Despite Warnings, 3 Vow to Go Ahead on Human Cloning
BY SHERYL GAY STOLBERG

WASHINGTON, Aug. 7 - Despite warnings from leading experts that the experiments in human cloning would inevitably lead to babies that are deformed, or die soon after birth, a fertility doctor, a chemist and a scientist-entrepreneur nevertheless vowed today to press ahead with separate efforts to create the first cloned human being.

"This will be done," said the chemist, Dr. Brigitte Boisselier, who directs a company in the Bahamas and is a member of a religious sect, the Raelians, for whom human cloning is a goal.

The entrepreneur, Dr. Panayiotis Michael Zavos, who runs laboratories in Kentucky, conceded there were hurdles to be overcome but said, "We are determined to get there."

Drs. Boisselier and Zavos made their remarks at a symposium convened by the National Academy of Sciences, an independent research organization that has established a panel of experts to study the science of cloning. They were joined by Dr. Severino Antinori, an Italian fertility specialist who gained notice in the mid-1990's by using in vitro fertilization to help a 62-year-old woman have a baby.

Because all three operate in secret, it is difficult to assess how serious they are or whether their assertions are realistic. Only Dr. Boisselier hinted that she had tried human cloning, and even she stopped short of saying she had done so.

Some scientists at the symposium complained privately that by inviting the cloning proponents to appear at the meeting, the academy had given them a platform they did not deserve. These scientists were clearly disturbed by the proponents' remarks.

"I think they are serious," said Dr. Alan Colman, director of PPL Therapeutics, a biotechnology company that collaborated in the creation of Dolly the sheep, the first and most famous clone of an adult mammal. "I think they will fail, but one of the problems about the fact that they do it all in private is that we won't hear about the failures."

The comments of the cloning proponents, coming a week after the House of Representatives voted to ban cloning even for medical research, will undoubtedly inflame the debate over the wisdom of creating babies that are genetic replicas of adults. But while the House debate focused on the ethics and morality of cloning, today's discussion focused almost exclusively on science.

The consensus among the panel and most of those who testified before it was that cloning people was not safe, given that when clones were born a high proportion died soon after birth and many survivors were plagued with genetic problems.

"We are seeing a great range of abnormalities," said Dr. Ian Wilmut, who as director of the Roslin Institute in Scotland led the effort to clone Dolly. "We should expect a similar outcome if people attempt to produce a cloned human."

Dolly's birth was announced in 1997. In the years since, scientists have succeeded in cloning five species of mammals: sheep, goats, pigs, mice and cows. Dr. Wilmut said 18 percent of cloned mice died; among goats, the figure is 38 percent.

Those numbers, however, did not appear to deter the proponents of human cloning.

Cloning, also called nuclear transfer, involves taking genetic material from an adult's cell and slipping it into a woman's egg whose nucleus has been removed. In theory, the technique could be used to treat infertility in cases in which the man cannot produce sperm. That is the scenario that Dr. Antinori said he envisions. Dr. Zavos said he would use cloning only to help infertile couples who could not conceive in any other way.

But Dr. Boisselier went further, saying cloning was a basic human right. "It is our own choice to use our genes the way we want," she said.

The three cloning proponents said they would screen embryos for genetic abnormalities; but animal cloning experts countered that there was no way to test a cloned embryo in advance to predict whether it will result in a healthy birth. When Dr. Boisselier claimed to have devised such a test, Dr. Alan Trounson, an Australian embryologist, dismissed her assertion as "ludicrous," adding, "I don't think that is at all possible."

Gatherings at the National Academy of Sciences, which advises Congress on scientific matters, are usually staid affairs. But today's seminar was more like a circus than an academic gathering; at one point, a horde of television cameras followed Dr. Antinori to the bathroom.

On stage, the debate was passionate. When Dr. Mark Siegler, a professor of medicine at the University of Chicago who teaches bioethics, asked Dr. Zavos what it would take to dissuade him from cloning a person, Dr. Zavos replied, "If we cannot do it right, we will not do it."

Dr. Siegler complained that he was not satisfied with that answer. "Well," Dr. Zavos said angrily, "that's all you're going to get."

Dr. Irving L. Weissman, a professor of cancer biology at Stanford University and chairman of the panel of experts, suggested that today's meeting served as a warning of sorts to Dr. Zavos and the others.

"This was one way to inform them of the animal science," Dr. Weissman said. "Now they're informed."

Although cloning for reproduction is legal in the United States, the Food and Drug Administration has asserted jurisdiction over human cloning experiments and has received a written agreement from at least one scientist, Dr. Boisselier, not to pursue them in this country.

An American investor in Dr. Boisselier's company, Clonaid, recently pulled out, and its lab in the United States has closed. But she said the cloning would continue in another country, which she would not name.

And R. Alta Charo, a professor of law and bioethics at the University of Wisconsin, told the panel that cloning attempts would go on, regardless of whether the United States or any other country makes it a crime.

"We haven't been able to outlaw human slavery yet," Professor Charo said, "let alone human cloning."

The New York Times, August 9, 2001