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Date Posted: 06:58:51 12/27/02 Fri
Author: Andrey
Subject: I was right!
In reply to: Alexandre 's message, "Merry X-mas and happy New Year!!!" on 14:48:57 12/25/02 Wed

Finally it happened in December!
Here is the announcement of Clonaid Scientific Director, Mrs B. Boisselie newsconference taken from CNN Website. I would you enjoy it as a Christmas Gift

Cloning group to make 'major announcement'
From Miriam Falco
CNN
Friday, December 27, 2002 Posted: 6:20 AM EST (1120 GMT)



Last November, Boisselier told CNN she was "doing human cloned embryos" but wouldn't confirm any pregnancies.

HOLLYWOOD, Florida (CNN) -- A controversial group that has claimed to be able and willing to clone a human has scheduled a news conference for Friday to make a "major announcement," according to the group's spokesperson.

Brigitte Boisselier, the scientific director of Clonaid, is scheduled to make the announcement Friday at 9 a.m. Last week, Boisselier told some news organizations that the birth of a cloned baby girl is imminent.

Boisselier has told CNN in the past that she will not make an announcement until a healthy baby is born. She told a congressional committee last year that she believed she had the knowledge to produce a human clone in the near future.

Clonaid, which calls itself the "first human cloning company," was founded by a religious group called the Raelians in 1997. Boisselier is a bishop in the Raelian movement, which professes that life on Earth was created through genetic engineering by extraterrestrials.

The Raelians believe their spiritual leader Rael is a direct descendant of these aliens. Rael told CNN in July 2001 that the long-term goal for human cloning is to live forever. Rael says cloning a baby is only the first step: Eventually the group wants to learn how to clone an adult, then "transfer the brain to the clone."

Boisselier says the immediate purpose for cloning is to help infertile couples. Last November, she told CNN she was "indeed doing human cloned embryos and we have many cell divisions," but she wouldn't confirm any pregnancies.

Group has not released any data on research
To make a clone, scientists first take an egg and remove all of its genetic material. Then the nucleus of a cell -- any cell in the body -- is taken from the individual to be cloned and inserted into the hollowed-out egg.

The cell is then given a jolt of electricity or put in a chemical bath to activate cell division -- essentially tricking the cell into doing what a fertilized egg would normally do. Then the embryo is implanted into a woman's uterus to be carried to term.

It is unknown which exact procedure Clonaid is using, because it has not published or released any data about its research.

Boisselier has not revealed the location of her current lab, only to say it is no longer in the United States. She used to have a lab in West Virginia, but the U.S. Food and Drug Administration visited the lab and shut it down.

Scientists so far have successfully cloned sheep, cows, goats, mice, pigs and a rare wild ox. But human cloning is controversial, because the experience with animal cloning has shown a lot of potential for things to go wrong.

'One shouldn't do this,' biologist says of human cloning
Many animal cloners -- including Ian Wilmut, the Scottish researcher who successfully cloned the first animal, Dolly the sheep, in 1997 -- disapprove of human cloning. Wilmut has said it took 276 failed attempts before Dolly was successfully cloned.

"It is not responsible at this stage to even consider the cloning of humans, " said Rudolf Jaenisch, a biologist at MIT's Whitehead Institute for Biological Research, which clones mice.

Janeisch said that even if a human clone appears healthy, it may not be once it gets older. Cloning a human at this point, he said, without knowing more about why things go wrong, is "essentially using humans as guinea pigs, and one shouldn't do this."

According to Dr. Jon Hill, a veterinarian who successfully cloned cows at Texas A&M University, even clones who appear normal at birth often develop problems afterward.

"Their livers, their lungs, their heart, their blood vessels are often abnormal after birth," Hill said.

Few legal prohibitions on human cloning
The Raelians are not the only group claiming to actively try to clone a human.

Italian doctor Severino Antinori made several announcements in recent months, claiming that a woman was carrying a human clone that would be born in January 2003. And former University of Kentucky professor Panos Zavos has also announced plans to clone a human, but he told CNN earlier this year he had not successfully created an embryo yet.

Scientists and bioethicists have questioned whether any of these groups have the ability to clone a human. Art Caplan, director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania, has said in the past that "we don't know how" to accomplish human cloning.

Legally, there's very little to stop scientists from cloning. In January, the National Academy of Sciences recommended a ban on human cloning, but only four states -- California, Michigan, Louisiana and Rhode Island -- ban any type of cloning research.

The FDA claims it has jurisdiction over human cloning based on the Public Health Service and Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act. It says it would regulate the cloning process like a drug.

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