It鈥檚 clone-mania again, for the second time in just a few weeks. This time, it鈥檚 fertility expert , founder of the private Zavos Organization in Lexington, Kentucky, claiming that he made 14 human cloned embryos and transferred 11 of them into the wombs of women.
None of the embryos survived this time (allegedly), but 鈥渢he cloned child is coming鈥�, newspaper in the UK. 鈥淭here is absolutely no way that it will not happen.鈥�
Last month, we had the spectacle of Italian fertility expert Severino Antinori鈥檚 assertion that three clones already exist: two boys and a girl. He told Italy鈥檚 Oggi magazine that the children are now nine years old and living in eastern Europe.
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But as usual, he provided no scientific proof to confirm that they were indeed clones. Nor did he submit any scientific data for publication. How on earth are we supposed to believe these claims?
Caught on film?
Zavos, to his credit, does submit material for publication, and, in 2003, had a paper published reporting that he had produced the world鈥檚 first human cloned embryo intended for reproduction. He later revealed that the procedure hadn鈥檛 worked.
Subsequently, he reported having produced hybrid cloned embryos by combining human cells with cow eggs.
Now we have the latest claims. The 鈥渆vidence鈥� this time is that all the procedures were filmed by an independent film crew. Their footage will be shown tonight on the Discovery Channel.
How much of it is true? Who knows? Still, the whole media circus surrounding the claims and the way that these 鈥減ioneers鈥� court publicity always leaves a sour taste in the mouth.
Monumental motivation
It doesn鈥檛 help that the latest coverage includes a picture of a little girl killed in a car crash 鈥� and whose cells were cloned through hybridisation purely for study 鈥� alongside a headline in the paper describing her as 鈥淭he little girl who could 鈥榣ive鈥� again鈥�.
This perpetuates the cruel myth and widespread misconception that cloning is a way of raising the dead. In fact, if it worked, it would simply be a way of creating an identical twin of whoever was cloned, but separated in time.
Zavos says that his goal is to help infertile couples who can鈥檛 have babies naturally, so that at least one of the parents can be reproduced as a twin of themselves through cloning. 鈥淚 get enquiries every day. To date, we have had over 100 enquiries and every enquiry is serious,鈥� he told The Independent.
I鈥檓 sure his motivation to help is genuine, but how much of what drives him 鈥� and those like him 鈥� is the more mercenary desire to go down in history as the first scientist to do something monumental?
Ethical debate
Whether Zavos succeeds or not, there鈥檚 universal agreement among most mainstream fertility and cloning experts that reproductive cloning is too dangerous to attempt, both for the mother and for any babies created.
Experience in animals has demonstrated time and time again that the technique usually fails: many embryos are malformed, and many are abnormally oversized, posing risks both to offspring and mother. Whether it would be 鈥渆thical鈥�, if incontrovertibly safe, is a whole new debate. But there鈥檚 no doubt that if a cloned baby is ever verifiably produced, the scientist behind it will achieve lifelong fame 鈥� or possibly infamy.
My solution to all this hoopla is to send all the would-be cloners off to an isolated island and leave them there with no other means to reproduce except by cloning each other. That way, they could share in one another鈥檚 glory for eternity and leave the rest of us in peace.
