Introduction:

This is an introduction to the vast medical benefits of genonics.  Genomics is defined as the study of the total genetic material contained within the cell.  This is an attempt not only educate people of the benefits of cloning and the study of genomics, but to provide awareness and support for the vast medical benefits.  Cells can be grown to produce organs or tissues to repair or replace damaged tissue in people.  By combining this technology with human cloning technology, it may be possible to produce needed tissue for suffering people that will be free of rejection by their immune systems.  For example: skin for burn victims, brain cells for the brain damaged, spinal cord cells for quadriplegics and paraplegics, hearts, lungs, livers, and kidneys are just a few of the cells that could be produced.  Conditions such as Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, diabetes, heart failure, degenerative joint disease, and other problems may be made curable by human cloning and its technology (References.)
 
 

Transplantation is one of the most remarkable success stories in the history of medicine.  In most cases, it's the only hope for thousands of people suffering from organ failure, or in desperate need of corneas, skin, bone or other tissue.  Tragically, the need for donated organs and tissues is far from the needed supply.  Right now, thousands of Americans could be helped if enough organs and tissues were available.  Organ and tissue donation provides each of us with a special opportunity to help others.  Sadly, each year thousands of families refuse consent for donation because they do not know their loved one’s wishes.  Nearly 60,000 American men, women, and children are currently waiting for heart, liver, kidney, lung and other organ transplants, and hundreds of thousands more could benefit from cornea, bone, skin, ligament, heart valve and other tissue transplants.  Amazingly, one organ and tissue donor can help more than 50 people.  Cloning is a new development that could be used to help thousands by producing organs that genetically match the patient's immune system (References.)
 
 

1.   Infertility - infertile couples can have children.
2.   Down's syndrome - those women at high risk for Down's syndrome can avoid that risk by cloning.
3.   Tay-Sachs disease - sex linked genetic disorders could be prevented by using cloning to ensure the sex of a
       baby and possibly could be cured.
 4.   Liver failure - new technology offers people to clone livers for liver transplants.
 5.   Kidney failure - new technology offers people to clone kidneys for kidney transplants.
 6.   Leukemia - cloning the bone marrow for children and adults will relieve suffering from leukemia.
 7.   Cancer - switching cells on and off through cloning would enable new cures for cancer.
 8.   Cystic fibrosis - producing effective genetic therapy could help against cystic fibrosis.
 9.   Spinal cord injury - growing nerves or the spinal cord back again when they are injured.
 10. Quadriplegics - might be able to get out of their wheelchairs and walk again.
 11.  Testing for genetic disease - cloning technology can be used to test for and perhaps cure genetic diseases.
 12.  Heart disease - by injection good heart cells into damaged areas, heart disease could be decreased.
 

The list below was founded by The Human Cloning Foundation and they have come up with many situations in which people would support human cloning:

1)  If a couple that already has one child, but became infertile and cannot have more children, could use cloning to enable them to have a second child.  Perhaps even a younger twin of the child they already have.  Rather than use sperm, egg, or embryo from anonymous donors,  an infertile couple could choose to clone their existing child or take genetics from each of the parents.  If the husband were the source of the DNA and the wife provided the egg and then gestated the fetus, they would have a child biologically related to each of them and would not need to rely on anonymous gamete or embryo donation.  Notably, many infertile couples might still prefer gamete or embryo donation or adoption and there is nothing wrong in wishing to adopt, but at least cloning provides a choice for the parents.

2)  If a child is lost soon after birth to a tragic accident, grief stricken parents often say that they would like to have their perfect little baby back.  Human cloning would allow such parents to have a twin of their lost baby back, but it would be like other twins, a unique individual and not a carbon copy of the child that was lost under heartbreaking circumstances.

3)  If a couple want to have children, but they are at high risk of having offspring with a catastrophic genetic disease, couples can now choose whether to risk the birth of an affected child.  With human cloning, the parents could clone a family member, a sibling, or they might prefer to clone one of themselves.  Alternatively, if they already had a healthy child, they might choose to use cloning to create a later-born twin of that child, risk free of genetic diseases.  In the more distant future, it is even possible that the child whose DNA was replicated would not have been born healthy but would have been made healthy by gene therapy after birth.

4)  A boy confuses the deep end and shallow end and dives head first into the pool, breaking his neck and becoming a quadriplegic.  At a young age he has his first urinary tract infection because of an indwelling urinary catheter and continues to suffer from them the rest of his life.  At young adulthood he will likely come down with herpes zoster of the trigeminal nerve.  He suffers chronic unbearable pain.  However, with cloning, his DNA is stored for future human cloning and spinal cord research.  He dies feeling that although he was robbed
of normal life, his twin/clone will lead a better life.

5)  A baby baby is born with muscular dystrophy that was inherited from his parents.  The parents have another child also born with muscular dystrophy.  The parents decide not to have any more children for fear of more birth defects.  Each boy will have over 20 operations as doctors attempt to keep them healthy and mobile.  Both boys die as teenagers.  The childless parents donate their estate to curing muscular dystrophy and to having their boys cloned when medical science advances enough so that their DNA can live again, but free of muscular dystrophy.

6)  An middle aged man has an unhealthy heart and suffers from his first heart attack at age 45.  He could decide to use human cloning technology to reverse heart attacks.  Scientists in the near future believe that they may be able to treat heart attack victims by cloning their healthy heart cells and injecting them into the areas of the heart that have been damaged.  Instead for the man becoming part of the statistic, "heart disease is the number one killer in the United States and other industrialized countries," he can now live a long and prosperous life (References.)
 
 
 
 

In conclusion, human cloning is expected to benefit mankind in numerous ways.  The above list is far from complete.  With each new technique developed, cloning will better serve important health, reproductive, and family needs and its benefits will outweigh any likely harm.  As genetic knowledge continues to grow, the medical applications will leave lasting benefits.  Furthermore, human cloning only scratches the surface of what technology can do for mankind in the near future.  The suffering that can be relieved by these advances is staggering.  This new technology heralds a new era of unparalleled advancement in medicine.  If people will release their fears and let the benefits begin, everyone stands to benefit.  Why should another child die from leukemia, or any other disease, when the technology is avalible to cure them in a few years time (References?)

 

  Created By Darby Kernohan

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