Clone Proof On Hold

The parents of a newborn claimed to be the world's first cloned human are said to be having doubts about whether to allow DNA testing on the child.

The cloning company, Clonaid, says the parents need 48 hours to decide if they will allow DNA testing on the baby girl, claimed to be the first human clone, reports CBS News Correspondent Elaine Cobbe.

Clonaid spokesperson Brigitte Boisselier told French television the parents are afraid authorities in Florida will take the child away from them.

But skeptical scientists say only independent DNA testing can verify if the baby really is a clone.
The cloning company is linked to a Canada-based sect that believes humans were created by aliens from outer space.

Clonaid says a second clone is due to be born somewhere in Europe this week. Boisselier had previously said that three additional couples were expected to give birth to Clonaid-created clones by early February.

Clonaid has refused to identify the parents or offer any proof that the child - nicknamed "Eve" - is a clone. But the company had promised DNA test results to confirm their claim by around the end of this week.

Attempts by The Associated Press to reach Michael Guillen, the freelance journalist who was arranging the DNA testing, were not successful Thursday. A spokeswoman for Clonaid said she was not familiar with Boisselier's broadcast remarks and was unable to comment Thursday.

Earlier this week, a court in Florida was asked to turn the baby over to state care if it found the baby's health was in danger. Though Clonaid has kept secret the baby's whereabouts, the company held its news conference to announce the clone's birth in Florida, which could give the court jurisdiction, argued lawyer Bernard F. Siegel.

"That is a lot of turbulence for the parents (who) have gone home and just want to have some peace and spend time with their children," said Boisselier.

Clonaid, which declines to reveal where its facilities are, was founded in the Bahamas in 1997 by the man who founded the Raelian religious sect. The man, Rael, says he learned about the origin of life on Earth from a visitor from outer space. He says he views cloning as a step toward reaching eternal life.

Clonaid retains philosophical but not economic ties to the Raelians, the company says.

Cloning produces a new individual using only one person's DNA. The process is technically difficult but conceptually simple. Scientists remove the genetic material from an unfertilized egg, then introduce new DNA from a cell of the animal to be cloned. Under the proper conditions, the egg begins dividing into new cells according to the instructions in the introduced DNA.

So far scientists have succeeded in cloning sheep, mice, cows, pigs, goats and cats. Last year, scientists in Massachusetts produced cloned human embryos with the intention of using them as a source of stem cells, but the cloned embryos never grew bigger than six cells.

Human cloning for reproductive purposes is banned in several countries. There is no specific law against it in the United States, but the Food and Drug Administration contends it must approve any human experiments in this country.

The House passed a bill in 2001 making it illegal to "perform or attempt to perform human cloning … participate in an attempt to perform human cloning … (or) ship or receive for any purpose an embryo produced by human cloning or any product derived from such embryo." The Senate has yet to act on a ban. It is considered one of the president's priorities for the next session of Congress.

Many scientists oppose cloning to produce humans, saying it's too risky because of abnormalities seen in cloned animals.

Moral issues are also paramount in the debate. While advocates of cloning say it has the potential to create organs for life-saving transplant operations, opponents — many of them also opposed to abortion rights — believe cloning interferes with natural law.

In addition, some object because the process of cloning could involve "the creation and destruction of human embryos on a massive scale," says the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.