In December 2002 the Raelians, a religious
sect who believe that humans have been cloned by aliens, announced
that the first ever human clone had been born. Clonaid, the organisation
responsible, announced that a baby girl had been born who is a clone
of her 31 year old American mother. Later another birth to a Dutch
lesbian couple was announced.
However, in spite of all the hype, there has been no scientific
evidence that these babies are in fact clones at all. A DNA analysis
of mother and baby is all that is needed, but so far none has been
done. The reasons for this keep changing, but until there is clear
evidence from an independent source that the Clonaid babies really
are clones, the majority of the scientific community and the world
at large remains very sceptical.
Another strand to the human cloning story involves Panayiotis Zavos,
a reproductive scientist who has produced a human clone for reproductive
purposes. He produced the embryo by somatic cell nuclear transfer,
the same technique that resulted in Dolly the sheep. The embryo
grew for four days, reaching 8 to 10 cells in size, before it was
frozen for further research. Unlike most researchers into human
cloning, Zavos is actively looking to help infertile women by cloning
babies.
Most countries which have any legislation on research into embryos
have banned human reproductive cloning – and many,
including the United States, have banned human cloning even for
stem cell research.
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