Biomedical research in the United States has a distinguished
record of contributing to knowledge and to new medical
treatments. In the same way, research with cells derived from
cloned human embryos will offer unique opportunities to study
many extremely unpleasant diseases, perhaps one day to have
treatments for these diseases and also to produce safer
medicines. This research cannot be carried out in any other way.
The diseases include motor neurone disease, diabetes and genetic
causes of sudden heart failure. Researchers could learn a great
deal about these diseases if they could study in the laboratory
the cells that are affected by the disease. Later they would
assess the effects of drugs upon the malfunctioning cells. One
day it may also be possible use cells from cloned embryos to
treat unpleasant degenerative diseases by supplying replacement
cells for those that have been damaged in diseases such as
diabetes or heart failure. Each year thousands of people in the
USA are killed by taking medicines, ev