From: LARRY KLAES (ljk4_at_msn.com)
Date: Sat Jan 11 2003 - 06:51:28 PST
----- Original Message -----
From: Barry Karr
Sent: Friday, January 10, 2003 3:57 PM
To: CSICOP-ANNOUNCE_at_LISTSERV.AOL.COM
Subject: CSICOP Commentary on Clonaid
CSICOP chairman says legitimate discussion of cloning's importance was
seriously undermined by disproportionate coverage of UFO cult's claims
By Kevin Christopher, CSICOP Public Relations Director
January 10, 2002
Clonaid, Raël, and the media seem to have got things backwards, says Paul
Kurtz, chairman of the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims
of the Paranormal (CSICOP). It should have been science first, publicity
second. Without a shred of corroborative evidence, the French UFO cult
visionary Raël (formerly known as Claude Vorilhon) and his strange brand of
extraterrestrial futurism were catapulted into the world spotlight by the
suspect announcement that Clonaid, the human cloning company founded by
Raël, had achieved its first success.
Now that it has become clear that the first alleged human clone will not be
verified through DNA testing after all, several media watchers are sifting
through the smoking wreckage of this crashed media cycle. Kurtz is one of
them. In 1997, he debated Raël on MSNBC. CSICOP's official journal,
Skeptical Inquirer, has covered and criticized many the previous claims and
exploits of the Raëlians.
Kurtz is distressed by the recent coverage. "It exposes the decreasing
standards of many in the media business," he says. "Here you have an
unsubstantiated claim from dubious sources acting on a bizarre agenda, and
it makes newspaper headlines and leads cable news for weeks. Coverage for
Raël and Clonaid has dumbed down an import scientific issue. Meanwhile, the
genuine understanding of scientific issues like therapeutic cloning among
legislators and the general public is next to nil, and many in Congress and
the Bush administration have been acting to undermine this very type of
critical scientific research."
Indeed, a January 9, 2003, Fox News Channel online story by Liza Porteus
announced the introduction of a new Human Cloning Prohibition Act bill in
the House of Representatives the previous day. "The bill got a jump start
this session," writes Porteus, "after Clonaid... claimed it had delivered a
human clone baby and had three more on the way." The bill, sponsored by
Representative Bart Stupak (D-MI), Rep. David Weldon (R-FL) and 80 other
House co-sponsors, would ban both reproductive and therapeutic cloning. This
has many scientific groups worried, since therapeutic cloning is a promising
technique for replicating specific types of cells rather than an actual
embryo. A ban, say researchers, would undermine efforts to find cures for
Alzheimer's and diabetes.
"The media are not serving the public debate by rolling out the red carpet
to a pack of ludicrous UFO cultists," says Kurtz. "Coverage of the Raëlians'
cloning efforts only reinforces an ill-informed public's Frankensteinian
fears."
Several months ago, Michael Guillen, the former ABC Science Editor who had
been organizing the independent testing of Clonaid's results, was pitching a
lucrative reality-based TV program about the cloning efforts to Fox
Entertainment and other TV networks, according to the New York Times.
Guillen has now publicly distanced himself from the fiasco. Nevertheless, on
ABC's "Good Morning America" (January 8, 2003), Guillen said he was still
holding out hope. "I think there's a small chance [that the claims are
true]. And the stakes are so high ... that's why I want to test." That small
chance has gotten far smaller, says Kurtz, with every delay and excuse from
Clonaid.
An anonymous Food & Drug Administration official told the New York Times
that the company's cloning facilities were, in many ways, inadequate for the
task. A January 1, 2003, story by Kenneth Chang and Gina Kolata quotes the
official about conditions at Clonaid's Nitro, West Virginia, facility.
Though the lab-a rented room at an abandoned high school-did have
state-of-the-art equipment, "[t]here was no place where sterile conditions
could be had." Insects flew in and out of open windows, possibly from a
nearby barn. The research staff at the facility amounted to a woefully
unprepared graduate student tracking work on cow ovaries with notebooks
"inadequate" to document scientific research. Such testimony casts even more
doubt on Clonaid's ability to pull off what would be one of the great
scientific achievements of the 21st century.
At best the Raëlian/Clonaid PR coup will do no damage and fade from public
memory. At worst, however, as Kurtz and others fear, the UFO cult's media
high jinks may be contributing to the death of legitimate cloning research
in the United States.
All press queries should be directed to Kevin Christopher, CSICOP Public
Relations Director
Phone: 716 636 1425
Fax 716 636 1733
E-mail: press_at_csicop.org
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.2 : Sat Jan 11 2003 - 07:06:38 PST