Sam Brownback: “I want to proceed to the discussion of this issue on the overall patenting because that is the narrow issue on which we…”

“I want to proceed to the discussion of this issue on the overall patenting because that is the narrow issue on which we are focused and it ties in, very closely, with this issue of cloning. I was mentioning the Nature Magazine article about whether this will work because the issue of patents will be that people are seeking to create these humans, and then own them through the patenting process; that people will research and invest commercially in them. It should really send a chill through all of us. I think the question one should be asking, even ahead of that, is: Will this even work? If we are going to allow this to take place, one might advocate, well, OK, this is going to work and create all these cures for diseases; therefore, maybe we ought to risk this to humanity. I say, even on the science of this, the very basic science of this, the science says this isn't going to work either, so that we would be subjecting humanity to the notion that you can patent people, when it does not even work. And it is not going to proceed. Here is the quote I was talking about by Peter Aldhous, entitled ``Can They Rebuild Us?'' in Nature Magazine, dated April 5, 2001: It may come as a surprise that many experts do not now expect therapeutic cloning to have a large clinical impact-- many researchers have come to doubt whether therapeutic cloning will ever be efficient enough to be commercially viable.…”