The creation and study of such cells through differentiation research promises to cure many diseases and revolutionize the practice of medicine. The funding of creation and research on stem cells by the U.S. Federal Government is at the core of the current battle over fetal tissue research raging in the U.S. Congress. Cloning and stem cell research is intertwined because there is only one way to create compatible tissue to treat a diseased individual. That would require inserting a cell taken from the patient being treated and inserting it into a denucleated human egg. That process is called nuclear transfer.
Nuclear transfer is the basic technique used in cloning.
In this historical flashback of the cloning controversy the viewing public is left believing that the 1 in 300 attempts which resulted in the birth of Dolly is the current measure of success. No mention was made of the enormous strides made recently in cloning goats in Massachusetts, which begins to rival the IVF success rates at human fertility clinics. Dr. Richard Seed was the reigning political villain, The Clone Ranger , who was determined to clone a human being even if he had to go to Mexico to do it. The innocent and decent Seed supporters were an infertile couple who saw renewed hope for having their own children through cloning. Then we have the great opponent to conception of a child through cloning technology, Patrick Dixon, speaking out about how cloning could be horrifically abused.