Here we are again, letting the media lead us by our collective nose ring down the road to self destruction.

A couple of scientists succeeded in cloning a high order mammal. The next day, glaring headlines get the masses rattled over genetic research.

An Italian doctor prepares to use cloning as an aid to infertile couples.

"GROUPS MOVE TO BAN ALL FURTHER GENETIC RESEARCH", is what one prominent headline read. Another one blasted us with, “Are Designer Children the Fad of the Future?”

Religious groups mount massive protests claiming we are 'playing God."

I hate to let the clueless in on a little secret, but genetic research is as old as agriculture itself. Do you see anything wrong with this scenario?

Primitive man has discovered a strain of corn that tastes really good, another that has twice as much yield, and yet another that is highly resistant to disease. The problem is that the latter two tasted like an old moccasin boiled in woolly mammoth sweat. The first strain only has a few kernels per ear. By some happenstance, they find a way to cross pollinate the three strains, and produce a variety that tastes good, is disease resistant, and has a very high yield.

Are there any problems with that? -- I assume not.

What’s the difference if the exact same processes were to happen in a laboratory, without years of trial and error. I assume little, if any. This is not a new science because it's been going on since the dawn of man. Back then it wasn’t called genetic engineering, in fact it wasn’t called anything. In recent times, this ancient process became known as “Selective Breeding.”

Let' s not rush to legislation on this hot topic, but think out all of the consequences first. Thousands of burn victims have been able to lead normal lives because of human skin grown in a laboratory. What if we could grow organs on demand, a new heart or kidney for example. Grown from the patients own cells, rejection will not be an issue, and one person would not have to die to allow another to live.

As for cloning of entire human beings, this IS an item that needs a strong and well-enforced World Policy. Most “moral” countries will be more than willing to enact, observe and enforce such a prohibition. You can bet, however, that Saddam and other “less noble” folks have pointed an army of scientists at the possibility.

A cloned human being would not be a carbon copy of the original from the standpoint of the mind. It (they) would be like an identical twin who just happened to be born a few (or a lot of) years later. There is no assurance that a cloned Einstein would become a physicist, or a cloned Hitler would become a tyrant.

Depending on environmental factors, they might choose (and choose is the operative word), to be a doctor, accountant, drug dealer, burger-flipper or auto mechanic. While the genetic predisposition for high intellect or leadership might be there, it would be up to the individual to use it.

One problem that many people have is the inability to separate basic moral issues from religious dogma. The cloning issue is not, should not, and must not be allowed to be clouded. The possible threat is not one of religious belief, but one of common human morality, common sense, and economics.

Addressing the 'playing God' issue -- If we went to the 'chemical store' and bought a bunch of powders, reagents and potions, mixed them together and created life, THAT'S playing God. When we take the human DNA, created by whatever you call God to create a clone, aren't we merely working with what God has already created? It's not like we started from dirt. How is extracting and combining DNA much different than extracting and combining eggs and sperm?

I see some major problems arising in the purebred animal industry myself. After all, Secretariat could only produce so much sperm, and horse breeders paid a small fortune for that, right from the spigot. The owners and breeders of pedigreed animals have a serious stake in this issue. What if, for example, a breeder could obtain DNA from Secretariat. Be it through a strand of hair, dander, or even saliva. Meanwhile, back at the lab, a dozen, or a thousand little Secretariats could be produced. Anyone with the financial resources to pull it off would have a booming business. At the moment, there are few if any laws to prevent this from happening. The thoroughbred horse industry does refuse to register artificially inseminated animals, but what a way to build your breeding stock!

Keeping cloning technology out of unscrupulous hands is not as easy as keeping nuclear bomb making at a distance. A bright high school student can dig up enough information from public sources, such as a university library, to design a nice little thermonuclear device. When you get down to the actual physics and mechanics of it, a small nuclear device is pretty basic stuff. Obtaining the Plutonium and precision manufacturing facilities, however, are not quite as easy. Just because I have the plans for the Space Shuttle does not mean that I could build one in my basement.

The clinical technology to produce a human clone, however, either exists in many countries, or can be quickly obtained by the judicious application of money. Some estimates say that a cloning lab can be set up for less than $75,000 US. You can be assured that some government agency, somewhere, has the name and address of every nuclear engineer graduated from every college in the world. This is not so, however with molecular biologists and related disciplines.

Cloning of species has little relation to traditional genetic research used for the overall improvement or specialization of a plant or animal variety. We must not lump cloning in with what has become traditional genetic engineering. The last thing we need is a bunch of dogma thumping fundamentalists getting their shorts in a wad over the very real problem of human cloning, and using it to stop or hinder traditional genetic research. This is especially important in the agricultural industry.

We need this technology!

Almost all of the tillable land on the Earth is now in production. If we are to continue to feed a growing population on a static landbase, we have only one choice -- increase the yield of existing land. This has been done quite successfully in the past by the development of more dense, hardy, pest and disease resistant strains of everything from artichokes to zucchini, and the use of new, environmentally friendly pesticides, with a lower cancer risk than diet cola.

Please don’t get me wrong, because some of this stuff is dangerous as hell. There is always the possibility (if it hasn't already happened) of a new strain of killer virus escaping into the wild, and we need tight regulation in a lot of places. Let us not, however, rush to judgement on the issue, to the point of starving the planet.

If you don’t think I have the credentials to make the above statements, I suggest that you go out and get a copy of

“Saving the Planet With Pesticides and Plastics" by Dennis T. Avery.
( ISBN 1-55813-051-9; Copyright 1995 Hudson Institute, Inc.
(317) 545-1000 - $19.95)

Dennis has assembled the facts, figures and statistics in a great book that you should not just read, but devour as if you were to be given an exam on the contents.

You see -- if the media would stop taking every situation and reshaping it for maximum shock value (read that as ratings value), we just might get a more realistic and balanced view of our priorities. I’m really glad I got out of the news business when a press card was still a badge of pride and honor, not a scarlet letter.

But that’s another rant.

<- his mark