Advocate Summary

Issue:  Human Cloning
Advocate: International Center for Technology Assessment - Doug Hunt
Date of Interview: 7/26/02

Basic Background
Early in the Congress, about a year and a half ago a bill was introduced in the House to prohibit cloning, there had been a similar bill in ’97 right after Dolly was cloned, that was the sheep – and in the really strange way that language has been twisted by the people supporting this, Dolly is a “grown up activated cell” which could not possibly be a sheep, because the folks that were supporting the other bill, they said on the floor of the Senate that an egg from which a nucleus has been replaced with the nucleus of a somatic cell, is not a human zygote and couldn’t possibly result in a human. So I don’t know what Dolly is but clearly it is not a sheep it is just a quote unquote grown up activated cell – this is what Senator Feinstein said. 
	So we started a kind of educational program and then the bill came up in the House and we were part of a group, a fairly broad based group, that helped pass the House bill HR 2505 the Weldon-Stubeck bill. It was fairly extensive in terms of importation and such, from countries which have improved techniques of cloning, and using the tissue for applications, when you let the fetus gestate for a longer period of time like the cow that ACT did, Advanced Center for Technologies, which they allowed to gestate for six to eight weeks and they had taken tissues to repair hearts and kidneys and other things. And that tissue was taken and used but we don’t know what condition those animals are in now but so they had a fetus and they killed it. So, doing that with a human being is, is fairly repugnant, but not to others I guess. But in any case, the struggle last July switched to the Senate. Mr. Daschle wanted this to go away and decided to make it go away, just kept saying that this is not stem cell and has nothing to do with stem cell for several months. If you take a look at those who have been in favor of this you will see a progression in what they have asked for; they first asked for embryonic stem cell research so at least general access to embryonic stem cells to being able to create them – to create embryos in order to destroy them, then to be able to clone embryos in order to destroy them for research. So if you look at the history it goes from we absolutely have to have embryonic stem cells and we would never talk about cloning – these were literally the words within a year spoken by the same people in the Senate – that we would never do that to, within the last three months, that if we can’t have cloning we’ll never cure these diseases. I leave it to you to draw the conclusion where it will go from there. 

So the House bill came over and the Brownback introduced his bill which was essentially a copy. And then there were a bunch of other bills introduced both Republican and Democrat, all of which are still on the table, the opportunity for a vote came down between the Specter/ Harkin and then the Brownback bill. But Mr. Daschle reneged and changed the order of the vote on the floor, which is very critical in the Senate because it is the last bill standing that tends to get passed, if you have a contest between two bills and the Senators tend to feel they need to do something about the issue or they are going to be in trouble, they will probably go with whichever bill is left standing. And the agreement was, with Daschle, that there would be a cloture vote on the Specter/ Harkin first, and if that failed then there would be a cloture vote on the Brownback bill with an amendment in the nature of a substitute which we had drafted here, or something like it, we didn’t know that at the time – that it was almost identical to what we had here. And so at the last minute Senator Daschle reversed the order and Mr. Brownback refused to agree, and you must have unanimous agreement so neither bill went to vote.  

Prior Activity on the Issue 
[Worked on the issue in 1997 follow the cloning of Dolly]

Advocacy Activities Undertaken
The Democratic side of the Senate worked very hard to make sure that they kept enough votes to ensure that the Specter Harkin bill would pass. I think we can take some credit for that not having happened.  That was primarily an ad hoc coalition of groups working on that. I and Joe Mendelson which is the legal director were the two that did the most grunt work on that, and a couple people from Friends of the Earth including Brent Blackwood himself did some office to office stuff as well. The folks in the group on the right were the Republicans and conservative Democrats and just leave it to say that it was conservative right to life to conservative religious groups and all of them put aside the right-to-life issues to work on cloning. And essentially they put aside their political issues and not politicize this very much. 

