NEWS
Senate presses health issues, waits on cloning
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Also by Carolyn Smith:
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- Certain types of cloning may be banned in Wisconsin (January 23, 2002)
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- U.S. House passes cloning ban (March 4, 2003)
by Carolyn Smith
Wednesday, September 28, 2005
The Wisconsin State Senate voted by unanimous consent Tuesday to pass a bill that will encourage the donation of umbilical-cord blood of newborn children, but legislators blocked a vote to ban human cloning which will instead be intended for a vote today.
The umbilical-cord-blood legislation requires principle health-care providers of pregnant women to inform the women of the option to donate umbilical-cord blood from their newborns after birth. The cord blood could then be used to treat illness in patients who need the blood.
Doctors who morally object to the bill will not be forced to comply with it.
Dr. Walter Longo, director of the marrow and stem-cell transplant program at the University of Wisconsin Hospital and Clinics, said the bill's passage is good news for researchers and Wisconsinites alike.
"The benefits for patients who need [umbilical-cord blood cells] are untold," Longo said. "This will be very helpful to thousands of patients."
Though the state Legislature has been wary of passing bills dealing with stem cells, all members of the Senate approved the umbilical-cord-blood donation bill because the technology will not sacrifice embryos or fetuses.
"This has nothing to do with fetal-derived stem cells — these are placental cells that would be discarded anyway," Longo said. "It has nothing to do with aborted fetus stem cells."
Longo said umbilical-cord blood has the potential to save lives and may have other undiscovered uses as well.
Longo said it contains cells with the ability to become other types of cells, which makes it especially helpful for patients undergoing chemotherapy. When the cells are transplanted into the recipient, they can create new bone marrow and help the patient regain normal immune-system functioning.
Umbilical-blood transplants are more promising than bone-marrow transplants from adults or children because there is a lower chance the recipient will have a negative immune response to the new cells, Longo added.
"If cells are compatible between the donor and recipient, the cells can be used for people undergoing high-dose chemotherapeutic treatment," Longo said. "The blood cells help to recover the immune system and bone marrow."
Longo also said umbilical-cord cells are an underutilized resource and can be harvested and stored easily at a relatively low cost.
"Our governor and Legislature had a lot of foresight to promote this," Longo said. "Wisconsin is a fairly progressive state, and this is an example of that."
Senate holds off on cloning bill
Though the Senate was slated to vote on a bill banning all forms human cloning in the state, it decided to block voting on the matter until today.
State Sen. Alberta Darling, R-River Hills, proposed an amendment that would allow therapeutic cloning for research purposes; however, the amendment failed by one vote. The State Assembly had previously passed the bill, but Gov. Jim Doyle has said he will veto the bill if it passes in the Senate and reaches his desk.
Darling said though she is against human cloning, therapeutic cloning is essential for the progression of research into medical treatments.
"We had a good debate on the issue, but the fact remains I wanted to ban human cloning, and the governor would have signed the bill with the amendment," Darling said.
Though she will vote to ban human cloning tomorrow, Darling said the failure to amend the bill to allow therapeutic cloning will be detrimental to the state.
"This will have a chilling effect on our state's position on research," Darling said. "It will have a chilling effect on our ability to recruit the best and brightest in research and will give our state the image that we are against research."
However, Sen. Ted Kanavas, R-Brookfield, said he was troubled by the issue of economic development and added he felt it was not in the state's best interest to allow any kind of human cloning.
"If we are going to be great in the research we do, we have to do it ethically and morally," Kanavas said. "In areas of moral dilemma, we must err on the side of caution."
The Senate decided to hold voting on the bill until today to allow further discussion on the matter.
"The idea is to get our guys a little more time to talk to some other guys to make sure everybody has their facts straight before we go any further," Sen. Jon Erpenbach, D-Middleton, said.
