ZGram - 7/16/2002 - "Revising the genetic odds?"
irimland@zundelsite.org
irimland@zundelsite.org
Tue, 16 Jul 2002 22:41:18 -0700
First Human Clone To Be
Born In December
7-16-2
PARIS (Sapa-DPA) - The first human created by cloning is scheduled to
be born in December, said controversial Italian doctor Severino
Antinori in an interview with the French newspaper Liberation on
Friday.
Antinori said 50 couples unable to conceive because of masculine
infertility had volunteered for his cloning programme.
"I transferred 18 embryos created by cloning, and I obtained one
pregnancy," he said. "The foetus has a good morphology."
With the embryo created by using tissue from the father, the child
will presumably be his exact genetic duplicate, and his twin, if male.
Helping a 62-year-old woman become the oldest mother everAt the time
the interview was carried out, at the beginning of July, the foetus
was in its fifteenth week, making a December birth likely if the
pregnancy is carried to term.
Antinori refused to divulge the identity of the parents, saying only
that the baby would not be born in Italy.
A professor at the university of Torvergata, Antinori made headlines
in the past by helping a 62-year-old woman become the oldest mother
ever.
In addition, at a medical conference held last year in Rome, he
declared that he would clone a human being within a year.
Researchers have since warned that humans born of cloning would
suffer from a number of physical abnormalities, including fatty
livers, under-developed lungs and a defective immune system.
In the Liberation interview, Antinori defended his work with cloning
by saying that "the technique could enable men without any
spermatozoids, with no sex cells, to have a child".
He claimed that 120 million men around the world currently suffered
from this form of sterility.
http://www.itechnology.co.za/index.php?click_id=79&art_id=qw1026467640892B216&se
t_id=1