Contact: Margie Shealy, Christian Medical Association, 423-844-1047

WASHINGTON, May 15, 2013 /Standard Newswire/ -- Responding to a just-released article in the journal Cell, the 16,000-member Christian Medical Association, the nation's largest faith-based association of physicians, cited ethical, practical and safety concerns regarding the cloning of human embryos to harvest stem cells.

CMA CEO Dr. David Stevens noted, "Just when ethically uncontroversial stem cell techniques offer a platform for consensus on stem cell research and development, a small band of outliers want to revive the notion of cloning and destroying living human beings to harvest stem cells. As it was years ago when first attempted and discredited, human cloning remains unethical, impractical and unsafe.

"Unlike methods such as iPSC (induced pluripotent stem cells) or adult stem cell research that have gained a growing consensus of approval, human cloning (somatic cell nuclear transfer or SCNT) requires the deliberate creation and destruction of living human embryos.

"Practically speaking, iPS cells are much better and more easily created for lab models. Most importantly for the patients our physicians treat, adult stem cells already show proven superior achievement at treating patients.

"So why would we want to turn back the clock by reverting to a technique that stem cell science has already passed by? When neither iPSC nor ASC requires subjecting women to the significant health risk of ovarian hyperstimulation, why would we want to commodify human eggs and women who are described by the study authors as having "premium quality human oocytes"?

"Besides the immediate harm of killing living human embryos, embryo-destroying cloning also has the potential to lay the groundwork for reproductive cloning--bringing a cloned human being to birth."