"James Kelly: Complex technical obstacles stand in the way of human cloning through somatic nuclear transfer ever being medically used in humans. These obstacles include short and long term genetic mutations, tumor formation and unexpectedly tissue rejection. In addition, the cloning process is very inefficient in itself, often requiring a hundred women’s eggs to create an embryo able to yield stem cells. Because of these roadblocks, scientists expect it will take decades before cloning will have clinical uses, if ever, regardless of whether stem cells from cloning ... cloned embryos can show results in the lab. And leading scientists in the embryonic stem cell field, including James Thompson, have admitted that the cost of cloning based therapy would be astronomical. Others have simply said that no one can afford it. If human cloning research is allowed to move forward, these obstacles will need to be overcome for each of cloning's potential medical uses. This will unavoidably necessitate diverting crucial resources from other avenues that have already proven their ability to safely address the conditions that cloning has only hoped to address in the distant future. In humans, adult stem cells have successfully been used to treat multiple sclerosis, diabetes, certain forms of cancer, stroke, Parkinson's disease, and immune deficiency syndrome. They're in clinical trial for spinal cord injury, heart disease, and ALS. More work certainly needs to be done to refine and expand their uses and to improve their performance, but refining, expanding and improving are far cries from embarking on a new, highly problematic research, with little hope of leading to medically available treatments. In fact, such a trade off would be madness. Yet we're being told that cloning is our brightest hope to cure disability and disease. Many sick, disabled and dying people have embraced this message in the name of desperation and trusting hope."