Fertility expert: 'I can clone a human being'

[Cronopio]

Source: The Independent

A controversial fertility doctor claimed yesterday to have cloned 14 human embryos and transferred 11 of them into the wombs of four women who had been prepared to give birth to cloned babies.

The cloning was recorded by an independent documentary film-maker who has testified to The Independent that the cloning had taken place and that the women were genuinely hoping to become pregnant with the first cloned embryos specifically created for the purposes of human reproduction.

Panayiotis Zavos has broken the ultimate taboo of transferring cloned embryos into the human womb, a procedure that is a criminal offence in Britain and illegal in many other countries. He carried out the work at a secret lab-oratory, probably located in the Middle East where there is no cloning ban. Dr Zavos, a naturalised American, also has fertility clinics in Kentucky and Cyprus, where he was born. His patients – three married couples and a single woman – came from Britain, the United States and an unspecified country in the Middle East.

None of the embryo transfers led to a viable pregnancy but Dr Zavos said yesterday that this was just the "first chapter" in his ongoing and serious attempts at producing a baby cloned from the skin cells of its "parent". ...


Read more: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/fertility-expert-i-can-clone-a-human-being-1672095.html

[Norquist Nemesis]

1. Can I order a Brad Pitt clone?

[SKKY]

32. I believe I have a lower number than you! Back of the line!!! You'll get your Brad Pitt...

...after I get my Salma Hayek!!!!

[jobycom]

2. Big deal. I can make entirely new ones in about 30 minutes. An hour when I'm motivated. nt

[napi21]

3. I really hope this will never happen! It does nothing but prormoite

the RW fears, and accomplishes nothing! I sure don't want a clone of me, or anyone else I know! Sure there are beautiful women and aweshou men, but I still want everyone to be an individual with their own attributes!

[Posteritatis]

4. They'd be individuals with their own attributes anyway

They wouldn't be movie clones that come out of the evil vats with identical personalities and hairstyles and so on.

[napi21]

5. How do you know that? From the little I've seen, clones are identical.

Pwesonality...I have no ideam but cloning humans is a turn off to me. I've read about the sheep etc. and for one reason or another, they all died fairly soon. I just don't think this is somewhere we should go.

[Posteritatis]

6. I know that because reality isn't bad science fiction (nt)

[napi21]

7. I can't tell the ddiff between one sheep and another...or thir personality!

How can you?

[Posteritatis]

10. Quite easily, because I know personality isn't exclusively genetic

Anyone who thinks that a clone of a person's going to have the same personality and so on as the original needs to lay off the bad science fiction and either read a few real books or meet some identical twins. Seriously, this "argument" is ridiculous.

[MrsBrady]

26. current research says

that genetic factors have huge impact on almost all personality traits.
That really surprised me. I'm taking psychology right now.

Also, there's a general consensus among most researchers that there are 5 main personality traits (that have polar opposites),
that they believe are mostly genetically inherited.

Now, environment, social influences, etc...will impact how that plays out.
But apparently the genetic factor is enormous.

pretty interesting stuff.

[whopis01]

31. Have you never met a pair of twins before?

Can you not tell the difference between them?

[muriel_volestrangler]

13. They'd be more different from their 'parent' than identical twins are from each other

While their nuclear DNA would be identical, the influences of the birth mother's metabolism during the pregnancy would be a bit different (when they are the same for twins); and then their upbringing would be very different.

It all just seems pointless to me, though. I don't see that a copy of one person's DNA is needed. It's a lot of effort to go to just to get one more human being. And you're right about possible health issues - either because the DNA used for the nucleus has already suffered a certain amount of damage through the multiple copying that got it to be a skin cell or wherever it came from, or because of the process needed to insert it into an unfertilised egg and persuade it to start dividing.

[snooper2]

33. You don't know how twins are created eh?

:)

[Norrin Radd]

8. Send in the clones.

Whatever we think of it, it'll come to pass. Welcome to your Science Fiction future/present.

