Human cloning: In the eye of storm

By R K Murthi

The signs that the grand plan for human cloning would get into to the eye of the storm was evident from the day Dolly became the first-made sheep using the new techniques in the field of genetics. But, most people brushed the possibility under the carpet, unwilling to evolve ways and means of crossing the bridge in advance. "Let the time arrive. Then we will see what should be done," they shrugged their shoulders, behaving like the ostrich that is believed to seek security in hiding its face.

The time arrived sooner than expected. The ideal setting for this forward thrust was provided by the National Academy of Sciences that called for a meeting at Washington on August 7 to debate the possible fallout of the decision of the US House of Representatives to impose a moratorium on human cloning. Behind the ban was the concern of the representatives to the possible contradiction latent in man playing god, with all its adverse effects on morality and ethics.

The scientific community that had not batted an eyelid when man created Dolly felt the heat. Things were getting a little too close for comfort. They were torn in two directions.

One group of scientists argues that every development in science has its positive and negative sides. Didn't politicians exploit the power of the atom to produce destructive bombs, though atomic energy also holds the answer, however limited it be, to the energy needs of the growing population? Science is apolitical. It services man. So long, and only so long as man is judicious in the use of science, humanity shall benefit, they say.

The other groups says that we should never lose sight of moral considerations and ethical factors. They believe that weakening the basics of human conduct shall turn the earth over to Satan and his agents. That would mark the end of civilzed human conduct.

The meeting, held at Washington on August 7 saw a clash of the two view-points.

Professor Severiono Antinori, Director of the Rome's International Associated Research Institute, unveiled his plan---backed by extensive private funding -- to go ahead with a programme to clone human beings, in November. Two hundred infertile couples have already been lined upto provide the basic life substance needed to sustain the grand plan. He justified his move, focussing on the benefits society would reap by cloning. The new technology could save lives, provide novel cures to killer diseases.

"You can't put up the barriers on therapeutic cloning. Cloning will help us put an end to so many diseases, give infertile men the chance to have children. We can't miss this opportunity."

The technique he has in mind is similar to the one used to produce Dolly, the sheep. Cells from an infertile man are injected into an egg, which is then implanted in the mother's uterus. The resulting child would have the same physical characteristics as his father and infertile parents would not have to rely on sperm donors. All the couples who have enlisted with him and are ready to go along with him in his work are infertile and believe that the doctors alone can help them have their own babies.

Antonori claimed, with confidence, that he won't let go of this opportunity. His confidence had its roots in the successful experiments he had conducted earlier. His fertility clinic, at Rome, had been pioneering research and trying out unconventional though scientifically logical cures. One of his major triumphs, recorded in 1996, relates to genetic tinkering that helped a 59-year old British unmarried mother have old British unmarried mother have twins. Dr Panos Zavos of the Andrology Institute of America, an associate of Antinori, stressed the basic approach. He defined it as an "attempt" that required the women to actually become pregnant, added that the methodology would be safe with genetic screening of the embroys.

These arguments have failed to make any dent in the opposition to the move. The opposition comes from within the scientific community and is spear - headed by renowned researchers in the field of genetics. These scientists believe that the cure would be worse than the disease. Society, they believe, would lose its balance, go into a disastrous self-destructive spin to which none could offer a restrictive or corrective intervention.

They say that while morals and ethics have much to do with their stance, they are also to taking note of the risk factors. Cloning is still untested; and the attempts could cause immense trouble to women. The chance of miscarriage remained very high. Often miscarriages will prove fatal, too. They quote leading fertility experts, "Cloning still presents a high risk of miscarriage, stillbirth or producing a disabled child. It took 277 attempts to produce the first cloned sheep, Dolly.

Professor Art Caplan, from the University of Pennsylvania, said the clone did should not be carried out because of the safety implications.

"If you look at the carnage associated with animal cloning there is probably a ratio of 290 dead embryos for every one that goes anywhere," he said. "Dr Zavos and his group have been kind of the high-flying, showbiz operators of cloning. If you look at the animal work that's been done, and the people who really know this procedure of cloning -- that is, veterinarians who try it in animals --- the procedure is just not safe."

