The Honorable Mike DeWine
140 Russell Senate Building
Washington, DC 20510

Dear Senator DeWine:

Medical research stands at a crossroad of unparalleled opportunity. We, Ohio?s medical school Deans, invite you to join us following a careful path toward new treatments and cures of unlimited potential. We must not choose the path charted by S. 1899, the Human Cloning Prohibition Act of 2001 (the Brownback bill), that, while criminalizing the morally objectionable research techniques of reproductive cloning, also criminalizes the legitimate techniques of therapeutic cloning. We urge you to oppose S. 1899.

The Brownback bill would have devastating effects on scientists? ability to explore somatic cell nuclear transfer (therapeutic cloning) and the possibility of developing genetically engineered human cell cultures that would serve as "therapeutic tissues" in the treatment of currently intractable human diseases. These uses of cloning technology are not intended to lead to a cloned human being, nor do they.

S. 1899 would force Ohio patients to leave the country to seek treatments developed overseas, using therapeutic cloning techniques, for Alzheimer?s and Parkinson?s diseases and spinal cord injury, conditions affecting millions of Americans. Our citizens would suffer unnecessary inconvenience and expense. They would also be exposed to unnecessary risk, since foreign clinics, unfettered by the ethical principles controlling research in the United States, would also offer untested and unregulated treatment. All too often desperate patients take desperate measures.

S. 1899 would also expose our medical scientists to large fines and jail time for using cloning technology aimed at creating medically useful stem cells. The pre-eminent position held by the United States in medical research would suffer. Under the Brownback bill, physicians could be jailed for using ethical techniques to relieve the suffering of their patients, an unconscionable limitation on our duty to heal.

The production of stem cells by somatic cell nuclear transfer may prove to be the source of unprecedented benefits to humankind. These benefits may never be realized if we choose to take the perilous and unprecedented path of banning through legislation research on nuclear transplantation to produce stem cells. We urge you to distinguish these techniques from those that involve cloning human embryos, techniques that we agree should be banned. We ask again that you oppose S. 1899, the Brownback bill, which fails to discriminate between these techniques and threatens the growth of medical research and the future well-being of Ohio citizens.

Sincerely,

Nathan A. Berger, M.D.
Chair, 2001-2002, State of Ohio Medical School Deans
Dean, School of Medicine, and Vice President for Medical Affairs
Case Western Reserve University

Robert S. Blacklow, M.D.
President and Dean
Northeastern Ohio Universities College of Medicine

John Brose, D.O.
Dean
Ohio University College of Osteopathic Medicine

Amira F. Gohara, M.D.
Executive Vice President/Provost and Dean
School of Medicine
Medical College of Ohio

John J. Hutton, M.D.
Dean, College of Medicine
University of Cincinnati

Howard M. Part, M.D.
Dean, School of Medicine
Wright State University

Fred Sanfilippo, M.D., Ph.D.
Senior Vice President of Health Sciences
Dean, College of Medicine and Public Health
Ohio State University