Fertility experts set to clone humans

ROME, MARCH 9. An international group of fertility experts met in Rome today to announce details of their plans to be the first scientists to clone a human being.

The team, including the Italian obstetrician, Dr. Severino Antinori, who became famous for helping a 62-year-old woman give birth, will discuss their strategy for human and so- called therapeutic cloning to help tackle a range of degenerative diseases.

The plan has come under heavy fire from scientific and religious camps and has been attacked as ``grotesque'' by the Vatican.

The American scientist, Dr. Panayiotis Zavos, Dr. Antinori's partner, says 10 infertile couples have volunteered to participate in the experiment, in the hope of having children.

Bishop Elio Sgreccia, head of the John Paul II Institute for Bioethics at Rome's Gemelli Hospital, said human cloning raised profoundly disturbing ethical issues.

``Those who made the atomic bomb went ahead in spite of knowing about its terrible destruction,'' he told Reuters television before the cloning meeting started. ``But this doesn't mean that it was the best choice for humanity.''

``The forecasts (about human cloning) sadden us but don't scare us,'' he said, adding it would be a betrayal if the church's voice was not heard.

Dr. Ian Wilmut, who created Dolly, the world's first cloned sheep, said it took 277 tries to get it right. Other cloning attempts have ended in malformed animals and experts say the technique fails in 97 per cent of cases.

Dr. Severino and Dr. Zavos say they plan to carry out the first operation in an unidentified Mediterranean country.

- Reuters

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