The Vatican has expressed concerns about ethics and morals, finds legal backing to the stand by forcefully presenting the plea that no human being should be denied the fundamental right to be conceived and born the natural way and says human cloning is "grotesque." Antinori rebutts this charge, "Cloning creates ordinary children. They will be unique individuals, not photocopies of individuals."

The stand is unlikely to find acceptance at the Vatican. Nor does it carry much weight with the Italian medical authorities. They have reiterated the medical code of the land that stipulates that research should not stray beyond the barriers set to check blatant misuse of technology to churn out unforeseen spins off. Why let people turn out Frankensteins that may end up as indestructible and may thus put human society in grave jeopardy?

All these pleas and threats have failed to deter the Italian. He is ready to fly in the face of all opposition, even if his critics jeer at him as a showman out to corner the limelight. He acknowledges the risk he faces if he continues to go his way. But has danger ever checked the fond hopes of a determined man? Antinori says he would go to the end of the world, pitch up his tent in the most inhospitable or out-of the world place. If no land would let him work, he would set up his work bench on board a ship, moored in international waters.

Why is he cocking a snook at established conventions, as much as the powerful establishment? Someone has to do it. From time to time, pioneers have done just that. Antinori argues that cloning is not a religious question..... President Bush is against cloning only because he listens to the Pope."

Those who hold out threats to Antinori, hoping to scare him out of wits and forcing him to drop his grand plan, are barking up the wrong tree. Many independent researchers in the field believe that "cloning will eventually be legalised, despite their objections.' Professor Jack Scarisbricks, British national director of Life, said there was "no doubt whatsoever that reproductive cloning would eventually become legal in the UK. The pressures will be great. When people hear a story about couples who lost a child and want to replace it, they will consent to it, inevitably," he said.

The debate holds the massive whirl of immutable forces needed to power the eye of the storm. However, Antinori seems determined to ride the storm, sail the uncharted waters of genetics to reach his destination, the further the technique behind a Dolly to produce a Jack or a Jill. PTI Feature

Prudent management of fisc

By Umashankar Phadnis

According to the Controller General of Accounts, the fiscal state of the economy seems to be getting worse and worse. For 2000-01, the fiscal deficit is currently estimated at Rs 1,14,369 crore as against the revised estimates for the same year of Rs 1,11,972 crore.

If adjustments are made for potential net small savings receipts, the fiscal deficit for 2000-01 would be Rs 1,43,277 crore. For 1999-2000, the fiscal deficit would have amounted to Rs 1,36,829 crore.

These adjustments have been made for 2000-01 and 1999-2000 to obtain comparable figures with the measures of fiscal deficit for the years prior to 1999-2000. In 1998-99, the fiscal deficit was Rs 1,12,280 crore, compared to Rs 88,937 crore for 1997-98. Thus, between 1997-98 and 2000-01, the fiscal deficit has increased by about Rs 30,000 crore. The ratio of fiscal deficit to NDP at current prices was 7.2 per cent in 1997-98, compared to 6.1 per cent in 1996-97.

In 1998-99 the fiscal deficit went up to 7.7 per cent and in 1999-2000, it was brought down to 6.6 per cent. For 2000-01, the fiscal deficit ratio would be 6.4 per cent. Note that in 1990-91, the fiscal deficit ratio was as high as 9.7 per cent.

Dr Manmohan Singh was able to bring it down to 6.3 per cent by 1995-96 and Mr. P. Chidambaram brought it down further to 6.1 per cent. But thereafter, it started moving up and even in 2000-01, it is higher than it was in 1996-97.

The position in regard to revenue deficits, also seems to be getting worse. In 2000-01, the revenue deficit is estimated by the Controller at 4.6 per cent of NDP at current factor costs. In 1999-2000 it was 4.3 per cent, and in 1998-99 it was 4.5 per cent. But in 1997-98 it was 3.8 per cent and in 1996-97, during the United Front regime, it was 3.0 per cent, compared to the 3.1 per cent of the last year of Dr Manmohan Singh's tenure. In ratio terms, compared to 1996-97, the revenue deficit has increased by about 50 per cent. What is most worrisome is that in 2000-01 it is higher than in 1999-2000.

Many economists consider the revenue deficit a more correct measure of the health of the fiscal system. That during the last four years, it has increased by Rs 35,000 crore points to the huge deterioration in fiscal management of the economy.

