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Cult Says It Has First Human Clone


Magikman

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I feel so sorry for the babies, they will be like...well, experiments,

and be forgotten as human beings. sad.gif

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eek7.gifscared.gif I agree KC and bring to mind all sorts of things that we'd rather not think about
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let's just hope the baby lives. you can't experiment with a human life, its just not acceptable. the technology that allows cloning is not fully understood so this baby may be flawed in a tragic way. i can't believe people play games with someone else's life.

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if the baby is flawed, then I hope the parents, or whoever, sue the pants off of the doctors that created it.

but why should it be flawed, after all Dolly was alright and had no defects, aparts from say a shorter life span than the other sheep.

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its the raelians, and given their track record, until they come up with conclusive proof, then I would not believe a word of it.

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how do you justify suing the doctors? aren't the parents just as guilty for being a party in the process? come on! they have to know the risks of this kind of thing.

lawsuits are so abused these days. whatever happened to common sense. you shouldn't be able to sue someone else for being an idiot.

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its the raelians, and given their track record....... I would not believe a word of it.

You hit the nail on the head, Althalus. laugh.gif That's why I originally posted this article in the bizarre category and added the sarcastic subheading. Everyone should know from past discussions that this 'cult' has zero credibility. Not only is their claim not valid, but the same group was charged with fraud in New York last year when their laboratory was raided. Charges of attempting to illegaly 'clone' a human were dropped when it was discovered nothing in the lab even remoting contained the proper equipment needed, it was all a sham set up to deceive potential 'candidates'.

Despite claims like this, and those of the Italian doctor discussed about a month ago, experts agree that even qualified scientists lack a complete understanding of how to successfully clone a human being. If geneticists don't know what it takes, how could a lowly biochemist? What is known is that it is vastly different from the procedure used when cloning animals. As to your question regarding Dolly, the sheep, she was the 277th attempt at cloning, and the first successful. I saw a webpage that showed some of the unsuccessful 'clones', it wasn't pretty, decency keeps me from giving you the link. sad.gif

Magikman

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just on a side note... isnt it ironic how people are so quick to dismiss the beliefs of this group and call them a cult? i mean, believing in ETs isnt SO far fetched after all. have you heard the stories the mormons believe in?

i just think its wrong to dismiss other people's beliefs so quickly. all of our beliefs about God are really nothing more than faith anyways. why be so condescending to these people for believing in ETs? geez, you would think they believed that chickens were our Gods the way they are portrayed in the press.

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And some more on this:

A CLONING company whose leader believes space aliens launched life on Earth has made headlines worldwide over its claims to have created the first cloned human.

But the attempt at proof will be made quickly, promised freelance TV journalist Michael Guillen.

The former ABC TV science editor said he had chosen an expert who will draw DNA samples from the newborn and her mother.

Cloning experts have said they need to see DNA matching - like the kind used in criminal cases - done by independent experts before they believe Clonaid's claims. The company announced Friday a baby girl born on Thursday was a clone of her mother. No pictures of the 7-pound baby and no names of the parents were offered, not even a vague location of their whereabouts.

Guillen, former science editor for ABC News, who said he has no links to Clonaid and is not being paid for his work, said the samples will be submitted to two "world-class independent DNA testing labs,'' where other experts will look for a match.

The results and the experts, whom Guillen did not name, will be made available in perhaps a week to 10 days, he said. The testing "will all be done by the book,'' he told reporters.

"I want to be certain that at the end of this process, we can all have confidence in the results, one way or another.''

Clonaid chief executive Brigitte Boisselier, a 46-year-old chemist with two doctoral degrees but no background in cloning, said she agreed to the testing after Guillen suggested it.

Beyond the total lack of evidence for her claim was her bizarre connection to the Raelian religious movement.

Boisselier, a Raelian bishop, says Clonaid is now financially independent of the Raelian group but retains "philosophical'' ties.

Rael is "my spiritual leader,'' she said. "I do believe we've been created by scientists ... and I'm grateful to them for my life.''

She said neither the infertile couple nor four other couples expected to give birth to clones by early February are Raelians.

She other couples include a pair of lesbians from northern Europe, couples from North America and Asia who seek to clone dead children from cells recovered before the deaths, and a second Asian couple, she said.

She declined to give more detail.

Twenty more women are currently scheduled to be implanted with cloned embryos to begin pregnancies, she said.

Until now, 10 women have been implanted. Five had miscarriages in the first three weeks, and the other five led to "Eve'' and the four current pregnancies.

No couple has paid for the cloning effort, but some of the first five couples invested in Clonaid and became business partners, she said. She also said she doesn't know how much Clonaid will charge once it begins to offer the service commercially.

Cloning experts said they'd reserve judgement on the announcement until they see the promised proof.In Washington, a senior Food and Drug Administration official said Friday that the agency will determine whether any US law was broken involving human experiments.

