PLANNING CLONES

Scientists plan human clones
Research called 'criminal': 'We have the technology to break the rules of nature'
Michael Higgins
National Post, with files from The Daily Telegraph; Reuters

An international team of scientists claimed yesterday it is only weeks away from beginning experiments to create the world's first cloned child.

The plan to clone babies drew an immediate chorus of condemnation from the Vatican, the scientific community and anti-abortion groups.

Fellow scientists said the research could result in a huge number of stillbirths, miscarriages and deformed children.

The cloning effort is being led by Professor Severino Antinori of Italy and U.S. fertility expert Professor Panayiotis Zavos.

"Cloning may be considered the last frontier to overcome male sterility and give the possibility to infertile males to pass on their genetic pattern," Dr. Antinori said yesterday at a conference organized by La Sapienza University in Rome and the Italian Society for Reproductive Medicine.

"Some people say we are going to clone the world, but this isn't true ... I'm asking all of us to be prudent and calm. We're talking science, we're not here to create a fuss."

Dr. Antinori, who has already gained international notoriety for helping a 62-year-old woman give birth, said a cloned baby could be created within two years using techniques already practised on animals.

It would involve taking cells from an infertile father and injecting them into an egg stripped of its genetic material, which would then be placed in the mother's uterus. Implantation procedures will begin in October, he said.

The resulting child would have the same physical characteristics as the father. Infertile parents would no longer have to rely on sperm donors, he said.

Human cloning projects have been announced before, but these researchers are the first to have some relevant expertise. Dr. Antinori is the director of the International Associated Research Institute for Human Reproduction Infertility Unit in Rome, while Dr. Zavos resigned this month from the Kentucky Center for Reproductive Medicine to help lead the cloning effort.

The team also includes scientists from Austria, Italy and Israel.

Dr. Zavos dismissed criticism of the cloning plan, saying new science is always greeted with initial skepticism. "Historically this is normal, but once the first baby is born and it cries, the world will embrace it," he said.

"Now that we have crossed into the third millennium, we have the technology to break the rules of nature."

Dr. Patricia Baird, head of Canada's 1993 Royal Commission on Reproductive Technologies, said: "These two guys are unethical and irresponsible. There have to be many, many attempts before a birth."

She said that in the case of Dolly the sheep there were 277 attempts before the scientists were successful. "There is a high risk of miscarriage and abnormalities. There is also some thought that life expectancy is less.

"Whether human cloning is permissible should be a matter of social policy in every country. It should not be decided by a particular clinic or scientist on an ad hoc basis. It should be something we decide together. The evidence is the vast majority of people object very, very strongly to reproductive cloning," Dr. Baird said.

Dr. Rudolf Jaenisch, of the Whitehead Institute in Cambridge, Mass., which has done human genome research, said, "You can dispose of these animals, but tell me, what do you do with abnormal humans? It's an outrageous criminal enterprise to even attempt."

Dr. Harry Griffin, of the Roslin Institute in Britain, where Dolly the sheep was cloned, said cloning of animals remains a hit-and-miss affair, so that to press ahead with humans would be "criminally irresponsible."

Dr. Griffin wondered whether Dr. Antinori has liability insurance and could afford to support a cloned child who was unhealthy for the rest of its life.

Dr. Margaret Somerville, of McGill University's Centre for Medicine, Ethics and the Law, said: "This is the single greatest power we have had up to this point, the power to create life, and we are blithely going ahead.

"There is something to be said for not crossing these boundaries. Every human being has the right to be an individual and the right to be a surprise to themselves."

Father Gino Concetti, a moral theologian whose views are thought to reflect those of Pope John Paul, reiterated the Vatican's opposition. "These proposals contradict the truth of mankind, man's dignity, man's rights ... especially the right to be conceived in the human way," Fr. Concetti said.

Life, an anti-abortion charity, condemned the plans but said it was inevitable that someone would try.

Dr. Antinori hit back and said, "Cloning creates ordinary children." They would be "unique individuals, not photocopies of individuals," he said.

Most scientists dismiss the new project as doomed to fail because the lead scientists do not have the necessary expertise in cloning. Dr. Antinori has only a dozen or so scientific papers to his name; Dr. Zavos has published about two dozen papers, mostly in obscure journals.

The team said they would start work within weeks, but for security reasons would not say where they will set up the cloning clinic, other than that it will be in an undisclosed Mediterranean country.

Dr. Zavos added that they have unlimited funds from private donors but again would not elaborate. "We have plenty of money, I can assure you. There are no financial restrictions," he said.

Dr. Zavos said he was determined governments should develop further legislation on human cloning to keep it under control, but at the same time said his experiments should not be subject to government scrutiny.

"We don't want the government involved in this project," he said. "This is a high-tech project and we're not going to bring in the technocrats if they are not needed."