HEADLINE: Baby-clone idea called 'hype
and sizzle'
BYLINE: Tim Friend
BODY: A team of controversial fertility specialists
say they plan to conduct human cloning experiments this year,
using up to 200 volunteers from different countries who will attempt to give
birth to the world's first cloned babies.
Italian embryologist Severino Antinori of Rome and Panos Zavos, who
heads the Andrology Institute in Lexington, Ky., said they would release details
of the cloning experiments today at a conference on the science of cloning held
by the National Academy of Sciences in Washington, D.C.
But a leading bioethicist and outspoken opponent of human cloning called the announcement "nothing more than hype and
sizzle."
"I don't believe this is even
practical," said Arthur Caplan, director of the Center of Bioethics at the
University of Pennsylvania Health System. "They claim to have 200 couples lined
up to bring to some remote location and perform IVF (in vitro fertilization)
procedures using cloned cells and then take care of all of the pregnancies that
might result. It just doesn't sound plausible."
Italian authorities said Monday that they had begun disciplinary
actions against Antinori, director of the International Associated Research
Institute in Rome. Mario Falconi, deputy director of the Order of Italian
Doctors, said human cloning is against the group's ethical code, as well as that
of the European Council, which bans human cloning. Antinori told British and
Italian newspapers that he would conduct the cloning experiments in a remote
country or even on a ship in international waters if necessary.
Zavos told members of Congress, at a hearing on human
cloning earlier this year, that he believes cloning technology can be adapted to
help infertile couples have a baby.
Last
week, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill that would outlaw human
cloning and provide stiff penalties, including prison sentences for anyone
convicted of cloning humans in the USA.
Scientists opposed to human cloning have testified before Congress that
cloning technology is not advanced enough to make human cloning possible, even
if it were ethically acceptable. Attempts to clone animals, including the famous
cloned sheep Dolly, have required hundreds of attempts to achieve one live
birth. Any attempts to clone humans would likely result in birth defects,
stillbirths and a high rate of miscarriages, according to Rudolph Jaenisch of
the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a pioneer of cloning techniques in
animals.
The announcement on the eve of
the National Academy of Sciences meeting is likely to cause a stir with the
meeting's other participants, who include Jaenisch and Ian Wilmut, director of
the Roslin Institute in Midlothian, Scotland. Wilmut was the scientist who
cloned Dolly the sheep. Both Jaenisch and Wilmut have stated that cloning humans
would be scientifically impractical, if not impossible.
Brigitte Boisselier, scientific director of Clonaid, based
in the Bahamas, is also expected to attend the meeting. She has announced that
her group plans to clone a human for a U.S. couple who lost a child.
GRAPHIC: PHOTO, B/W, Giglia, AFP;
Antinori: Plan under attack.
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