[Nasional-e] Cloned baby

[Ambon]

SMH

may be a hoax, says journalist
By Kenneth Chang


January 8 2003
It was hailed by the Raelian sect as a world first, greeted with dismay by
ethicists and criticised as irresponsible by scientists.

Now the journalist who agreed to oversee tests to determine whether the
two-week-old baby, nicknamed Eve, is truly the first human clone says the
entire project may be "an elaborate hoax".

Michael Guillen, a former science editor for ABC News in the United States,
had been enlisted by the private cloning company Clonaid to assemble a team
of independent scientists to perform DNA testing on the baby and her mother.

His role seemed to lend credibility to a claim for which the company
provided no evidence.

However, Dr Guillen said on Monday that the scientific team "has had no
access to the alleged family, and therefore cannot verify firsthand the
claim that a human baby has been cloned".

"In other words, it is still entirely possible that Clonaid's announcement
is simply part of an elaborate hoax intended to bring publicity to the
Raelian movement."

The sect believes all life on Earth was created by aliens through cloning.

Clonaid's chief executive, Brigitte Boisselier, said last week that the
parents of baby Eve might never allow genetic testing because a Florida
lawyer asked a court to appoint a guardian for the baby. She said the
parents feared testing could lead to legal actions to take Eve from them.

The company announced on Saturday that a second cloned baby was born the day
before to a Dutch lesbian couple - but again it provided no evidence.

Usually, scientific claims are accompanied by some kind of proof, and are
submitted to experts for review by peers of the researchers before the
results are made public, most often through publication in scientific
journals.

But the Raelian sect claims
by-passed this process, hitting the news at the height of the Christmas and
new year holidays.

Dr Guillen said "veterans from two highly respected DNA testing facilities"
had agreed to conduct the tests. He left open the possibility that tests
could be done later, saying: "When, and if, an opportunity to collect DNA
samples as promised does arise, the team stands fully prepared to remobilise
and conduct the necessary tests."

Officials from Clonaid did not return phone calls asking for a comment on
the matter.

The New York Times, agencies

++++


'Perpetual orgasms through cloning'
December 30 2002

Even biotechnology is about sex for one 'guru', writes Philip Delves
Broughton.


The debate over the morals of cloning humans has degenerated into farce with
the claim by a religious sect that it has a cloned a baby ready to, as it
were, go. While religious leaders, scientists and ethicists have argued, the
Raelians say they have duplicated a human as part of their quest for
"perpetual orgasms through cloning".

Jest or genuine? The truth of the matter eludes all. But it is clear the
Raelians have turned cloning into a situation comedy.

The man behind such a peripatetic quest had something of a wandering career
before finding his true calling as a prophet of free love, cloning and the
return of aliens to Earth. Nearly three decades ago, Claude Vorilhon, a
sportswriter and race car driver, stood at the top of a volcano and began a
movement that now lies behind what is either a stunning scientific
breakthrough or a staggering hoax.

Vorilhon, a Frenchman who calls himself Rael, claims to have held six
meetings with space travellers at the volcano, after which he founded a
religion based on the belief that aliens created humankind through cloning
25,000 years ago. Now, a research company with close ties to his sect,
called the Raelians, says it has followed suit: cloning a baby girl called
Eve from cells provided by a 31-year-old woman. Clonaid, the company,
offered no proof of its success when it announced on Friday what it claims
is the first human cloning. But it said independent tests backing its claims
would be finished in about a week.

"You could still go back to your office and treat me as a fraud," Brigitte
Boisselier, the company's director and a "Raelian bishop", told journalists
when she announced the clone was about to land. "You have one week to do
that."


In his book, The Message Given to Me by Extra-Terrestrials, Vorilhon writes
that he was hiking in central France in 1973 when approached by an alien
just over a metre high whose skin was "white with a slightly greenish tinge,
a bit like someone with liver trouble". The traveller invited him back to
his UFO, parked on a nearby volcano.

