A Human clone? Scientist in Florida Claims to Produce Human Clone

[The Evil Genius]

Scientist Claims to Produce Human Clone

HOLLYWOOD, Fla. - A chemist connected to a group that believes life on Earth was created by extraterrestrials claimed Friday to have produced the world's first human clone, a baby girl named Eve.

The baby was born Thursday, said Brigitte Boisselier, head of Clonaid, the company that claimed success in the project. She wouldn't say where the baby was born.

She said the baby is a clone of the 30-year-old American woman who donated the DNA for the cloning process. If confirmed, that would make the child an exact genetic duplicate of her mother.

Boisselier, who spoke at a Friday morning news conference, did not immediately present DNA evidence showing a genetic match between mother and daughter however. That omission leaves her claim scientifically unsupported.

"The baby is very healthy. She's doing fine," Boisellier said. "We're very happy parents."

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. Those test results are expected within a week after the testing.

She said the mother carried to term.

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.

Clonaid was founded in the Bahamas in 1997 by Claude Vorilhon, a former French journalist and leader of a group called the Raelians. Vorilhon and his followers claim aliens visiting him in the 1970s revealed they had created all life on Earth through genetic engineering.

[The Evil Genius]

Of course this could just be a lie, since this was the 1st part of the story...

" chemist connected to a group that believes life on Earth was created by extraterrestrials..." :laugh:

Still though - I think if this isnt true - a human clone will be done within the next 3 years.

Science is a little frighening sometimes....

[Riggo-toni]

The Genie's already out of the bottle. People need to deal with it. I just hope all the nutty zealots don't pass some knee-jerk sweeping anti-cloning laws that inhibit valuable medical progress. I can live with a ban on reproductive cloning though.

[@DCGoldPants]

exactly. Leave it to the Government to limit the research of this so other countries can get so far ahead that we'll never catch up in this field.

Its going to happen, you can't stop it and it could be used against us in the future if some nut thinks about Cloning armies or whatever. We need to be the masters of this science. People need to open thier eyes. If you can clone a copy of your heart but only heathly, when you really need it....are you going to turn it down? I'm not saying its a good idea, but its something that will happen.

[Brave]

Talk about being "born again."

One thought (why this comes to mind ... I dont know): Should cloning ever become widespread and readily available I guess it could keep DNA evidence in criminal trials from being QUITE as airtight as it is now. It would open the door for ... the "Clone Defense."

[The Evil Genius]

Updated info - much more info in this long article - I dont know if I want this to be for real or not :doh:

Scientist Claims to Produce Human Clone

Fri Dec 27,11:46 AM ET

By MALCOLM RITTER, AP Science Writer

HOLLYWOOD, Fla. - A member of a sect that believes life on Earth was created by extraterrestrials claimed Friday to have produced the world's first human clone, a baby girl.

The 7-pound baby was born Thursday by Caesarean section, said Brigitte Boisselier, a chemist and head of a company that did the experiment. She wouldn't say where the baby was born; she did say the birth was at 11:55 a.m. local time.

Even before her news conference, other scientists expressed doubt that her group could clone a human.

Boisselier said the baby, dubbed "Eve" by the scientists, is a clone of the 31-year-old American woman who donated the DNA for the cloning process, had the resulting embryo implanted and then gestated the baby. If confirmed, that would make the child an exact genetic duplicate of her mother.

Boisselier said the mother had resorted to cloning because her mate was infertile.

"It is very important to remember that we are talking about a baby," she said. "The baby is very healthy. She is fine, she doing fine. 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 did not immediately present DNA evidence showing a genetic match between mother and daughter, however. That leaves her claim scientifically unsupported.

Dr. Michael Guillen, a former medical correspondent at ABC's "Good Morning America," told reporters at the news conference he was lining up "independent world-class experts" to perform DNA test on the mother and baby. He said he was not being paid by Clonaid.

The group expects four more babies to be born in the next several weeks, another from North America, one from Europe and two from Asia. Two of the couples are using preserved cells taken from their own children before their deaths, and one is a lesbian couple, she claimed.

"I do believe that it is the choice of every parent to choose the child they want, even if they don't have any infertility problem," Boisselier said. "Who are we to tell the parents the child that they should have?"

The couples were not asked to pay for the procedures but some had invested in Clonaid, she said.

She said the baby will go home in three days, and an independent expert will take DNA samples from her to prove she had been cloned. She said results 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.

Clonaid was founded in the Bahamas in 1997 by Claude Vorilhon, a former French journalist and leader of a group called the Raelians. Vorilhon and his followers claim aliens visiting him in the 1970s revealed they had created all life on Earth through genetic engineering.

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.

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.

Legislation or guidelines to ban human cloning are pending in dozens of nations, including the United States. Several countries, including Britain, Israel, Japan and Germany, already have banned it. There is no specific law against it in the United States, but the Food and Drug Administration (news - web sites) contends it must approve any human experiments in this country.

Boisselier would not say where Clonaid has been carrying out its experiments. Bush administration officials had said they were aware of rumors of an announcement but had no plans to comment until after the details were known.

In Rome, fertility doctor Severino Antinori, who said weeks ago that a cloned baby boy 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 added. "I don't take part in this ... race."

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.

Dr. Robert Lanza of Advanced Cell Technology, the Massachusetts company that last year produced the first reported cloned human embryo, said before the announcement that Clonaid has "no scientific credibility at this point."

But he and other experts do not dismiss the possibility of success. In some respects, cloning to produce a baby may be easier than the task Lanza is undertaking, which is to clone an embryo to produce stem cells for medical research.

"They may be able to bypass many of the problems that we would encounter in the lab," he said. He said his work has found that implanting a very early stage cloned embryo in an animal's uterus can be successful, while trying to grow the embryo in the lab is more difficult.