Boisselier would not say where Clonaid has been carrying out its experiments.

To do the cloning that led to "Eve,'' scientists removed the nucleus from an egg of the woman and merged the altered egg with a skin cell from her, Boisselier said.

That led the DNA from the mother to take over direction of the egg, leading to an embryo and eventually a baby.

Boisselier said she had received thousands of requests for cloning from couples over the past three years.

In addition, "I have been receiving many death threats,'' she said.

The notion of human cloning has proven controversial, both because of apparent risks to the baby - cloned animals have shown a host of abnormalities - and because of other ethical considerations.

Boisselier contends that defects seen in cloned animals won't necessarily appear in humans.

:( I have to agree with this quote though:

David King, the director of Human Genetics Alert, a group pushing for human cloning to be criminalised, said: "These claims have very little to do with reality, and more about a cult's ploy to boost membership and funds."

Edited by Magikman
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Here's some more interesting information. Clonaid supposedly has hired an independent investigator (Michael Guillen) to head up a panel of 'experts' to confirm their claim. Sounds promising, until you delve a little deeper into Guillen's history. Here's a short bio of him from HERE.

"There are no details on how the supposed cloning of Eve was achieved, but physicist Michael Guillen, PhD Cornell, has been selected by Clonaid to verify the claim. Guillen has just the credentials Clonaid needs. In 1997 as the science correspondent for ABC Good Morning America, Guillen did a three-part series, “Fringe or Frontier”. Of precognition he concluded “these guys are not flakes”; on astrology, “I think we’re just going to have to suspend judgment”; on psychokinesis, “you have to take it seriously”. Indeed, Guillen covered everything from James Patterson’s cold fusion cell to Kirlian photographs of the human aura with the same credulity. A PhD in physics, after all, is not an inoculation against foolishness. We called ABC, but were told emphatically that their relationship with Guillen ended nearly a year ago."

He was also awarded the 'Pigasus Award' in 1998 by the James Randi Foundation, here's a short blurb;

"Category #1, to the scientist who said or did the silliest thing related to the

supernatural, paranormal or occult, goes to Dr. Michael Guillen of ABC-TV News.

The science editor of ABC-TV's "Good Morning America" since 1988, Dr. Guillen

has supported all manner of questionable "New Age" notions, usually by featuring

endorsements by celebrities. Dr. Guillen holds Ph.D. degrees in physics, mathematics, and astronomy, and should know better. ABC-TV refers to him as, "a leader in this nation's campaign to eliminate science and math illiteracy." Judging from his indiscriminate promotion of pseudoscience and quackery, we don't think so."

Seems he's a Ph.D. physicist who chose never to practice physics, but to instead write about the work of others. Makes one wonder how critical his examination of the Raelian claim might be. unsure.gif

Magikman cool.gif

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A bit late i know, but Al you said that Dolly had no defects apart from a shortened lifespan. I would call that an extremely serious defect. That aside i believe that cloning technology has very serious and practical benefits for medicine and we should be careful to avoid a "knee-jerk" reaction against the subject as a whole.

Yes, the moral issues have to be carefully considered , but the whole subject of "designer babies" is clouding the true benefits in the field of organ donation, surgery and the like.

Criminalisation is just postponement - guildlines and strict controls should be the way ahead for this technology.

As an aside i agree totally with Dshwartz about the misuse of lawsuits, but thats a different topic altogether.

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Here's a paragraph from a news E-Mail I received today on this subject :

On Friday, Clonaid, the company founded by the sect, claimed it had produced a healthy baby girl - called Eve by the scientists - using DNA taken from the skin cells of her 31-year-old American mother.

No proof was presented and experts worldwide are skeptical, but Clonaid's chief executive, who is a Raelian bishop, promises genetic evidence of the breakthrough will be provided within about 10 days.

It will be very interesting to see what the experts make of Clonaid's genetic evidence, if they do indeed deliver it on time within the next 10 days.

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I was just wondering, if it turned out to be clone what would ppl still think of him:

A ) A sick piece of **** for playing god

B ) A great scientist for successfuly creating a clone

C ) Still a fraud since the scientist were of his choosing

Clone or not i hope the child turns out alright

btw, apart from having a shortened lifespan Dolly has arthritis aswell

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Gives a new meaning to "minnie me". But on a serious note, if this is scientifically proven, although my doubts lay on the side of this as being a hoax. I wouldn't consider the clone as a child per say, but as an extension of the person who was cloned. The person would look like you but everything else would be different, laying down the fact that it would be another person with their own rights. How could we do something to someone against their will?

The Raeliens could believe that the so called aliens that created us farted and created the moon, is besides the point. The fact that they have to do what they did to boost their ranks with people that are more easily swayed into doing something they normally wouldn't do. I have a suggestion, if Kool-Aid is being served in paper cups run away as fast as you can.

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