For the next few days Vorilhon was told the true story of the human race.
Humans were created 25,000 years ago in a laboratory by advanced beings from
another planet who had mastered genetics and cell biology. In between
classes, Vorilhon says, he received the devoted attentions of six
"voluptuous and bewitching" female robots.

The alien renamed Vorilhon as Rael and sent him back into the world to
spread the word. He now lives just outside Montreal where he has built a
museum called Centre UFOland, devoted to Raelian history. In his office Rael
has a white double bed covered with a tiger-print throw and large, topless
photographs of his young girlfriend Sophie. Uninhibited sex is an important
feature of Raelianism, as is the hope of achieving everlasting life and
perpetual orgasms through cloning.

Rael claims to have 55,000 followers around the world, mostly in Canada and
French-speaking Europe. Advances in cloning during the mid-'90s gave the
Raelian cult a new motivation. Science, claimed Rael, had finally caught up
with his long-ridiculed predictions. It was time to prepare for the return
of the cloning aliens. Rael called on his female supporters to offer
themselves as hostesses for the aliens and for him, their prophet on Earth.
He wanted only good-looking women for his Order of Angels. Their tasks would
range from consensual sexual gratification to offering their wombs and eggs
for cloning experiments.

The sheer number of women Rael had at his disposal made him hard to ignore
in the Wild West world of human cloning. One of the hardest tasks faced by
scientists wanting to clone humans is finding women ready to offer their
eggs and bodies for the dangerous experiments which might lead to successful
cloning. The Raelians have solved this.

Rael set up a company called Clonaid, which was little more than a
post-office box in the Bahamas but won enormous global attention.

Boisselier volunteered to be Rael's head scientist. She worked for a
chemical gas company in France and has two doctorates in chemistry but no
formal qualification in biotechnology.

She found an American couple from West Virginia ready to give her $1 million
and laboratory space to clone their 10-month-old son who had died during
heart surgery. The couple later pulled out, calling Boisselier a "press
hog".

Boisselier, who is divorced, has since been working secretly in the Bahamas.
Her 23-year-old daughter, Marina Cocolios, is one of Rael's Angels. She has
said she would be ready to undergo abortions if defects were found in cloned
embryos.

Given the secrecy in which the Raelians operate, it is hard to verify most
of what they claim. But they say that 3000 people have signed up for
Clonaid's service.

Telegraph, London

++++
Sheep scientist warns against human cloning
December 29 2002






A scientist at the British research centre that produced the first cloned
mammal has warned of the dangers of human cloning, a day after a US cult
claimed to have successfully cloned a baby girl.

"I clearly do find it objectionable," Dr Harry Griffin told BBC radio.
Griffin is the spokesman for the Roslin Institute in Edinburgh, which made
history in 1996 by producing the first cloned mammal, Dolly the sheep.

"All the groups that work on cloning with animals - cattle, sheep, pigs,
mice, goats - all have reported a high incidence of miscarriage deaths, high
incidence of deaths seen after birth and problems with the clones later on
in life," Griffin explained.

"It is not an inevitable consequence of being cloned but it is a common
consequence," he said. "The reasons are very clear and have been very clear
to Clonaid and the other groups that have been attempting to clone
children."

The controversial Clonaid company announced yesterday it had produced the
first cloned human and said more infants who are genetic replicas of a
single individual would be born in the coming weeks.

Clonaid, based in Las Vegas, is funded by the Raelians, who claim 55,000
followers worldwide.

The Raelians believe life on Earth was established by extra-terrestrials who
arrived in flying saucers 25,000 years ago and cloned humans.

Baby Eve was born by caesarian section in Miami on Thursday, weighs 3.1kg
and is the exact genetic duplicate of her 31-year-old US mother, according
to Clonaid head Brigitte Boisselier.

The company has not so far produced evidence to back up its claim.


“Can you imagine what it will be like for a 12-year-old daughter to look at
her mother and realise she is seeing her own sister?”
Since Dolly was born, scientists have cloned mice, cows, pigs, goats,
rabbits and cats. But her birth came after 276 failed attempts at cloning
that produced many disfigured and dysfunctional animals.

