Therapeutic Cloning

Re “Ancients Arise to Challenge Modern Science,” Commentary, June 25: The cloning debate badly needs greater care in terms. Cloning is publicly understood as the process of duplicating an entire being, and the public disapproval of human cloning is nearly universal. As Virginia Postrel’s thoughtful commentary describes, therapeutic duplication of individual cells--nerve, blood, skin, etc.--by somatic cell nuclear transfer technology may cure millions, will not lead to human cloning and does not deserve the confusion and stigma the cloning label--even “therapeutic cloning”--provokes. The public’s appropriate, visceral reaction to “cloning” could condemn a very different, vital technology.

Joan I. Samuelson

President

Parkinson’s Action Network

Healdsburg, Calif.