We had all kinds of research, we couldn’t get anything published, my boss Andrew Kimbrell has about a 12 and 18 hundred word documents, Hype versus Hope documenting all of the quote unquote miracle cures over the last ten or twelve year that haven’t done anything but kill people mostly or put them into vegetative states or uncontrolled convulsions. Gene therapy is a good example which was used 10 or 12 years before it should have been, people have been victims of gene therapy trial that weren’t overseen properly, and the FDA is now looking at a thousand other cases where people may have been killed in clinical trials of gene therapy before they were ready. So but we couldn’t get this stuff published, and we couldn’t get letters to the editors published. We had sponsored a briefing towards the end of April, I had in succession three different research scientists lined up to come an speak and just like soldiers going down, I got these phone calls saying they just wouldn’t be able to come and then I pressed very hard to find out why, and it seems as though there had been phone calls made. Either directly to them or to other members of the faculty there and they had been told that it would not be in the best interests of their careers or their reputations to show up at this briefing. How do you fight that? The conservative groups were much more successful in bringing in conservative scientists and even some of the left, and I hate to use the work, victim groups they did a very good job generally, but they were of course ignored by the press as well who wanted to paint it as an abortion issue. It has been a very strange process. We have a lot of research though that shows that this is not necessary, not at this point. No one can answer why, why do you need to do this to do stem cell research 

We did the normal stuff we just had very little response from the media. We had insufficient resources and time to do grassroots organizing. We had not wanted this legislation to come up, this was not our idea. We had hoped for something in a year or so. 

Future Advocacy Activities Planned
I think the Bioethics report was well done and it was a well prepared piece, I was a little disappointed in some of the reasoning of some of the members but by and large it was good. In general it came out in the same place as I probably would, that this is a really serious issue, and an issue that has to be addressed on an ethical foundation that it can’t be discussed in terms of potential for possible good some day, even though there is no proof of that potential. It has to be looked at in terms of culture and society and individual relationships and how we see ourselves as human beings and what kind of bridge this is that we propose to cross. We can’t do that without a broad and wide discussion of these questions and we need that. And an assessment of this government’s ability to have control in overseeing the research that is done because there is all kinds of evidence that they are not willing or able to provide such oversight. There is evidence that they can’t or they won’t oversee even advanced human trials, they are always in favor of proceeding with the research over the people. So those are issues that are large.  

Key Congressional Contact(s)/Champions
One of the things you should know is the problem we had with the Democrats is that many of them told us they could not, whether they wanted to or not, ever vote for a bill that Brownback was a primary sponsor. You have to understand, that things can be very petty in the Senate. And I think Mr. Brownback may have snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. There was a bill like this, that Senator McCain was going to introduce that possibly could have passed in time. But rumors of the Vice President departing and these people went insane, vying for the limelight. And so Brownback pops up with this proposal instead of letting McCain produce it and snatched all chance of getting any support from anybody. He looked like an idiot. And everybody says if you aren’t even going to support your bill why should we? So it was over. 

Targets of Direct Lobbying
None mentioned.

Targets of Grassroots Lobbying
None mentioned.

Coalition Partners: Names/Participants
That was primarily an ad hoc coalition of groups working on that. I and Joe Mendelson which is the legal director were the two that did the most grunt work on that, and a couple people from Friends of the Earth including Brent Blackwood himself did some office to office stuff as well. The folks in the group on the right were the Republicans and conservative Democrats and just leave it to say that it was conservative right to life to conservative religious groups and all of them put aside the right-to-life issues to work on cloning. And essentially they put aside their political issues and not politicize this very much.

Other Participants in the Issue Debate
The administration was supportive but they could have been more supportive. They invited people to hear him speak and that was about all and that I hear took a lot, to decide to allow these people to darken their door, it was the closest they got to a bi-partisan gathering. Those who came that were not considered to be generally supportive of the administration was Andrew Kimbrell, and Blackwood from Friends of the Earth and the Methodist church. 

The stalwart on the women’s angle was the Boston Women’s Health Book Collective – Judy Norsigian, Judy was really a part of the emergence of the feminist movement in this country, she wrote Our Bodies Our Selves, which was the first book about women’s bodies.  You should have this book, and she is a forever stalwart, right now she is leading the battle against Lupron which is a drug that is being used off-label to cause hyper-ovulation in invitro-fertilization and also cause hyper-ovulation for egg donation for research. And it is dangerous and it has awful side effects. 

Ubiquitous Argument(s) and Evidence
[No fundamental argument, stated:]
Well that depended on who we were visiting and what their interests were if we were visiting Democrats we would always start out with the first: we’ve never done this we’ve never created life for the purpose of destroying it, we need to have a national debate on this, and just look at the polls they’re already against you, why do you want to do this when the country does not want you to do this. And the second question is a question of women’s health and the treat that this is to women’s health and the volume of eggs that would need to be procured and the dangers there are to women from the drugs and from the process itself and we’re not talking about 2 or 3 thousand eggs, we’re talking about, if they’re serious about using this for treatment, in the 10s to 50s to 100s of millions annually. Annually. 

