Amidst severe criticism, Italian doctor Severino Antinori is scheduled
to start a cloning program in November in which he will impregnate up to
200 women with cloned embryos by the same method used to clone Dolly the
sheep five years ago. His desire is to help infertile couples who have no
other way to produce children. The technique involves inserting the
nucleus of a cell from the father into the prospective mother's egg
cell after the egg's nucleus has been removed. The embryo will
therefore contain genetic material from both mother and father and
will be implanted into the mother's womb.
There is great opposition to human cloning from scientists and politicians as
well as from groups with ethical concerns. The House of Representatives voted
last week to completely ban all human cloning in the United States.
Because of similar sentiments in other countries, Antinori is considering moving
the cloning project onto a boat in international waters to avoid the laws of any
one country.
Besides the moral and ethical issues raised simply by the prospect of doing
research on human beings, however small or young, there is also concern that the
embryos that survive implantation will still face high risks of miscarriage,
stillbirth, or physical disability. Dolly, the famous cloned sheep born in
1997, was the only successful birth out of hundreds of embryos. Many other
animals have been cloned since, with a great deal of waste in the process.
Even when the embryos survive pregnancy and birth, they may still die
unexpectedly, as did the calves born at a CSU farm earlier this
year. Dolly, though strong and young physically has been shown to
have 'old' chromosomes. If any human clones survive pregnancy and birth,
they will have a substantially high risk of chromosomal abnormalities, poor
immune systems and other physical and genetic defects.
Antinori has stated, "We have the techniques we need. We will never allow a
deformed child to be born." Dr. Peter Brinsden, a medical
doctor at a leading fertility center nearCambridge, disagrees with
Antinori. He resigned from a group advising Antinori with the
statement, "It is still too early." While Dr. Antinori has good
intentions, the experiments will likely produce hundreds of dead children and
disappointed, childless couples.
