Mice, Men, and Monsters: Opposition to Chimera Research and the Scope of Federal Regulation

Mice, Men, and Monsters: Opposition to Chimera Research and the Scope of Federal Regulation Tia Sherringhamt INTRODUCTION In Western traditions, part-human, part-animal entities-sirens, Minotaurs, and Gorgons-have been perceived as threats to humanity. These amorphous creatures are often portrayed as luring humans into the underworld, bridging the gap between human civilization and the animal kingdom, and acting as intermediaries between this world and the next. Interspecies creatures, which transgress traditional boundaries between the human and animal realms, continue to challenge contemporary Western society, particularly in the wake of biotechnology capable of introducing entities possessing human and animal tissues. When President George W. Bush delivered the State of the Union address on January 31, 2006, he called upon Congress "to pass legislation to prohibit the most egregious abuses of medical research . . . [which include] creating human-animal hybrids." 2 President Bush found the topic of national importance, warning the American public that human-animal chimera research threatens to devalue the Creator's gift of human life.3 In recent years, stem cell science4 has begged society to consider where to Copyright © 2008 California Law Review, Inc. California Law Review, Inc. (CLR) is a California nonprofit corporation. CLR and the authors are solely responsible for the content of their publications. t J.D. School of Law, UC Berkeley School of Law, 2008; B.A., Columbia University (Columbia College), 2004. I thank Professor R. Alta Charo for suggesting the topic and for inspiring me to write about this important area of the law. I am indebted to the California Law Review members who have worked on this Comment, and in particular, the Notes & Comments Department for their meaningful edits to this publication. I would also like to thank Jason Savich for his insight on scientific issues during the editing process. Finally, I dedicate this Comment to my parents, Philip and Marie-Helene Sherringham, for their unfailing love, support and encouragement. 1. See id. 2. President George W. Bush, State of the Union Address (Jan. 31, 2006). 3. See President George W. Bush, supra note 2. 4. Stem cells are cells that have the ability to divide indefinitely and can turn into CALIFORNIA LA W REVIEW [Vol. 96:765 draw the line between human embryonic cells and human beings. Less well known is that the boundary between humans and animals is also becoming surprisingly blurred in light of advancing stem cell technology. Stem cells facilitate the production of human-animal chimeras, organisms that are a composite of human and animal cells. As the production of interspecies chimeras becomes more prevalent in cutting-edge scientific research, the public response has been mixed. Some have responded with excitement at the potential of chimeras to hasten the advent of stem cell therapies. Others have responded with moral outrage and disgust at the willingness of researchers to blur the line between human and animal. Across the board, widespread confusion about the state of the science and the purpose of these creations has resulted in a political wildfire. Chimera research has garnered such a strong response because it blurs the boundary between what is human and what is animal, implicating the moral question: how "human" are animals that contain human stem cells? 5 There is no consensus in the scientific community on how many human cells it should be permissible to implant into a nonhuman animal. As one chimera researcher explains, "it comes down to what percentage of human cells starts making you squirm." 6 Furthering the controversy, most recent research has focused on implanting human neural cells into nonhuman brains. The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) has stated that "[p]erhaps no organ that could be exposed to [human embryonic stem] cells raises more sensitive questions than the animal brain, whose biochemistry or architecture might be affected by the presence of human cells." 7 Both the public and the scientific community seem to correlate stem cells in the brain with what it means to be human, raising a series of ethical questions. The lack of centralized regulation in the United States and the advancing state of science has created palpable anxiety. In 2005, Republican Senator Sam Brownback of Kansas introduced the Human Chimera Prohibition Act (HCPA) specialized cells, such as those in the heart, brain or bone. The predominant way to produce human stem cells is to take them from a recently fertilized human embryo, destroying the embryo in the process. See National Institutes of Health, Glossary [Stem Cell Information], http://stemcells.nih.gov/StemCells/Templates/StemCellContentPage.aspx?NRMODE=Published &NRNODEGUID=%7b3C35BAB6-0FE6-4C4E-95F22CB61 B58D96D%7d&NRORIGINALURL -/o2fmfo%2fglossary%2easp&NRCACHEHINT=NoModifyGuest#stemcells (last visited Jan. 22, 2008); see also Gina Kolata, Scientists Bypass Need For Embryo To Get Stem Cells, N.Y. TIMES, Nov. 21, 2007, at Al. 5. See Jamie Shreeve, The Other Stem-Cell Debate, N.Y. TIMES, Apr. 15, 2005, at 2, available at http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/10/magazine/lOCHIMERA.html?ex=1270872000 &en=c4be0212ead 15076&ei=5088. 6. 7. HUMAN Id. at2. HUMAN EMBRYONIC STEM CELL RESEARCH ADVISORY COMMITTEE, GUIDELINES FOR EMBRYONIC STEM CELL RESEARCH 50 (2005), available at http://www.nap.edu/ catalog/l 1278.html. 2008] FEDERAL REGULATION OF CHIMERA RESEARCH to restrict the creation of chimeras. 8 Also in 2005, the President's Council for Bioethics twice addressed the ethical problems implicated by chimeras, while it the NAS issued guidelines regarding the types of chimera experiments 9 deemed acceptable in the context of the proper use of human stem cells. This Comment will explore the various responses that have emerged to regulate chimera research. Section I outlines the current state of chimera technology. Section II evaluates several moral arguments in opposition to the creation of human-animal chimeras. Section III explores the basis and purpose of the HCPA in the context of other proposed regulatory measures. Finally, Section IV examines altematives to broad federal regulation, focusing on the benefits of a localized, committee-based approach to regulating cutting-edge science. I THE SCIENCE OF CHIMERAS A. Vocabulary The word "chimera" has its origin from a mythological creature that was part lion, part serpent, and part goat, slain by the hero of Greek mythology Bellerophon, considered the greatest slayer of monsters.10 In modem times, the term "chimera" has been used rather loosely. On a broad scale, modem biotechnology construes "chimera" to include organisms "comprised of at least two genetically distinct populations of cells originating from independent embryos," but not existing as a result of sexual reproduction." Each branch of the biological sciences has refashioned the definition, so that "chimera" has b (...truncated)