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Cloning claim disputed by leading genetic scientist
This is a transcript from PM. The program is broadcast around Australia at 5:10pm on Radio National and 6:10pm on ABC Local Radio.
You can also listen to the story in REAL AUDIO and WINDOWS MEDIA formats.
MARK COLVIN: The scientific community has dismissed claims by the maverick American scientist, Dr Panos Zavos, that he’s taken the first step towards cloning a dead human.
In a film to be aired on British TV this week, Dr Zavos is expected to claim that he’s inserted the DNA from two car accident victims into eggs from a cow.
The car crash victims were an 11 year-old-girl and a 33-year-old man.
Dr Zavos says the eggs then developed into embryos, which were not allowed to grow past 64 cells.
But one of Australia’s leading genetic scientists and IVF pioneers, Dr Alan Trounson, told Nick McKenzie that the claims were not only hard to believe, but dangerous.
ALAN TROUNSON: You couldn’t take them seriously, and he has a record of making claims that have never been substantiated by any scientific examination.
NICK MCKENZIE: Is it feasible that all that, if he was determined, or a determined scientist could actually put a dead human’s DNA into a cow’s egg and see it develop into an embryo? Is that a feasible scenario?
ALAN TROUNSON: It’s possible to put a cell from a human that was deceased into a cow’s egg, but whether you would produce an embryo, or whether you would produce a person I think is quite unlikely and I don’t think there’s any evidence – even in animal studies – that you could do that, even with endangered species, there’s a sort of large gap between what we could do with the cells of a deceased animal to clone them.
NICK MCKENZIE: The statement that this doctor has taken the first step to cloning a dead human being, do you think should be completely disregarded, or should we have an element of, ‘Well, we’ll wait and see what he has to produce to back up his claim?’
ALAN TROUNSON: No, I don’t think we should take any notice of this claim, I think he hasn’t given any evidence that he’s done this, he’s just simply said that that’s what he’s done.
NICK MCKENZIE: Can we knock the claim by Dr Panos Zavos say into the same group as the claims made by the Raelian group that they had cloned humans some time ago, although never came up with any proof?
ALAN TROUNSON: Yes, that’s exactly right. I don’t think they do any good whatsoever, and I think I and another scientist on record say that we think this is damaging and you know, we’re very much as a whole scientific community very much against it.
NICK MCKENZIE: Do you think it does actually confuse the issue of genetic engineering and IVF in people’s minds?
ALAN TROUNSON: I don’t think so, but, because I think what happens is that people understand these are spurious claims and they’re made by people who are seeking attention.
NICK MCKENZIE: Why do you think it is then, that Dr Panos Zavos, without proper corroboration or peer review, gets the coverage he does?
ALAN TROUNSON: I think it’s excessive and outrageous and I think the news media, some news media like to deal with it or discuss it or report it.
NICK MCKENZIE: In the case of Dr Panos, is it a case do you think of a man who wants to be seen in some regard as being some sort of a god or doing God’s work?
ALAN TROUNSON: I don’t know, I don’t know really what drives him, I think it’s simply attention in the media and not to such higher aspirations.
NICK MCKENZIE: You yourself in your work have come up against, when you’ve tried to ensure the lawmakers allow you to do some of your more controversial work, have come up against hurdles where politicians either for moral or religious reasons to them have tried to stop you doing certain aspects of your scientific work.
Is there a danger that the Dr Panos Zavos of this world will give fuel to the fire so to speak for those who try to stop the more reasonable aspects of genetic engineering?
ALAN TROUNSON: No, I don’t think so. I think people are intelligent enough to identify the merits of genuine medicine, and research that might help people recover from serious genetic and other pathological diseases, and outrageous claims about cloning dead people, I think people understand the difference between those two things.
MARK COLVIN: Genetic scientist, Dr Alan Trounson, talking to Nick McKenzie.
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