A controversial scientist, associated with a cult which believes aliens cloned humans, announced the birth Friday of world's first cloned baby, raising the debate on human cloning to a new level.
The 3.2-kilogram baby girl named Eve was born at 11:55 a.m. " in the country where she was born. She is fine." Brigitte Boisselier, science director of Clonaid, told a press conference held in Florida, the United States.
Clonaid was established in February 1997 by Raelians, a religious group which said first humans on earth were created 25,000 years ago by extra-terrestrials who cloned themselves.
Boisselier, a former French research chemist who is also a member of Raelians, refused to disclose where Eve was born but did reveal that the girl is a clone of a 31-year-old American woman who donated DNA for cloning and carried the baby.
Eve was created using the mother's skin cells and the baby "is fine" and will come home in three days, Boisselier said.
The baby is the result of one of the 10 implantations done by Clonaid and more clones are expected from the firm which called itself the world's "first human cloning company."
According to Boisselier, Clonaid's next baby clone is due next week in Europe and three other cloned human babies should be born by early February in Asia and North America.
At the press conference, Boisselier offered no picture or other immediate proof of the identify of Eve, although she promised to allow independent experts to test whether the mother and the daughter match genetically.
The results will come out in "8 to 9 days," said Boisselier, who also defended human cloning as the hope of infertile parents.
"Is my science, giving babies to parents who have been dying to get one with their own genes, is my science worse than the ones who are preparing bombs to kill people?" she said. "I am creating life."
However, her claims were met with skepticism and condemnation from mainstream scientists, who said the lack of evidence leaves the birth of Eve scientifically unsupported.
Human cloning for reproductive purposes is now banned in several countries and many scientists oppose cloning to produce humans, saying the low success rate in animals and a high rate of unexplained defects among the cloned offspring prove that human cloning is risky and unacceptable.
(Xinhua News Agency December 28, 2002)
