New York Times just doesn't get it.... Clone the Truth #5

I have received this reply from the New York Times on my letter from Clone the Truth #4:

Dear Ms. Taylor:

        Thank you for your note about cloning, a word that is used in several different ways. Although its central meaning refers to making identical copies of some biological entity, it has now garnered more extensive meanings, as for instance in the well known phrase "therapeutic cloning."   This procedure refers to treating a patient with tissues derived from his own cells, not to cloning him, but the word is used because the first steps in the procedure are the same as those used to clone an animal. It was in this same sense that we used the phrase "cloning human cells."
 

Best,

--
Science Desk
New York Times

Dear Science Desk,

 

You are correct that cloning does refer to many processes in science.  Although, you are incorrect about therapeutic cloning.

 

Therapeutic cloning does not treat "a patient with tissues derived from his own cells" as you have stated.  Therapeutic cloning creates a cloned embryo which is a separate organism from the patient.  This new organism then provides stem cells to the patient.  Please see this interview with James Thomson, embryonic stem cell pioneer:

 

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8303756/page/3/

 

Thomson clearly states that therapeutic cloning by nuclear transfer creates an embryo that is indistinguishable from any other embryo like those created in IVF.  Thompson states, "If you create an embryo by nuclear transfer, and you give it to somebody who didn’t know where it came from, there would be no test you could do on that embryo to say where it came from. It is what it is."

 

Your article was referring to cloning by nuclear transfer which creates a distinct organism separate from the patient.  Therefore the pateint would not be treated with "his own cells."  Therefore, I will ask again that you please print a correction.

 

Sincerely,

Rebecca Taylor