A Canadian-based cult that claims it is well on its way to cloning
the first human.
Dr. Brigitte Boisselier, a chemical engineer by training and scientific
director of the Raelians, said in an interview with Reuters Health that
she has hired a biochemist, a geneticist and a physician, "all US-trained,"
to carry out the cloning project. She said that the research is financed
by a "$1 million investment
from an American couple who lost their 10-month-old baby girl
as the result of an accident."
A clone of that dead child will be the first baby produced by Clonaid,
a for-profit subsidiary of the Raelian cult. Boisselier said the American
backers are "partners in Clonaid." After the initial cloning,
Clonaid will offer cloning services to others
at a fee of $200,000, she
said. So if all goes as planned, the American couple will not only have
a new baby girl, but also a tidy return on their investment, said Boisselier.
When the Raelians announced the cloning plans last October the announcement
was greeted with some skepticism. But last week a pair of well-known fertility
experts, Dr. Panos Zavos of the University of Kentucky and obstetrician
Dr. Severino Antinori of Rome, Italy added some credibility to the possibility
that a human will soon be cloned when they said that they were undertaking
a human cloning project.
Raelian spokesperson Nadine Gary said last week's announcement "was
so exciting but it is not part of our work." Zavos, too, said he
has no association with the Raelians.
Mark Eibert, a San Mateo, California attorney who is planning
legal strategies to overcome laws that ban human cloning said
Zavos and Antinori are "legitimate researchers who are highly qualified
and very different from the Raelians. This is the first public announcement
by people who appear to have all the talent, ability and resources necessary
to accomplish the goal."
But if the Raelians are the first to successfully clone a human, Eibert
said he won't complain.
"I don't care who does it first. If a Hari Krishna doctor found
the cure for cancer, people would still be clamoring for that cure and
history books will be more interested in the cure than in the beliefs
of those who discovered it," Eibert said.
The Raelians advertise cloning services on their Web
site, Boisselier said most inquiries at the site "come from homosexuals,
infertile couples, and couples who have lost a child."
The cult's leader is a 54-year-old French sometime sports car driver
formerly known as Claude Vorilhon but who now calls himself Rael. Raelian
literature claims that the group has 50,000 members in 85 countries. Rael
also performed as a singer/songwriter under the name Claude Celler. A
visit to the Raelian Web site includes offers to buy his records and a
testament to his success as a race car driver. Rael is "the world's
fastest prophet," claims an article on the site.
Raelian headquarters is in Geneva, said Boisselier but Rael lives in
Montreal, near a Raelian-owned theme park called UFOland. Clonaid is a
Bahamian corporation founded by Rael and his followers 3 years ago with
the announced intent of pioneering human cloning.
Raelians believe that humans are the result of genetic experimentation
by a race of extraterrestrial called Elohim.
Boisselier said the Elohim have not, however, shared their cloning technology
with their Raelian followers. The Clonaid scientists are relying
on techniques developed in animal cloning experiments, she
said.
Fifty young female Raelians have volunteered to be surrogate mothers -- supplying
eggs and providing womb space for embryos, Boisselier noted. Boisselier
said the surrogate mother volunteers know "there is a possibility
of miscarriage but as Raelians they don't smoke or drink, they eat very
healthy diets so we believe the miscarriage rate will be lower than might
be expected.
