X-Message-Number: 17211
Date: Mon, 06 Aug 2001 12:56:16 -0400
From: James Swayze <>
Subject: First human cloning project proposed despite U.S. short sightedness

http://www.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/europe/08/06/clone.doctor/

First human clone bid planned

August 6, 2001 Posted: 1:50 PM EDT (1750 GMT)

By CNN's Graham Jones

ROME, Italy (CNN) -- A controversial Italian doctor is to announce plans to
impregnate 200 women to try to create the world's first cloned human baby.

Professor Severino Antinori is to unveil his plans -- backed by extensive
private funding -- before the National Association of Sci ences in
Washington D.C. on Tuesday.

He will say he hopes to begin a human cloning programme in November using
200 infertile couples.

One of Antinori's associates, Dr Panos Zavos of the Andrology Institute of
America, told CNN the announcement would be made on Tuesday though he
stressed it would be an "attempt" and it required the women to actually
become pregnant.

"We will reveal on Tuesday exactly how we are going to go about it," he
said, adding that the methodology would be safe with genetic screening of
the embryos.

Antinori, Director of the Rome's International Associated Research Institute
(Raprui), said on Monday that his "therapeutic cloning" was a scientific
development that could not and should not be stopped.

"You can't put up the barriers on therapeutic cloning," said Antinori, who
earlier this year said up to 700 couples had volunteered to be part of his
human cloning experiment.

"Cloning will help us put an end to so many diseases, give infertile men the
chance to have children. We can't miss this opportunity," he told Reuters.

Antinori said he would use his speech to attack a sweeping ban on human
cloning approved by the U.S. House of Representatives last week.

But leading fertility experts say that human cloning still presents a high
risk of miscarriage, stillbirth or producing a disabled child. It took 277
attempts to produce the first cloned sheep, Dolly.

Professor Art Caplan, from the University of Pennsylvania, said the clone
bid should not be carried out because of the safety implications.

"If you look at the carnage associated with animal cloning there is probably
a ratio of about 290 dead embryos for every one that goes anywhere," he
said.

"Dr. Zavos and his group have been kind of the high-flying, showbiz
operators of cloning. They keep saying they're going to do this. I have to
say, if you looked at the animal work that's been done, and the people who
really know this procedure of cloning -- that is, veterinarians who try it
in animals -- the procedure is just not safe," he said.

Pro-life groups who are outraged by the plans and Antinori has said he may
be forced to work in a remote country or even on board a ship moored in
international waters.

The technique is similar to the one used to produce Dolly the sheep and
involves injecting cells from the infertile father into an egg, which is
then implanted in the mother's uterus.

The resulting child would have the same physical characteristics as his
father and infertile parents would not have to rely on sperm donors. Most of
the males in the volunteering couples are infertile.

Washington's human cloning conference on Tuesday comprises a joint panel of
the U.S. National Academies' Committee on Science, Engineering Public Policy
and the Board of Life Sciences.

It will discuss the scientific, medical and ethical issues involved in human
cloning, and also look at the confusion outside the scientific community on
the differences between human cloning and embryonic stem-cell research.

Ethical and religious groups argue Antinori's team and other cloning
researchers are trying to "play God."

Antinori said he would argue in Washington that cloning is not a religious
question," adding that President Bush was only against cloning because "he
listens to the pope."

Last week, Bush said human cloning presented profound moral issues and said
he welcomed the approval of congressional ban as "a strong ethical
statement."

"We must advance the promise and cause of science but do so in a way that
honours and respects life," Bush said.

Meanwhile European pro-life groups on Monday predicted cloning will
eventually be legalised.

Professor Jack Scarisbrick, British national director of Life, said there
was "no doubt whatsoever" reproductive cloning would eventually become legal
in the UK.

Britain's House of Lords voted earlier this year to legalise only the
cloning of human embryos for therapeutic, or research purposes, a move
praised by Antinori.

"The pressures will be great. When people hear a story about couples who
have lost a child and want to replace it, they will consent to it,
inevitably," Scarisbrick said.

Antinori is no stranger to controversy. His Rome fertility clinic produced a
62-year-old mother of a baby in 1994. Two years he later helped a
59-year-old British unmarried mother to have twins.

In March this year the Italian doctor, determined to push ahead with his
cloning plans, accused the Vatican of starting a new Inquisition against
science.

"I haven't committed any crime," Antinori said. "To think and do research is
still not forbidden."

The Vatican holds that no human being should be denied the fundamental right
to be conceived and born the natural way and says human cloning is
"grotesque."

"We seem to have returned to the old times of the Inquisition," Antinori
said. "We are working for humanity to help man, not to create anything
negative."

Antinori said: "Cloning creates ordinary children. They will be unique
individuals, not photocopies of individuals."
---

Bravisimo! It has to begin somewhere. Damn the luddites, full speed ahead!

James
--
From the point of ignition
To the final drive
The point of the journey
is not to arrive --RUSH

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