Secondary Argument(s) and Evidence
We have a lot of research though that shows that this is not necessary, not at this point. No one can answer why, why do you need to do this to do stem cell research

Targeted Arguments, Targets, and Evidence
Well that depended on who we were visiting and what their interests were if we were visiting Democrats we would always start out with the first: we’ve never done this we’ve never created life for the purpose of destroying it, we need to have a national debate on this, and just look at the polls they’re already against you, why do you want to do this when the country does not want you to do this. And the second question is a question of women’s health and the treat that this is to women’s health and the volume of eggs that would need to be procured and the dangers there are to women from the drugs and from the process itself and we’re not talking about 2 or 3 thousand eggs, we’re talking about, if they’re serious about using this for treatment, in the 10s to 50s to 100s of millions annually. Annually. 

Nature of the Opposition
Well certainly it is the medical research community, the Biotechnology Industry Association and that was followed by CAMR, I can’t remember what that is, [the Coalition for the Advancement of Medical Research], and the Association for cell biology – Paul Berg’s group,  and the group from California – the actors from California – and the amount of money they spent on this! A cell biologist from a medical college in New York said this the other day, these progressive political types, liberals, they believe in technology and they also believe in control, social control through technology. And I think he is right, and it’s also about money, I mean politics is about money and if you look at who their leadership on this bill is who the real leadership is – Feinstein, Kennedy, those are two of the most heavily biotechnology states in the country. And they’re looking for the money to come out of NIH, some of that 3 billion dollars that Kennedy and Feinstein managed to shove into the NIH budget. And from my perspective the really tragic part is the hype, the hype that has been used to engage the advocacy groups for the people suffering with these diseases I think that is pretty dismal. 

Ubiquitous Argument(s) and Evidence Articulated by the Opposition 
Their fundamental argument was that without research cloning you are taking help away from immediate rapid cures for all these degenerative diseases. That’s literally what they were telling people, they were telling people they could have cures in two years. For people with Parkinsons it was supposed to be a cure and it was a PR thing for Kennedy and Specter. And they were telling these people that they were going to be cured in two years – that’s obscene!  

Secondary Argument(s) and Evidence Articulated by the Opposition
None mentioned.

Targeted Argument(s) and Evidence Articulated by the Opposition (and Targets)
No, it was not necessary, people are desperate, desperate for cures.

Described as a Partisan Issue
Not explicitly.

Venue(s) of Activity
Senate

Action Pending or Taken by Relevant Decision Makers
A number of cloning bills exist, there has not yet been a vote. 

Policy Objective(s) and Support for/Opposition to the Status Quo
Working to ban all types of human cloning.

Advocate’s Experience: Tenure in Current Job/Previous Experience
I’ve been here since January before that I was with the Methodists and before that I was with the Center for Genetics in Society, I have a very eclectic life, I’ve been in NGO and activist work around various kinds of issues, primarily sustainable development issues and before that I worked for the US government for 17 years, I was head of computer security for NASA, I was director for about 5 years.  

Reliance on Research: In-House/External (Code for Organizational Advocates Only)
We do it in-house. We generally select the topics we are going to work on and then we have interns that will work on it, and on a case by case basis we might contract out, but normally we do it. 
The major part of the office is the Center for Food Safety, the focus primarily on food and plant genetics and safety from that angle, they have many primary lawsuits, most of the folks here are lawyers. The other part of the office is the Center for Technology Assessment.

Number of Individuals Involved in Advocacy (Code for Organizational Advocates Only)
One to Two.

Units in Organization Involved in Public Affairs/Policy (Code for Organizational Advocates Only)
Well it depends on how many interns we have, we have from 8 to 12 or fifteen. The major part of the office is the Center for Food Safety, the focus primarily on food and plant genetics and safety from that angle, they have many primary lawsuits, most of the folks here are lawyers. The other part of the office is the Center for Technology Assessment which is primarily Pete and I. I’m the only one that goes to the Hill along with Joe Mendelson if he has time. 

Advocate’s Outstanding Skills/Assets (Code for Organizational Advocates Only)
None mentioned.

Type of Membership: None, Institutions, Individuals, Both (Code for Organizational Advocates Only)

Membership Size (Code for Organizational Advocates Only)

Organizational Age (Code for Organizational Advocates Only)

Miscellaneous