Dr. Leon Kass, Chairman of the President's Council on Bioethics

Dr. Leon Kass is the Chairman of the President's Council on Bioethics and a Fellow of the American Enterprise Institute.

Dr. Kass spoke today with Etopia Media Medical News Network about a number of current topics involving embryonic and other forms of stem cell research.

Among the subjects covered in this interview were recent announcements regarding "cloning-for-biomedical research" from the lab of Dr. Hwang Woo-Suk in South Korea; the low-key involvement in that research by Dr. Gerald Schatten; the upcoming consideration by the U.S. Senate of the DeGette-Castle bill allowing stem cell researchers to use "surplus" embryos from fertility clinics; the likelihood of President Bush vetoing that legislation; the bill sponsored by U.S. Senators Hatch, Harkin, Feinstein, Specter and Kennedy encouraging, but not federally funding, cloning-for-biomedical research (also called "therapeutic cloning"); and U.S. Senator from Kansas Sam Brownback's bill, S. 658, that would outlaw both "cloning-for-making-children" and "cloning-for-biomedical research."

He spoke against "treating human life as a disposable natural resource," "new forms of perverse baby-making," and "various modes of re-creating this creature after our own fantasies" and favorably about the process of "dedifferentiation," a process by which adult cells could be reverted to "something like pluripotent" status, providing an alternative way to produce "personalized stem cells" without the need to create individual embryonic stem cell lines by creating and destroying cloned human embryos, a process that he opposes.

"This [dedifferentiation] is the place to put your money," Dr. Kass said.

You can listen to this interview with Dr. Leon Kass, Chairman of the President's Council on Bioethics, in its entirety, by clicking here.

For more about dedifferentiation and other alternative methods of creating pluriponent stem cells, click on the title of this white paper from the President's Council on Bioethics: "WHITE PAPER: Alternative Sources of Pluripotent Stem Cells".

For more about appropriate terminology and the overall issue of human cloning, click on the title of this report from the President's Council on Bioethics: "Human Cloning and Human Dignity: An Ethical Inquiry".