The Hindu : First human clone is born, claim scientists

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Dec 28, 2002

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First human clone is born, claim scientists

FLORIDA, DEC. 27. A company associated with a group that believes extraterrestrials created mankind claimed on Friday that it had produced the first clone of a human being, media reports here said.

Clonaid announced it had created a healthy baby girl who was a clone of the 31-year-old American woman who gave birth to her. No proof was provided for the claim.

"I'm very very pleased to announce that the first baby clone is born," Clonaid director Brigitte Boisselier, a former research chemist in France, said at a news conference in Hollywood, north of Miami.

Boisselier said the girl was born Thursday at 11:55 a.m., but did not disclose where the cloning had taken place. She said results of genetic testing of the child by an independent expert would be available in eight to nine days.

Clonaid is viewed skeptically by most scientists, who doubt the group's technical ability to clone a human being. A Clonaid spokeswoman said an independent expert will confirm the baby is a clone through DNA testing.

Clonaid is linked to a sect called the Raelians, whose founder, Claude Vorihon, describes himself as a prophet and calls himself Rael. The group believes cloning could extend human life for hundreds of years.

Cattle, mice, sheep and other animals have been cloned with mixed success. Some animals have displayed defects later in life and scientists fear the same could happen with cloned humans.

Randall Prather, a reproductive biotechnology professor at the University of Missouri, said an independent expert not named by Clonaid would be essential to conduct DNA fingerprinting to determine the baby is in fact a clone.

"Is it possible in humans? Potentially. Have we seen problems with cloning domestic animals? Yes. Do we understand what causes those problems? No. Therefore we shouldn't do it," Prather said.

Clonaid has been racing the Italian fertility doctor Severion Antinori to produce the first cloned baby. Antinori said last month he expected one of his patients to give birth to a cloned baby in January.

President Bush has asked Congress to ban the creation of cloned babies as well as the cloning of human embryos for medical research. The U.S. House of Representatives passed a ban, but a similar bill in the Senate stalled after scientists argued such a law would hinder medical advances.

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