Doctor says cloned baby is near birth
Italian fertility doctor Severino Antinori during an interview at his practice in Rome last year.
NBC's Robert Bazell discusses the latest reports about human cloning on MSNBC TV with host Lester Holt.
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ROME, Nov. 26 — A controversial Italian fertility specialist said Tuesday that he expects the first-ever cloned human being to be born in January. The specialist, Severino Antinori, made his latest claim at a news conference in Rome, sparking a new round of controversy and skepticism.
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IN THE PAST, Antinori has made similar claims of pregnancies in his hush-hush human cloning program. Tuesday’s claim, however, was the first to hint that a cloned fetus appeared to be viable and was nearing birth.
“It’s the 33rd week,” said Antinori, who runs a fertility clinic in Rome. “I expect the birth for the first week of January.”
Antinori said he could not give any more details about the procedure other than to say the embryo was “in a good condition.”
“From the estimates made by our consortium, we expect the birth for the first week of January. The child weighs 2.6 or 2.7 kilos (5.75 pounds); it means his weight at the birth will be 3.5 or 3.3 kilos (7.5 pounds),” he said.
When asked whether he would disclose where the birth would take place, Antinori said: “No. Absolutely. I need to respect this project and these people.”
In May, Antinori said three women were pregnant with clones, one in her 10th week, one in her seventh and one in her sixth. He declined at the time to say where any of the trio was, disclosing only that one lived in an Islamic nation. Antinori did not specify Tuesday whether the woman he said was due to give birth in January was one of the three he had spoken of earlier.
TRACK RECORD
The 55-year-old embryologist was previously best known for his work relating to in vitro fertilization — notably for enabling women in their 50s and 60s to have children. He made world headlines in 1994 when he helped a 62-year-old woman have a child, and supports the cloning of human beings as a way for infertile couples to have children.
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Antinori declined to give the age of the mother in the purported cloning case. “I can only say that the embryo is in a good condition, everything is OK. There is no pulmonary (breathing) activity, but this is normal: No child has pulmonary activity in the 33rd week of life.”
Many in the scientific community have challenged Antinori’s statements in the past that women have been pregnant with cloned babies — and Tuesday’s claim was met with the same level of skepticism.
“I don’t trust a lot of what he’s said,” observed Dr. Arthur Caplan, director of the University of Pennsylvania’s Center for Bioethics.
Most scientists reject human cloning as irresponsible, saying that the risk of creating deformed or sick babies is too great. Caplan noted that in animal experiments, there are hundreds of unsuccessful tries for every cloning success. Caplan said that track record implies that Antinori is facing long odds, and that reproductive cloning was not likely to provide a realistic option for infertile couples who want children.
“I don’t think this technology is ready to use for that purpose,” Caplan said. “It’s not safe. ... To me, this is really playing with fire.”
Some researchers worried that Antinori’s claims would stir new controversy in the wider debate over cloning research.
“I don’t know any reputable scientific organization that supports attempting to create a child using any of the cloning techniques,” said Sean Tipton, vice president for communications for the Washington-based Coalition for the Advancement of Medical Research. “There’s no question that announcements like Dr. Antinori’s can make it more difficult for us to protect the very important, legitimate scientific work that needs to occur with embryonic stem cells.”
Tipton said the effort spearheaded by Antinori “just lends fuel to the fire of those who would like to outlaw these techniques because they could possibly be used in an attempt to create a child.”
Most researchers draw a sharp distinction between so-called therapeutic cloning, where the object of the process is to produce human embryonic stem cells for medical use; and reproductive cloning, which would in effect produce a nearly identical twin from an individual’s genetic information.
Several researchers have dropped hints that they were pursuing secret projects in reproductive human cloning. “Antinori is the one person I think is possibly or even probably doing it,” said Randy Wicker, president of the New York-based Human Cloning Foundation.
Even assuming that Antinori’s claims are true, Wicker said it was a “risky thing” to make an announcement now, since serious problems could still arise in the coming weeks.
“He’s painted himself in such a corner,” Wicker said. “In the next two months, he’s either going to have to deliver or have egg on his face.”
And even if a healthy baby is born, its status as a clone could not be confirmed until genetic tests are conducted, experts said.