YEREVAN (Noyan Tapan)–Nobody is insured today from human cloning experimen’s to be conducted in CIS republics–says Igor Madoyan–specialist in biomedical ethics and molecular biology.
"To clone a human being is immoral," Igor Madoyan said–adding that unlike animals–humans inherit a number of non-physical qualities. Unlike natural reproduction–cloning uses somatic cells taken from one parents–thus giving the cloned human an identical copy. According to Madoyan–the process excludes both the involvement of God–as some believe–and the involvement of nature–as others believe.
Some CIS republics preserved a high level of researches in the field of molecular genetics. Research on animal cloning began in Soviet laboratories in the 1980s. It is known that Ukrainian scientists had their own version long before the Scotch Dolly lamb was created through cloning. In this respect–Madoyan noted that it is much more difficult to execute control over such experimen’s on humans in countries experiencing a period of transition. The consequences may be catastrophic–having an impact on practically all processes happening in the nature. Following the public exposure of Dolly–the US National Committee for Bio-Ethics and the Committee for Bio-Ethics of the Council of Europe disapproved of experimen’s on human cloning.
Madoyan is convinced that all research related to human beings must be under strict control–comparable to the control over nuclear weapons–and must be regulated by international guidelines.
