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By Sheryl Gay Stolberg
Despite warnings from leading experts that
the experiments in human cloning would inevitably lead to
babies that are deformed, or die soon after birth, a fertility
doctor, a chemist and a scientist-entrepreneur nevertheless
vowed today to press ahead
with separate efforts to create the first cloned human being.
"This will be done," said the
chemist, Dr. Brigitte Boisselier, who directs a company in
the Bahamas and is a member of a religious sect, the Raelians,
for whom human cloning is a goal.
The entrepreneur, Dr. Panayiotis Michael
Zavos, who runs laboratories in Kentucky, conceded there were
hurdles to be overcome but said, "We are determined to
get there."
Drs. Boisselier and Zavos made their remarks
at a symposium convened by the National Academy of Sciences,
an independent research organization that has established
a panel of experts to study the science of cloning.
They were joined by Dr. Severino Antinori,
an Italian fertility specialist who gained notice in the mid-1990's
by using in vitro fertilization to help a 62-year-old woman
have a baby.
Because all three operate in secret, it
is difficult to assess how serious they are or whether their
assertions are realistic. Only Dr. Boisselier hinted that
she had tried human cloning,
and even she stopped short of saying she had done so.
Some scientists at the symposium complained
privately that by inviting the cloning proponents to appear
at the meeting, the academy had given them a platform they
did not deserve. These scientists were clearly disturbed by
the proponents' remarks.
"I think they are serious,"
said Dr. Alan Colman, director of PPL Therapeutics, a biotechnology
company that collaborated in the creation of Dolly the sheep,
the first and most famous clone of an adult mammal. "I
think they will fail, but one of the problems about the fact
that they do it all in private is that we won't hear about
the failures."
The comments of the cloning proponents,
coming a week after the House of Representatives voted
to ban cloning even for medical research, will
undoubtedly inflame the debate over the wisdom of creating
babies that are genetic replicas of adults. But while the
House debate focused on the ethics and morality of cloning,
today's discussion focused almost exclusively on science.
The consensus among the panel and most
of those who testified before it was that cloning people was
not safe, given that when clones were born a high proportion
died soon after birth and many survivors were plagued with
genetic problems.
"We are seeing a great range of abnormalities,"
said Dr. Ian Wilmut, who as director of the Roslin Institute
in Scotland led the effort to clone Dolly. "We should
expect a similar outcome if people attempt to produce a cloned
human."
Dolly's birth was announced in 1997. In
the years since, scientists have succeeded in cloning five
species of mammals: sheep, goats, pigs, mice and cows. Dr.
Wilmut said 18 percent
of cloned mice died; among goats, the figure is 38
percent.
Those numbers, however, did
not appear to deter the proponents of human cloning.
Cloning, also called nuclear transfer,
involves taking genetic material from an adult's cell and
slipping it into a woman's egg whose nucleus has been removed.
In theory, the technique could be used to treat infertility
in cases in which the man cannot produce sperm. That is the
scenario that Dr. Antinori said he envisions. Dr. Zavos said
he would use cloning only to help infertile couples who could
not conceive in any other way.
But Dr. Boisselier went further, saying
cloning was a basic human
right. "It is our own choice to use our genes
the way we want," she said.
Gatherings at the National Academy of
Sciences, which advises Congress on scientific matters, are
usually staid affairs. But today's seminar was more like a
circus than an academic gathering; at one point, a horde of
television cameras followed Dr. Antinori to the bathroom.
Dr. Irving L. Weissman, a professor of
cancer biology at Stanford University and chairman of the
panel of experts, suggested that today's meeting served as
a warning of sorts to Dr. Zavos and the others.
"This was one way to inform them
of the animal science," Dr. Weissman said. "Now
they're informed."
Although cloning for reproduction is legal
in the United States, the Food and Drug Administration has
asserted jurisdiction over human cloning experiments and has
received a written agreement from at least one scientist,
Dr. Boisselier, not to pursue them in this country.
An American investor in Dr. Boisselier's
company, Clonaid, recently pulled out, and its lab in the
United States has closed. But she said the cloning would continue
in another country, which she would not name.
And R. Alta Charo, a professor of law
and bioethics at the University of Wisconsin, told the panel
that cloning attempts would go on, regardless of whether the
United States or any other country makes it a crime.
"We haven't been able to outlaw human
slavery yet," Professor Charo said, "let alone human
cloning."
Fear, Horror
And Awe In Europe Over Human Cloning
From Vatican pulpits to newspaper front
pages and doctors' surgeries, some in Europe expressed fear
and horror and others awestruck tolerance on Wednesday in
response to plans to create the first cloned baby.
As wary scientists in Washington, DC,
grilled two colleagues who see cloning as a
natural next step to a brave new world, the strongest
condemnation came from the Vatican.
"In a certain sense, Hitler was
ahead of his time as far as some modern developments are concerned,"
said Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, head of the Vatican's doctrinal
department.
Ratzinger, a German who lived through
World War II as a teenager, said it was "terrifying"
that some of the countries that defeated Hitler were now considering
opening themselves up to "anti-human"
scientific practices.
In Washington, Drs. Severino Antinori
and Panayiotis Zavos told a panel of the National Academy
of Sciences that they would proceed with plans to provide
cloned children for infertile couples.
The panel is gathering information for
a report expected by the end of September on whether the United
States should impose a moratorium on human embryo cloning.
While Antinori and Zavos want to create clones for reproductive
purposes, many more scientists wish to use cloning techniques
to create embryonic stem cells for research into disease treatment.
But there is no doubt at the Vatican.
"The value of a man is not the same
as the value of a rat," said Monsignor Elio Sgreccia,
vice president of the Vatican's Pontifical Academy for Life
and an adviser to Pope John Paul.
"Humans have a dignity that goes
beyond time," Sgreccia told Reuters, saying he agreed
with scientists who feared techniques used for animals would
be fraught with risks if
applied to humans.
"Cloning is immoral...Someone said
that cloning is the worst manifestation of human slavery and
I agree with this."
The
debate over the ethics of human cloning could make the controversy
the world has seen over abortion pale by comparison.
Lev Kiselev of the Russian Academy of
Sciences said that while it was acceptable to write off substandard
animals after experiments, "writing off a human being
is absolutely inadmissible but will be unavoidable if human
cloning begins."
Kiselev added that cloning would "impoverish
the human gene pool to a colossal extent" and repeat
genome defects while imparting no new qualities.
In Germany, where only half a century
ago Hitler dreamed of creating a "master race,"
cloning is a subject that hits home.
"Contrary to his colleagues, the
Italian (Antinori) seems unable to recognize any ethical
boundaries," the conservative daily newspaper
Die Welt said in an editorial.
"Anyone who wants to create cloned
successors does not really want to help others have children,
but wants to boost their own ego. The damage Antinori is inflicting
on biomedical research is enormous."
Speaking on German ZDF television, Detlev
Ganten, a professor of molecular medicine and a member of
the German government's ethics council set up to investigate
such issues, said he was opposed to all attempts to clone
human beings.
He said what Antinori and Zavos intend
to do was "ethically
and morally irresponsible" and called for
international conventions to forbid human cloning.
New York Times
August 8, 2001
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