Requested Story (03/10/2002)

Kent Waldrep: Cloning research could offer hope to the paralyzed

By KENT WALDREP

The word "cloning" makes a lot of people nervous, if not downright scared. But I have a very different view.

More than 28 years ago, I was a running back for Texas Christian University. After a group of Alabama tacklers knocked me head-first to the artificial turf, I lay in a hospital bed and listened to doctors tell me I was permanently paralyzed.

Since that day, my life has been dedicated to helping people with paralysis walk again. I have learned that what motivates most of them is hope through medical research. And cloning provides hope.

But let me be clear: I am not talking about the kind of cloning that has so many people worried – making copies of pet cats, like the scientists at Texas A&M; University, or duplicating Arnold Schwarzenegger, like Hollywood producers.

That type of cloning is called "reproductive cloning." I am absolutely opposed to the cloning of people, as are all responsible scientists and almost all Americans.

But there is a fundamentally different kind of cloning that absolutely should go forward. It is called therapeutic cloning (or somatic cell nuclear transfer technology).

In such cloning, scientists remove the nucleus of an egg cell and replace it with material from the nucleus of a "somatic cell" (a skin, heart, nerve or any other non-germ cell). Then they stimulate that cell to begin dividing.

What is important to remember is that the clump of dividing cells never leaves the lab. It never is transplanted into a womb, and no sperm is used in the process. In short, the unfertilized egg never begins to develop into a human being.

Instead, the egg cells are stored in a petri dish where they can become a source of stem cells. And stem cells may be an answer that transforms hope into reality.

Therapeutic cloning gives hope because spinal cord injuries and many other debilitating diseases and conditions are caused by damage to cells and tissue. Therapeutic cloning could allow a patient's own genetic material to be used to develop advanced stem cell therapies that could repair the damage.

In particular, stem cells could be used to produce nerve cells that could be transplanted to paralyzed people, possibly restoring the connections between brain and limbs.

Moreover, therapeutic cloning would produce stem cells that are identical to a patient's original cells. As a result, the patient's immune system wouldn't reject the transplanted cells, making it much easier to make repairs.

Unfortunately, scientists never may get the chance to explore the promise of therapeutic cloning. In the next few weeks, the U.S. Senate takes up legislation that would outlaw all forms of cloning, including therapeutic cloning.

The legislation would criminalize the research and even prohibit the importation of successful therapies derived from therapeutic cloning in other countries.

Years ago, I went to Russia for an experimental treatment. Under the proposed legislation, I might be subject to arrest if I tried the same thing again.

That isn't living the American dream.

I hope that when our senators vote, they pay attention to what the nation's leading medical researchers are saying.

A prestigious committee of the National Academy of Sciences has released a report that found that cloning to reproduce humans is unsafe and should be illegal. But the committee also found that therapeutic cloning has "considerable potential" and should be permitted.

In fact, therapeutic cloning could bring new hope to the millions of Americans who suffer Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, diabetes, heart disease, various cancers and – yes – paralysis resulting from spinal cord injury.

For 28 years, I have worked with political leaders of both parties, including then-Gov. George W. Bush, who served on my foundation's board. Last year, President Bush faced a difficult decision on federal funding for stem cell research. He deliberated carefully, weighed the facts in a complex issue and made a decision to go forward.

When the cloning legislation comes up for a vote soon, I hope my senators step back from the heated rhetoric and weigh the facts carefully, too.

I hope they will listen to people I work with everyday. For people in wheelchairs, the debate on therapeutic cloning isn't about politics or philosophy. It is about breathing their next breath.

Don't ban this vital research.

Kent Waldrep is the founder of the Kent Waldrep National Paralysis Foundation in Addison.

This article appears as it did in the Dallas Morning News.
Reprinted with permission.