The primary cause of deterioration is the heavy declining drift in the net tax revenue to NDP ratio of the Central Government. True, the ratio has worsened also for the State governments as it is itself setting a wrong example. According to the Controller's figures, in 2000-01 the actual ratio of net tax revenue to NDP at current prices has been placed at 7.6 per cent, compared to 8.0 per cent in 1999-2000 and 7.3 per cent in 1998-99. In 1997-98 it was 7.8 per cent and in 1996-97 it was better at 8.5 per cent.

In the last year of Dr Manmohan Singh's period it was 8.6 per cent. But in 1990-91 it was 9.5 per cent. Over the period of the reforms, the Central Government seems to have witnessed a deterioration in the tax to NDP ratio by 2.1 percentage points. This period has witnessed an increase in NDP at current prices by Rs 11,25,000 crore. The increase in net tax collections during this period has been only by Rs 83,000 crore. The incremental tax revenue to NDP ratio has been only about 7.5 per cent. This means that out of a Rs 100 increase in nominal incomes the people are handing to the government only Rs 7.5. Not merely has the average ratio become lower, but the incremental ratio has become less than the average ratio.

The general impression that it is only in respect of the tax revenue to NDP ratio that the fiscal situation has worsened is not correct. The ratio of net tax revenue to NDP at current prices was about 3.55 per cent in 1989-90 and 3.36 per cent in 1992-93. It then started falling and, in 1996-97, had dipped to 2.95 per cent of NDP. Fortunately, it moved up to 3.3 per cent in 1999-2000, but thereafter, in 2000-01, it slipped to 3.13 per cent. Why has this ratio also gone down in 2000-01 ?

The overall ratio of revenue expenditure to NDP has been moving up in the recent period. It was 16.06 per cent in 1990-91. Thereafter, it was brought down to 14.72 per cent in 1995-96. But then it started moving up in a worrisome manner and in 1998-99, it was 14.91 per cent. In 1999-2000, it moved up further to 15.61 per cent and had only come down slightly to 15.3 per cent in 2000-01.

Three major reasons seem to have contributed to the broadly rising drift in the revenue expenditure ratio in NDP - the pay revisions and their impact, the rising interest charges and probably the rise in Defence expenditure.

The planned reduction in Central Government staff have not materialised significantly. In 1970-71, the revenue expenditure ratio to NDP was 12.16 per cent, but it moved up to 16.31 per cent in 1986-87 , the highest figures for the two decades. The question is whether we can substantially reduce this ratio in the coming years. Given the constraints in this respect, the only way by which the revenue deficit can be reduced meaningfully is by raising the tax and non-tax revenue ratios to NDP. Whatever the merit of the fiscal reforms from the classical budgetary standpoint they have aggravated the revenue deficit ratios.

We embarked on fiscal reforms without forethought about the consequences on the budgetary balance. Actually, the populist horse of tax reductions was placed behind the cart of unpopulist expenditure reductions.

Whether we can put the budget on an even keel without going back on the fiscal reforms in respect of taxes seems to be doubtful at the present stage. But politically we have to accept either policies to move up the tax ratios to NDP or reverse the tax reforms.

Historically, public finance thinking has always emphasised the need for conservatism in the matter of foregoing tax revenues for the benefit of pleasing the few powerful lobbies.

Our mistake was in thinking that we are already a developed country and imitating the US in respect of tax reduction pleas. The term 'reform' cannot strictly be applied to such proposals which involve reductions in tax revenues without corresponding benefits to the overall economy in term of improvements in the savings ratio, reductions in costs, and so on. If both tax and non-tax revenue ratios are stagnant or are not rising, and the revenue expenditure ratio goes on moving up, the revenue deficit ratio is bound to keep increasing.

Capital receipts, which include inflationary borrowings, will have to compensate for the revenue deficit. There are two effects of this pattern of financing revenue expenditures by borrowing from the banking system. One is the nominal effect of increased M3 on interest. The Government wants the coupon rates to be less and less. Nominal interest rates are kept down from what they would have been under conditions of balanced revenue budget.

The second effect is because the revenue deficits occur on account of unproductive expenditure being high. Thus, the growth rate that would have taken place had the resources been diverted to investments is denied to the economy. The third effect is on the price level, which is kept higher than it would have been, had the above pattern not been there. INAV