Fertility expert: 'I can clone a human being'

[IDemo]

Controversial doctor filmed creating embryos before injecting them into wombs of women wanting cloned babies

By Steve Connor, Science Editor

Wednesday, 22 April 2009

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 laboratory, 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".

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

Edited to note: "independent documentary film-maker" != New England Journal of Medicine.

[MADem]

1. You forgot the link...! nt

[IDemo]

2. fixed, thanks

[ddeclue]

3. Cue the creepy sci-fi music...

:hide:

[cliffordu]

4. Let's try Cheney for War crimes and execute him. Then we'll clone him

and charge THAT little motherfucker for war crimes, too.

[RB TexLa]

5. Why would this be illegal?

[BlooInBloo]

6. Fear, rooted in the fertile ground of religion and stupidity.

[Occam Bandage]

11. It's not fair to give a baby worn-out telomeres.

[MADem]

7. I KNEW this guy sounded .... familiar!!!!!!

Hasn't he made similar claims before?

A. In 2004, Dr Zavos claimed to have transferred a cloned human embryo into a woman's womb but did not produce hard evidence. He has now produced more cloned human embryos, some at an advanced stage, and transferred them into the wombs of three more women. An independent documentary maker vouches for him.

[Triana]

8. can != should

duh

[provis99]

9. So how long before some right-winger clones Hitler?

It will be like "The Boys from Brazil" in real life.

[ConcernedCanuk]

10. I believe this was done decades ago - no, I have no proof, just suspicion

.
.
.

Germans under Hitler were experimenting with many medical issues.

Yes, many , maybe even most were cruel and unethical.

But a lot of our methods and cures today come from those disgusting experiments.

Under Hitler, animals were cloned and specially bred.

I have no doubts that humans were attempted to be cloned, maybe even some successfully.

Hitler being a megalomaniac, I'm sure he tried to have himself cloned, or DNA preserved for future efforts.

GW Bush was born just under a year after Hitler died . . .

Makes me ponder.

. . :freak: . .

[Occam Bandage]

12. "Under Hitler, animals were cloned"

[citation needed]