MSNBC NEWS SERVICES
HOLLYWOOD, Fla., Dec. 27 — Claiming first place in the race to produce a human clone, a chemist connected to a group that believes life on Earth was created by extraterrestrials announced Friday that a cloned baby girl had been born a day earlier. Amid widespread skepticism, Brigitte Boisselier, head of Clonaid, the company that carried out the project, said she expects four more cloned babies to be born in a few weeks. The news comes after an Italian fertility doctor said recently that a project he was working on would result in a cloned baby boy in January.
BOISSELIER WOULD not reveal the names of the parents or where the baby was born. The 7-pound baby, named Eve, was carried to full term and delivered by Caesarian section on Thursday morning, she said.
“It has not been easy to face the world with this announcement,” said Boisselier at a news conference in Florida on Friday. “We have been discussing with the parents how to handle today and they decided not to show up. Yesterday you could tell it was the best day of their life.”
Boisselier said the mother, a 31-year-old American woman, had resorted to cloning because her husband was infertile. The woman donated her DNA for the cloning process, had the resulting embryo implanted and then gestated the baby, Boisselier said. If confirmed, that would make the child an exact genetic duplicate of her mother - the same as an identical twin.
“The baby is very healthy,” she said. “The parents are happy. I hope that you remember them when you talk about this baby — not like a monster, like some results of something that is disgusting.”
Boisselier, however, did not present DNA evidence showing a genetic match between mother and daughter. That omission leaves her claim scientifically unsupported.
She said the baby will go home in three days and an independent expert will take DNA samples from the baby to prove she had been cloned.
Michael Guillen, a former science editor at ABC-TV, told reporters at the news conference he had been named by the group to line up “independent world-class experts” to perform the DNA tests on the mother and baby. He said he was not being paid by Clonaid.
Boisselier said results of the DNA tests would come within nine days.
“You can still go back to your office and treat me as a fraud,” she said. “You have one week to do that.”
Most scientists, already skeptical of Boisellier’s ability to produce a human clone, will probably demand to know exactly how the DNA testing was done before they believe the announcement.
“We’ll wait and see, I guess. I’m still a skeptic and I’m hoping that it’s not true,” said University of Georgia cloning expert Steve Stice.
Cloning produces a new individual using only one person’s DNA. The process is technically difficult but conceptually simple. Scientists remove the genetic material from an unfertilized egg, then introduce new DNA from a cell of the animal to be cloned. Under the proper conditions, the egg begins dividing into new cells according to the instructions in the introduced DNA.
In respose to the announcement, President Bush said he is “deeply” troubled by efforts to clone human beings and wants Congress to ban the practice, the White House said Friday.
“Despite the widespread skepticism among scientists and medical professionals about today’s announcement, it underscores the need for the new Congress to act on bipartisan legislation to ban all human cloning,” White House spokesman Scott McClellan said.
French President Jacques Chirac also issued a statement Friday denouncing efforts to clone human beings and appealed to countries around the world to outlaw and severely punish any attempt to create a clone.
“Regardless of whether this claim is true or not, the president took this occasion to renew his energetic condemnation of all research on reproductive human cloning and reaffirm that, for France, this practice is criminal and contrary to human dignity,” the statement said.
MORE CLONES ON THE WAY?
Boisselier said she expects four more babies — from North America, Europe and two from Asia — to be born in a few weeks. Two of the couples are using preserved cells taken from their own children before their deaths, and one is a lesbian couple, she said.
The couples were not asked to pay for the procedures but some had invested in Clonaid, she said.
Boisselier said 20 more attempts were planned for January.
In Rome, fertility doctor Severino Antinori, who said weeks ago he had engineered a cloned baby boy who would be born in January, dismissed Clonaid’s claims and said the group has no scientific credibility.
The news “makes me laugh and at the same time disconcerts me, because it creates confusion between those who make serious scientific research” and those who don’t, Antinori said.
“We keep up our scientific work, without making announcements,” he said. “I don’t take part in this ... race.”
Many scientists are skeptical about Clonaid’s claims. The company was founded in the Bahamas in 1997 by Claude Vorilhon, a former French journalist and leader of a group called the Raelians.
Vorilhon, who describes himself as a prophet and calls himself Rael, and his 55,000 followers around the world claim aliens visiting him in the 1970s revealed they had created all life on Earth through cloning. The group believes cloning could extend human life for hundreds of years.
Boisselier, who claims two chemistry degrees and previously was marketing director for a chemical company in France, identifies herself as a Raelian “bishop” and said Clonaid retains philosophical but not economic links to the Raelians. She is not a specialist in reproductive medicine.
She resigned last spring from Hamilton College, while working as a visiting chemistry professor, when her cloning efforts became public and sparked controversy.
BANS ON CLONING
So far scientists have succeeded in cloning sheep, mice, cows, pigs, goats and cats. Last year, scientists in Massachusetts produced cloned human embryos with the intention of using them as a source of stem cells, but the cloned embryos never grew bigger than six cells.
Many scientists oppose cloning to produce humans, saying it’s too risky because of abnormalities seen in cloned animals.
Among the possible pitfalls are premature aging and other health problems.
