Italian Plans Human Cloning Experiment
Doctor Would Use 200 Women In Attempt To Clone Baby
ROME, Italy, 5:41 p.m. EDT August 6, 2001 -- When Dolly the sheep was cloned by Scottish scientists four years ago, the next logical question started: how long until humans are cloned?
"We are planning to do the first cloning effort and this is to clone human embryos and have viable embryos ready for transfer," infertility specialist Dr. Panayiotis Zavos said.
Zavos is an associate of controversial Italian doctor Severino Antinori. Antinori is expected to unveil his plans before the National Association of Sciences in Washington, D.C. on Tuesday, according to CNN.com. He is expected to say that he hopes to begin a human cloning program in November using 200 infertile couples.
Zavos, an infertility specialist and researcher, told affiliate Web site ClickOnDetroit.com during an interview at his lab in Kentucky about human cloning, and just how much of a reality it is.
"The techonology today is like a big genie coming out of big bottle and you cannot put it back," Zavos said.
Zavos told CNN that the announcement would be made on Tuesday though he stressed that it would be an "attempt" and it required the women to actually become pregnant.
Zavos has devoted almost a quarter of a century to developing new technologies. He's working closely with Antinori to clone humans.
While Zavos says it hasn't happened yet, some say it has already happened. Researchers in South Korea insist they've already cloned a human embryo, but destroyed it before implanting it into a surrogate mother.
But the big question is why clone a human?
"The reason for cloning a human being is, very simply, to assist infertile couples who have exhausted... all (other) avenues or possibilites for (having) a child of their own or (one) that is a biological child on their own," Zavos said.
There are many people who are opposed to human cloning. They contend it's morally wrong and dangerous.
"Very few of the cloned animal embryos implanted in a surrogate mother animal survive, the others die in utero, sometimes very late in pregnancy or die very soon thereafter," Dr. Thomas Okarma said.
Okarma is CEO of Geron Corporation, a biopharmaceutical company.
Critics insist that there were many mistakes when Scottish scientists cloned Dolly the sheep, mistakes that could happen with human cloning as well.
There was only one successful birth from 29 cloned embryos.
Zavos says he and Antinori won't make the same mistakes.
"You're not looking at a mad scientist here, you're looking at somebody who's very grounded, well focused and very determined to get this done and do it right. We are determined to do it right or we will not do it."
The debate continues, including a push for President George W. Bush to ban human cloning in the United States. Right now, several states do ban the procedure. But Zavos said he'll go elsewhere. He already has a list of thousands of infertile couples who are willing to be cloned in order to have a child.
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