A few weeks ago Panayiotis Zavos, a reproduction researcher formerly with the
University of Kentucky, and Italian fertility doctor Severino Antinori said that
they plan to clone a human baby within the next year, principally to help
infertile couples bare children.
The scientists responsible for the successful cloning of the sheep, Dolly,
told reporters that the idea of cloning human beings with these same techniques
is “dangerous and irresponsible,” and the resulting babies likely would die
early or suffer numerous abnormalities.
Rudolf Jaenisch and Ian Wilmut said in an article in Science, procedures that
have been used in cloning animals yield a very low percentage of viable embryos,
and many of these die soon after birth. “Any human baby who survives may
experience respiratory, circulatory, immune, kidney and brain abnormalities, and
evidence is beginning to suggest other developmental and genetic defects,” they
said.