“There’s just not enough animal studies that have been completed to verify the safety of it,” said Mark Westhusin, a professor at Texas A&M University who has cloned cattle and cats. He added that if the claim is genuine, “I think they’re taking a big risk in terms of health hazards to the child.”
Dolly, the world’s first cloned sheep, born in 1996, developed arthritis at a relatively early age, but it is unclear if it is related to the cloning, one of her creators said earlier this year.
Human cloning for reproductive purposes is banned in several countries. There is no specific law against it in the United States, but the Food and Drug Administration contends it must approve any human experiments in this country. In Washington, a senior FDA official said Friday that the agency would probe whether any U.S. law was broken involving human experiments.
Boisselier would not say where Clonaid has been carrying out its experiments.
Dr. Robert Lanza of Advanced Cell Technology, the Massachusetts company, said before Boisselier’s announcement that Clonaid has “no scientific credibility.” But he and other experts do not dismiss the possibility of success.
Officials at the Vatican, which holds that life begins at conception, had no immediate comment on the announcement. However, as recently as last month, they condemned cloning of human embryos, saying the destruction of extra embryos in the process can in no way justify the procedure.
Richard Land, head of the public policy arm of the 16-million member Southern Baptist Convention, argued that Boisselier’s announcement was evidence that it’s too dangerous in the current climate to allow any kind of cloning research, even to save lives.
“There is a global race going on by rogue scientists who are operating outside the mainstream,” Land said. “If you allow cloning at all, some people will try to reproduce them with predictably horrific results.”
Nathan Diament, policy director for the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America, was concerned that religious and political leaders would overreact to Friday’s announcement. The Orthodox Union, which represents about 1,000 synagogues, opposes cloning for human reproduction but supports using the technology to develop lifesaving medical therapies.
“The jury is still out on the facts,” Diament said, since the scientist has yet to prove her claim.
The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.
__________________ U.S. Army
1976-1979
237th Combat Engineers
Heilbronn, Germany
Kinda brings new meaning to, "Child you look just like yer ma."
I don't know what to think. But I do hope this sheds light on the fact that the child will most likely, while looking like her mother, not be an exact dupicate but her own person, with her own abilities and knowledge.
Thus ending the cloning yourself to insert brain and live forever ideas......
I believe it can be a good and bad thing....I had no idea, that it was so close to being done. If people can live longer..we can keeep some of the smartest people in the world around or bring a few back...Einstien, Lincoln...I know enviroments make a person but if their hearts are the same, then maybe it could make a difference, but it also could be liek abad sci-fi movie and bring back the evilest people in the world.
I am not exactly sure how I feel about it from reading just one article. Befor eI make a full comment if I am against it or for it, I will have to do more research.
My biggest problem isn't the scientific details but the treatment of human life as a consumer product, where you want a child for reasons other than love. The love between a father and mother is where children are supposed to come from. Conceiving children that are unwanted is one sign of how far off we are, and conceiving them for scientific purposes is another. Wanting to clone a person to be just like yourself, rather than with a person you love permanently, is a vain thing, coming out of love for one's self, not love for another. I see problems in these children's future, physically perfect or not.
__________________
Trust is earned, not... GIVEN away. - Worf
All of the animals that have been cloned have had problems. The most famous is Dolly the sheep and you never hear about her anymore. For some unknown reason they all tend to get fat. Dangerously obese in fact. To clone a human knowing that there are unsolved problems is criminal. Sure wouldnt want to be the poor cloned human and face a lifetime of medical problems.
If Rosey thought people would believe it I am sure she would tell everyone that she was a clone. Anything to deny the fact she can't shut her big fat pie hole.
As for cloning, they are just rolling the dice. Most efforts end with a horribly deformed being that dies shortly after birth. Dolly is obese, and has very bad arthritis, not an exact replica of her mother. To do this with humans at this stage of experimantation is just plain criminal. I really think we need to concentrate on removing/reforming the noncontributing members of society before we start replicating the "elite".
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Liberty is for those that claim it.
The tools for cloning are relatively cheap, unlike other dangerous un-PC hobbies like nuclear and chemical weapon development. Also, a lot of the knowledge on the subject is freely available.
So, anybody with $10 million, a PHD in microbioligy, molecular genetics, ect., and the twisted desire to try it, has a legitimate chance to actually clone a human.
When Dolly first went public, I laughted at all the people trying to outlaw it. NOT THAT IT SHOULD BE LEGAL. Outlawing cloning will not stop the nutjobs in the world like these Heavens' Gate people or whatever. I also thought the first people who would catch flack for trying to clone a human would be some rouge (sp?) nation like Red China or N. Korea. Do it for national pride. Looks like I'm wrong.
The tools for cloning are relatively cheap, unlike other dangerous un-PC hobbies like nuclear and chemical weapon development. Also, a lot of the knowledge on the subject is freely available.
So, anybody with $10 million, a PHD in microbioligy, molecular genetics, ect., and the twisted desire to try it, has a legitimate chance to actually clone a human.
When Dolly first went public, I laughted at all the people trying to outlaw it. NOT THAT IT SHOULD BE LEGAL. Outlawing cloning will not stop the nutjobs in the world like these Heavens' Gate people or whatever. I also thought the first people who would catch flack for trying to clone a human would be some rouge (sp?) nation like Red China or N. Korea. Do it for national pride. Looks like I'm wrong.
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