[NavyDave]

Count me as a zealot if this leads to cloning humans and then using loopholes that turn them into body parts.

I mean where else will that heart, retina, bone marrow, ACL or kidney come from?

[OrangeSkin]

HOLLYWOOD, Fla. - A member of a sect that believes life on Earth was created by extraterrestrials

That's all you need to know.

[redman]

These people have all the earmarks of cultish frauds. They've solicited money from many people based upon wild promises of cloning dear departed loved ones, and they aren't even producing real proof. I won't believe this one until I see objective proof.

[Yomar]

Originally posted by NavyDave

Count me as a zealot if this leads to cloning humans and then using loopholes that turn them into body parts.

I mean where else will that heart, retina, bone marrow, ACL or kidney come from?

You say that now, but just you wait, your clone may just pull a switcheroo, assume your identity and take your body parts. Or worse, what if some sick mind decides to clone Deion Sanders, not once but thousands of times? Then you'll be sorry

[OrangeSkin]

By the way, I saw the founder of this sect on CNN today. He wore a white robe, had a ponytail on the top of his head, and spoke incoherently in a strong French accent.

Basically, he looked and sounded like a complete and utter wack job.

I can't believe how much press this is getting.

[Yomar]

Finally an opportunity to go f#ck oneself

[codeorama]

Remember, a clone is nothing more than an identical twin. There is no guarentee that athletic abilities will be the same. A clone would be an entirely independant person.

[Kilmer17]

It would also be an exact clone of the CURRENT person.

IE, you'd have a baby who was already 30 yrs (using this example) into it's life span. (That's why Dolly the sheep had arthritis)

[redman]

Like I said, all the earmarks of cultish frauds:

Clone evaluator suspends work, says it may be hoax

NEW YORK, New York (CNN) --The science journalist who organized a team to evaluate claims of the birth of the first human clone has suspended his review and now says the announcement by Clonaid, a company tied to an unconventional religious sect, could be "part of an elaborate hoax."

"The team of scientists has had no access to the alleged family and, therefore, cannot verify firsthand the claim that a human baby has been cloned," said Michael Guillen in a written statement Monday. "It's still entirely possible Clonaid's announcement is part of an elaborate hoax intended to bring publicity to the Raelian movement."

Las Vegas-based Clonaid is linked to the Raelians, a religious group that believes space aliens came to Earth and began the human race through cloning. The company claims that two cloned human babies have been born, the first in an unidentified country to a U.S. couple and the second to a lesbian couple in the Netherlands.

After the birth of the first baby, which Clonaid officials said was dubbed "Eve," the company said it would allow Guillen, a freelance journalist who has been covering the issue of human cloning for the past six years, to conduct an independent inquiry to determine if the baby was indeed a clone of its mother.

Guillen said he made it "very clear" to Dr. Brigitte Boisselier, the head of Clonaid, that he would accept the offer only if there were no strings attached and that the actual testing was performed by unbiased DNA specialists.

In his statement Monday, he said he had assembled a team from two "highly respected" DNA testing facilities to do the work -- but he has suspended the effort because they have not had access to the baby.

"When and if an opportunity to collect DNA samples as promised does arise, however, the team stands fully prepared to re-mobilize and conduct the necessary tests," he said.

[redman]

Here's the part of an article from cnn.com that includes a very interesting exchange regarding the current success rate of cloning attempts:

LANZA: Yes. First of all, the 1-out-of-277 attempts is very deceptive. What that number actually represents is what we call nuclear transfer reconstructions. That means you take a cell and you put it into an empty egg, but of those only a certain percentage are actually implanted.

Those are the ones that actually generate early-stage embryos, and we do find that we are having success after 60 percent of the implantations, at least in the cow models, and it is even higher in some other models.

GUPTA: One of the other things, after the baby is born, and again the scientist Brigitte Boisselier said the baby is "fine" -- we do not really know what that means -- but the whole host of medical problems inflicted upon the animals that were cloned, talk about that with respect to humans. They talked about these animals having disastrous medical problems even within weeks after they were born. Do you anticipate that in humans -- if in fact this is true?

LANZA: Well, we recently published an article where we reviewed all the published data on all the cloned animal species and it actually is rather surprising.

It turns out that only about 25 percent of the animals that were born healthy, or I should say that were born to term, were actually defective. It turns out that 3-out-of-4 of those animals was actually healthy at birth. But I should add to that, that this is at birth and that as these animals age in life, it is going to turn out that we are going to start seeing problems.

For instance, we have started to see a tumor in one of the animals after several years, and another animal has developed grand mal seizures and periodically drops to the ground, so again although a baby may be born healthy there is certainly a very distinct possibility that problems could occur later.

Ok, so let me refine my numbers. If I understand this right, 1 in 277 is actually implanted, and of those about 50% give or take actually make it. Of the 50% that do make to term, 25% are "defective". Then of the remaining 75%, several animals after a few weeks or years develop "serious problems".

And from Rael himself :

Group aims for adult clones

"The Raelians eventually hope to develop adult clones into which humans could transfer their brains," Rael said.

"Cloning a baby is just the first step. For me, it's not so important," he said. "It's a good step, but my ultimate goal is to give humanity eternal life through cloning."

I found that little gem here and the first part I found here.

In other words, the Raelians are willing to clone human people and make babies who they know are overwhelmingly likely to develop serious debilitating diseases during their lives in the name of later learning to clone healthy adults who can later upload someone's brain. These people are absolutely evil.

[Henry]

These freaks haven't done anything but get their name in the paper in order to recruit more freaks. I can't believe the media is giving these idiots so much airtime.