, but there can be little doubt that the rush to enact them is being fueled by the perception that legitimate scientists and doctors are going to clone a human being in the near future. In a democracy, public policy must be based on more than the views of scientists, even on matters of medicine and science. But the voices of scientists must be heard by those responsible for making policy. What is happening in the discussion of cloning in American public policy, as the NAS panel made sadly evident, is that the scientific community has become too lax about making sure that the public and policy-makers can hear them clearly.