[Mithreal]

9. This fertility expert is a lil bit of a liar. An embryo is not a human being. nt

[Botany]

22. I call bullshit on this one too

According to the best reporting on cloning any cloning of even the "simple monkeys" much less the great
apes all resorted in spontaneous abortions ...... also most all of the mammals cloned had very very short
life spans.

[Kablooie]

11. Cool! Let's get some Aryans and make a master race!

Or... Maybe not.

[47of74]

12. There's more important work to be done than that...

Such as figuring out how to clone a real human heart for Republicans rather than the dried up old pieces of dog s--t that most of them have in there now.

[Hekate]

14. Sorry, Dr Mad Scientist, but a womb is still not a Xerox machine. Sooner or later it's all about ego

It's like some guy who wants his son to follow *exactly* in the old man's footsteps and woe betide him if he doesn't. Every human born is unique, even identical twins. If you were to clone quadruplets and have them born as singletons in different years (for maximum health) to be raised by the same parents, they would still start as little babies and end up as different people.

Who among us thinks we are that rare and perfect, that we should be cloned? I surely don't. Let the gene pool of all creation remain as diverse as possible, for the health of all species.

Hekate

[FloridaJudy]

15. Do NOT allow this guy

Anywhere near Octomom. They're both batshit bonkers, and I shudder to think of what they could come up with together.

[tomreedtoon]

16. The true rebirth of the Republican Party!

And can you realize how hard it was to get some viable sperm from Dick Cheney? Do you know how many Young Republicans had to volunteer to be shot in the face before he could show a sufficient level of sexual excitement?

[comtec]

20. EEEIIIUWUWWW I did NOT need that image

NOW I need to clean out my 3rd eye with steel wool!
Thanks a lot!

[Cronopio]

30. I suspect it's similar to the technique Bill Hicks described to get Rush Limbaugh excited. nt

[dipsydoodle]

17. If he made an odd number of GWB's

They could be sold as book ends.

[ZombieHorde]

18. There is another way to make people which is even more fun. nt

[Lasher]

19. Not much different from in vitro fertilization, if you think about it.

At least philosophically speaking.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_Im3_DDT_eKc/SFa27ENOYKI/AAAAAAAACH4/FUFk8vEQAaU/s400/Internet+Clones.jpg

[Soylent Brice]

21. ONE STEP CLOSER TO MY EVIL PLANS!!!!

muah hahahahahahahaa!!!

[proud2BlibKansan]

23. Swell

Something else for the pro-life before birthers to be upset about.

[JayMusgrove]

24. IF he's going to do this, let's make a list of people to clone...like

a couple dozen Barack Obama's

[twitomy]

25. "Brave New World" Anyone?

I fail to see any redeeming value of this.

The fact that animal clones tend to have issues and early death should give pause, especially to

those who are against GMO crops as it is in the same realm..Do we want potentially flawed genetics

propogating in the human race?

[mbperrin]

27. With millions of existing children in critical need of life-saving care,

and literally billions on the edge of survival, we do need people who are so proud of their particular DNA that they want it - and only it - splattered around.

Ah, well, at least he didn't really do anything. I mean, dead embryos are not that tough to do - many are created at home by folks with very little training at all.

The number of unabashed narcissists in the world is truly astounding....

[marshall]

28. Roll some more Bill Clintons and Barack Obamas off the assembly lines!

Get ready for the next 50 years!

[Phoonzang]

29. Uh huh? People can clone other animals, why not humans?

Oh right...I forgot. The "soul". Yeah...that's it.

[Akoto]

34. Look out, Jedi! They're really evil! n/t

[sofa king]

35. Wake me up when I can get a houndstooth patterned beagle.

Just like abortion and contraception, there is simply no way that cloning will be successfully prevented. There will simply be too much demand for anyone to prevent its ever-increasing use and availability.

I expect cloning to be extremely popular among socially conservative leaning families. Eventually, the goin'-to-hellishness of it will fade, and the conservatives will go for the safer bet of bringing to term someone they know. I'll bet that in twenty five years there will be five thousand little Sean Hannitys bullying kids in schoolyards around the country.