04-27-2002

LOBBYING: Cloning Begets Diverse Factions

Cloning-advocate Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., continued to work the
witnesses even after the hearing. He shook hands with Kevin Kline and
asked the actor for a "Monday movie" to highlight the medical
benefits of human cloning. "This has to be done very fast,"
Specter urged Kline at a recent Senate Appropriations subcommittee
hearing.


Specter next turned his attention to Gerald D. Fischbach, the executive
vice president for health and biomedical sciences at Columbia University,
which supports human cloning for research. Specter told Fischbach that he
and other university deans "will have to make your voice heard in
many, many places."


Specter, the ranking member of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor,
Health and Human Services, and Education, is a leading supporter of a bill
by Sens. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., and Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., that
would allow cloning for research but would ban the birth of human
clones.


Movie stars such as Kline and well-known scientists on Capitol Hill such
as Fischbach, who is a former director of the National Institute of
Neurological Disorders and Stroke, are playing important lobbying roles
for the pro-cloning forces. Those forces are trying to beat back a bill
co-sponsored by Sens. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., and Mary L. Landrieu, D-La.,
that would ban the creation of human clones for birth or for
experiments.


At the moment, the two sides are in a virtual deadlock in the Senate. So
each camp is using advocacy groups, grassroots efforts,
university-affiliated experts, and industry researchers to try and secure
the crucial few votes that could spell victory. Last summer, the House
voted 265 to 162 to ban all human cloning. It's not clear when the Senate
might vote on the cloning issue, if it does at all this year.


Each side has a higher champion. President Bush is strongly against all
forms of human cloning. Sen. Majority Leader Thomas A. Daschle, D-S.D.,
says he's against cloning for birth but that the potential for curing
diseases through cloning research is too promising to give up.


Both camps have found that they must use carefully chosen language and
tolerate internal diversity since their subgroups have sharply different
philosophies.


Consider the anti-cloning faction, which was led initially by
anti-abortion groups such as the National Right to Life Committee. Groups
such as NRLC are now publicly downplaying their role in the anti-cloning
effort, allowing newfound allies in the environmental movement and on the
left to seek support from liberal Democratic senators who might be
receptive to warnings of environmental degradation and "marketplace
eugenics."


The left-of-center groups, which want a cloning moratorium rather than a
ban, "add a whole different mode of argument to this debate, about
the danger of unregulated technology and respect for nature that does not
rely on the pro-life argument," said Richard Doerflinger, associate
director for policy development at the U.S. Conference of Catholic
Bishops.


The pro-cloning forces gather under the flag of the Coalition for the
Advancement of Medical Research, whose membership comprises roughly 70
associations, companies, and universities. The cloning debate "is the
hot public policy issue of the moment for us," said Daniel Perry of
the industry-backed Alliance for Aging Research, a CAMR member.


Among the hired guns on the pro-cloning side is Connie Mack, a former
Republican senator with an anti-abortion voting record. Mack and several
members of his family have had cancer. He is a board member of two biotech
companies and is a senior policy adviser at the law and lobbying firm Shaw
Pittman. Meanwhile, the Christopher Reeve Paralysis Foundation is using
former Sen. Dale Bumpers, D-Ark., of Arent Fox Kintner Plotkin &
Kahn.


The patients' groups have emphasized the promise of cloning embryos so
that their stem cells can be transplanted into patients with Parkinson's,
Alzheimer's, diabetes, and other ailments. This technique has not been
proven to work, and it faces significant scientific obstacles, but many
groups remain optimistic.


For example, the Parkinson's Action Network's Web site says "as
Michael J. Fox stated, President George W. Bush can `oversee a cure during
his administration.' The NIH has said that if they had `$1 billion in five
years, they could reach a cure.' " Because the patients' groups have
great clout, legislators who oppose them will "regret" the
stance, said Carl Feldbaum, president of Biotechnology Industry
Organization, the trade group for the biotech industry, and a former
senior aide to Specter.


