鈥淭HEY need to offer to the world independent confirmation of these events and developments. We, in the Scientific and Clinical World鈥emand that.鈥� Thus did Panayiotis Zavos of the Andrology Institute of America in Lexington, Kentucky, greet the Raelians鈥� claim a year ago that a cloned baby had been born.
In London last Saturday, Zavos was the one trying to grab the headlines. He told reporters that his team had transferred a four-cell cloned embryo to a woman, but that it was too soon to know if she was pregnant.
Zavos claimed the embryo was created by fusing an egg from the woman with a skin cell from her infertile partner. The scientist was clearly offended by suggestions that he was no different to the Raelians, yet provided no evidence of any kind. At times his colourful, sometimes bizarre style provoked outright laughter from his sceptical audience.
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Zavos would not say where the transfer took place but instead he was breaking no laws. Most mainstream scientists regard attempts to clone humans as utterly unethical because of the high risk of abnormalities, and many think it would be unacceptable even if the technique were safe. Robert May, president of the UK鈥檚 Royal Society, this week called on countries to outlaw 鈥渃owboy cloners鈥�.