VOA News, Dec. 29, 2002
http://www.voanews.com/
The U.S.-based company that claims it has cloned a human baby girl says mother and child nicknamed “Eve” will arrive in the United States Monday.
The chief of Clonaid, Brigitte Boisselier, says she is giving no details on where the child was born or where she will be arriving to protect the family’s privacy.
Meanwhile, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration is investigating Clonaid to see if the company illegally carried out its alleged procedure on U.S. soil.
FDA officials say there is no specific law banning human cloning. But they say any such activities need FDA approval and stressed that the agency would not give the go-ahead for such experiments.
Cloniad’s claim has sparked outrage among leaders of most major religions and doubt in the scientific community, which calls it a hoax. Christian, Muslim, and Jewish leaders call human cloning unnatural and a violation of God’s laws.
President Bush and French President Jacques Chirac have also condemned Clonaid.
Clonaid has yet to show any proof of its claim that the healthy cloned baby was born last week somewhere outside the United States. But Clonaid has accepted an offer by independent experts to submit DNA from the baby and mother to two separate labs to test the samples for an exact match.
Clonaid is associated with a cult called the Raelians. Its members believe space aliens created life on Earth through genetic engineering and cloning will lead to immortality.
Bills banning human cloning and cloning human embryos for medical research passed the U.S. House of Representatives last year, but are currently stalled in the U.S. Senate. Opponents liken cloning human embryos to abortion. But supporters say it could lead to cures for diseases.