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 
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