The patients' groups have spent years building a grassroots network of
concerned doctors, patients, and their families, as well as celebrities.
For example, the many members of the Parkinson's Action Network are
scheduled to visit Washington on May 20 for a day of lobbying on Capitol
Hill. The Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation International is also very
effective, partly because of support from celebrities such as Hollywood
producer Douglas Wick, who has launched a large-sale advertising campaign
in favor of research cloning. "It is just the future, and it can't be
stopped," said Wick, whose daughter has diabetes.


These disease groups' clout is enhanced by sympathy from legislators. Sen.
Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, has said "patients have come to me with
diabetes, paralysis, spinal-cord injuries, kids dying of cancer.... It
would be terrible to say because of an ethical concept that we can't do
anything for you." And Sen. Zell Miller, D-Ga., said he supports the
Kennedy bill because his son has diabetes and his deceased mother had
Alzheimer's.


This promise of medical cures is backed up by promises of economic growth
from cloning. For example, CEOs from BIO-member companies lobbied on
Capitol Hill this week against anti-cloning legislation. Many of these
CEOs-most of whose companies' stocks have so far been supported by the
hopes of investors, not revenues from product sales-argue that cloning
technology will aid in various research projects, spur investment,
generate jobs, and yield health care benefits for sick
constituents.


Also, some universities have gained much from licensing their research
discoveries to the biotech industry. For example, CAMR's board includes a
representative from Columbia University, which has earned at least $270
million from technology spin-offs since 1982, and which has helped start
44 companies, including four that are traded on Wall Street. One seat on
CAMR's board goes to the University of Wisconsin (Madison), where
researchers patented critical stem-cell technology, whose value will rise
if cloning-for-research is allowed.


Wisconsin's patent reflects the increasing cooperation between biotech
companies and universities. Last year, Harvard distributed $8.2 million in
royalties from health care research to its scientific inventors, its
deans, and its president, according to the school's annual report.


Many of these scientists are represented on CAMR's board by the
universities and by the American Society for Cell Biology, which recently
organized a pro-cloning petition by roughly 40 scientists who had won
Nobel Prizes for biomedicine, physics, and economics, many of whom also
have business interests. According to scientist Irving Weissman of
Stanford University, who has already formed and sold two biotech
companies, cloning will create the next wave of biotech companies, and
"even if we could treat one disease, or two or five or 10, with adult
stem cells that are around, I would not block research that would open up
whole fields." Many scientists, including Weissman, accept a
legislative ban on the birth of a clone but argue that a ban should be
reconsidered if birth cloning can be done safely.


When asked last week if a scientist's financial interests should color his
assessment of that scientist's advice, Daschle replied, "I don't
think it should."


The anti-cloners are organized into three groups that coordinate through
e-mail and small meetings. The anti-abortion organizations, such as NRLC
and the conservative Family Research Council, formed Americans to Ban
Cloning. They oppose all forms of human cloning, partly because their
religious perspective assumes that human embryos deserve the same
protections as humans.


The second group is Stop Human Cloning, led by Bill Kristol, editor of The
Weekly Standard. It is backed by some scientists and sick patients who
champion non-cloning therapies, such as the use of the stem cells from
human adults, as a faster, ethical route to a cure for many dread
diseases. The group stresses the risk to equality from so-called
"designer-baby" technology, which would be made easier by
cloning-related research.


An affiliate of Kristol's group has received private donations to run
anti-cloning ads on television in North Dakota and Georgia. "We've
spent well over $100,000 on advertisements, and we'll spend more,"
said SHC's Mary Cannon.


The third anti-cloning group is a left-of-center coalition that supports
abortion-choice but wants a moratorium on human cloning. Members include
Andrew Kimbrell's International Center for Technology Assessment and
Richard Hayes's Center for Genetics and Society. They cite fears of
"marketplace eugenics" in which rich parents would use cloning
technology to genetically modify their embryonic children. Other
left-of-center groups, such as Friends of the Earth, see cloning as a
dangerous threat to the environment.


At present, these left-of-center groups have only a handful of lobbyists,
said Hayes. Still, last year these lobbyists won the support of almost 20
House Democrats who favor abortion rights.


Neil Munro

National Journal