Scientists say just three per cent of cloned animals are born alive and many
of those that have survived have had serious defects and deformities.

Despite appearing to be a normal lamb at birth, Dolly has developed
unusually early arthritis that may be the result of a genetic defect during
the cloning.

British scientist Dr Patrick Dixon, a leading specialist on the ethics of
human cloning, also strongly condemned the Clonaid announcement.

Dixon said he believed the world would react with "revulsion and disgust" if
Clonaid's claims were verified by independent scientists. "There's a global
race by maverick scientists to produce clones, motivated by fame, money and
warped and twisted beliefs," he said.

"Can you imagine what it will be like for a 12-year-old daughter to look at
her mother and realise she is seeing her own sister?

"What will it do to her sense of personal identity, knowing that she's only
a copy of someone else who is much older?"

AFP
++++Is it a clone or a con?
By Danielle Teutsch and agencies
December 29 2002
The Sun-Herald




Clone or con? Brigitte Boisselier addresses the media about the claim of
world's first cloned human. Picture: AFP


Scientists and pro-life conservatives formed a rare alliance yesterday in
condemning a bizarre cult that has claimed the birth of the world's first
cloned baby.

US-based company Clonaid says a baby girl, nicknamed Eve, was born by
caesarean section on Thursday to a 31-year-old US mother and has promised to
produce evidence this week.

The company says another four human clones will be born in the next two
months.

Australian stem cell researcher Associate Professor Martin Pera, from the
Monash Institute of Reproduction and Development, maintained the baby was
more likely to be a con than a clone.

He said hundreds of women would have been needed to be egg donors to produce
a single, successful clone.

"It's unlikely. Even in laboratories with a great deal of experience it
remains a difficult and demanding technical challenge," he said.

"Even in species where the techniques are well established, the success rate
would be only a few per cent."

But even if Clonaid had succeeded in overcoming the technical difficulties,
Professor Pera's fellow stem cell researcher Dr Andrew Elefante said the
baby would be at risk of developmental and health problems.

"You really are playing with fire," he said.

"There could be problems in walking, learning, personality, intelligence -
we don't understand the biology behind it all. We only need to look at the
results from animal studies to see it's fraught with danger."

Almost all clone pregnancies spontaneously abort, and several cow clones
have had head deformities that made them die very quickly after birth.

Of the estimated 1 per cent of clones that survive, most have severe
abnormalities such as malfunctioning livers, abnormal blood vessels or heart
problems

and possibly hidden genetic defects.

In many cases, the clone grows abnormally large, often threatening to tear
the womb, which can also become swollen with fluid.

Dolly the sheep, the first mammal clone born in 1997, was the only success
in 247 pregnancies. She now has chronic arthritis.

Clonaid, the company founded by the Raelian cult which believes humans were
cloned from aliens, says the baby girl was cloned from DNA taken from the
mother's skin cell.

It has promised to verify the claim this week through genetic testing.

The scientist leading Clonaid's efforts, Brigitte Boisselier, said 20 more
women would be implanted with cloned embryos at a new Clonaid laboratory
next month.

She said tests on the 3.2kilogram baby would confirm she was an exact
genetic copy of her mother.

"I am creating life and I would like to think of science as the creation of
life," she told reporters. "You can still go back to your office and treat
me as a fraud. You have one week to do that."

Controversial Italian doctor Dr Severino Antinori has also promised the
birth of a cloned baby next month.

The Australian Medical Association's ethics committee chairman Dr Trevor
Mudge said he was concerned the hysteria surrounding claims of human cloning
would provoke a backlash and derail legitimate scientific research.

The AMA supports therapeutic cloning and regulated embryonic stem-cell
research.

"There's a concern that the 'mad science' label will stick," he said.

Right to Life Australia vice-president John James said it was inevitable
that someone would succeed in producing a human clone, even if the Clonaid
claim was false.