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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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