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By BBC News Online's Alex Kirby
A private
consortium of scientists plans to clone a human being within the
next two years.
The group
says it will use the technique only for helping infertile couples
with no other opportunity to become parents.
It is time
for us to develop the package in a responsible manner
One
member said the group hoped to produce the world's first baby
clone within 12 to 24 months.
It was founded
by an Italian physician, Dr Severino Antinori, whose work includes
trying to help post-menopausal women to become pregnant.
A spokesman
for the group is Panos Zavos, professor of reproductive physiology
at the University of Kentucky, US.
No alternative
He said it
would "develop guidelines with which the technology cannot
be indiscriminately applied for anybody who wants to clone themselves".
As with animal
cloning, he said, the technology would involve injecting genetic
material from the father into the mother's egg, which would then
be implanted in her womb.
"The
effort will be to assist couples that have no other alternatives
to reproduce and want to have their own biological child, not
somebody else's eggs or sperm", Professor Zavos said.
He said he
believed human cloning was achievable. It could at first cost
$50,000 or more, but he hoped that could come down to around the
cost of in vitro fertilisation, about $10,000 to $20,000.
Professor
Zavos said he was well aware of the ethical dimensions of the
project.
"The
world has to come to grips [with the fact] that the cloning technology
is almost here," he said. "The irony about it is that
there are so many people that are attempting to do it, and they
could be doing it even as we speak in their garages.
"It is
time for us to develop the package in a responsible manner, and
make the package available to the world. I think I have faith
in the world that they will handle it properly."
'Irresponsible'
plan
But the plans
of Professor Zavos and his colleagues received an unenthusiastic
response in the UK.
Dr Harry Griffin
is assistant director of the Roslin Institute, Scotland, which
successfully cloned Dolly the sheep.
He told BBC
News Online: "It would be wholly irresponsible to try to
clone a human being, given the present state of the technology.
"The
success rate with animal cloning is about one to two per cent
in the published results, and I think lower than that on average.
I don't know anyone working in this area who thinks the rate will
easily be improved.
"There
are many cases where the cloned animal dies late in pregnancy
or soon after birth.
"The
chances of success are so low it would be irresponsible to encourage
people to think there's a real prospect. The risks are too great
for the woman, and of course for the child.
"I remain
opposed to the idea of cloning human beings. Even if it were possible
and safe - which it's not - it wouldn't be in the interest of
the child to be a copy of its parent."
Tom Horwood,
of the Catholic Media Office in London, told BBC News Online:
"A lot of our objections come down to questions of technique.
'Morally
abhorrent'
"But
beyond that, cloning human beings is inconsistent with their dignity,
and involves seeing them as a means, not an end.
"The
scientists involved in the project are planning a conference in
Rome to explain their plans.
"I don't
think you'll start getting lots of papal pronouncements just because
they're meeting in Rome.
"The
reaction in the Vatican will be the same as everywhere else -
that the project is morally abhorrent and ethically very dubious."
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