Clonaid - WikiHQ

Clonaid is an American-based human cloning organization, registered as a company in the Bahamas. Founded in 1997, it has philosophical ties with the UFO religion Raëlism, Siegel, who heard the company's actual name was not Clonaid, decided that the Clonaid project was a sham. Bioethicist Alta Charo condemned Clonaid for premature human experimentation and noted the high incidence of malformations and thousands of fetal deaths in animal cloning.

On June 15, 1998, Brigitte Boisselier said the headquarters of Clonaid was located in Las Vegas and that Clonaid did not have enough funds for human cloning research. On December 19, 1998, a New Scientist article said the cost of Clonaid cloning services would be $200,000, much lower than the $2.3 million that researchers at Texas A&M University planned to use for cloning a dog named Missy. Mainstream scientists said it was unlikely that Clonaid would be able to clone anything in the near future. Although the project's ultimate objective was human cloning, Boisselier said that pet cloning would help finance the operations.

Claude Vorilhon held a meeting in a Montreal hotel on September 21, 2000, where he announced that a wealthy American couple was willing to fund the Clonaid project. The first pending clone, according to Vorilhon at the time, was the couple's 10-month-old girl, who had died due to a medical mistake. He said that the couple was willing to pay $1,500,000 to clone their deceased daughter, but the wife was not willing to be the surrogate mother. Jamie Grifo, a fertility specialist at the New York University School of Medicine, and Nobel laureate Paul Berg of Stanford University said that Vorilhon was providing a false hope that the child was going to be the same one. Boisselier revealed the roles of four scientists she says were involved—"a biochemist, a geneticist, a cell fusion expert and a French medical doctor"—but without revealing their identity. She did not identify the wealthy American couple.

Responses by scientists

According to cloning specialist and physiologist George Seidel of Colorado State University, cloning a human being would not be difficult if many people donated their eggs or offered their wombs for implantation of clone embryos. the Food and Drug Administration Office of Criminal Investigations inspected Clonaid's lab in the small city of Nitro in West Virginia. It was located inside a rented room within a former high school. Staff scientists reviewed the lab's research documentation and found them inadequate, the work of a graduate student extracting ovum from cow ovaries from a slaughterhouse. The FDA said that the equipment in lab was state-of-the-art and had been bought by Mark Hunt, a former West Virginia state legislator, who wanted to clone his 10-month-old son, Andrew, who died in 1999 due to congenital heart disease. Following investigation of the West Virginia lab, Mark Hunt made an agreement with the FDA-OCI to not clone his dead son within the United States. CNN could not confirm the unpublished work. Due to Clonaid's association with Raëlians and the lack of evidence for cloning, authorities remained skeptical as to whether Clonaid could clone anything at all.

Alleged clone baby Eve

On Friday, December 27, 2002, Boisselier, a Raëlian bishop and CEO of Clonaid, announced at a press conference in Hollywood, Florida that Clonaid had successfully performed the first human reproductive cloning. Boisselier said that the mother delivered Eve by Caesarean section somewhere outside the United States and that both were healthy. Dr. Boisselier did not present the mother or child, or DNA samples that would allow for confirmation of her claim at the press conference. It has subsequently become apparent that she announced the birth before genetic testing to evaluate whether the child in question is actually a clone: Dr. Boisselier was therefore stating her belief that her procedure had resulted in a clone, not announcing results showing that the child was a clone.

Shortly after the announcement, Korean prosecutors raided the offices of Clonaid's Korean branch, BioFusion Tech. In the process, the prosecutors removed records from homes and offices while barring two representatives of BioFusion Tech from leaving the country. An official company statement revealed that three Korean women applied to become surrogate mothers. Officials of BioFusion Tech told the prosecutors that 10 Korean women wanted to clone themselves and have filled out applications.

The Food and Drug Administration stated its intention to investigate Clonaid to see if it had done anything illegal. The FDA contended that its regulations forbid human cloning without prior agency permission. However, some members of the United States Congress believed that the jurisdiction of the FDA on human cloning matters was shaky and decided to push Congress to explicitly ban human cloning.

Responses by politicians and ethicists

US President George W. Bush said that human cloning was "deeply troubling" to most Americans. Kansas Republican Sam Brownback said that Congress should ban all human cloning, while some Democrats were worried that Clonaid's announcement would lead to the banning of therapeutic cloning. FDA biotechnology chief Dr. Phil Noguchi warned that the human cloning, even if it worked, risked transferring sexually transmitted diseases to the newly born child. Severino Antinori, who had worked with Zavos on the development of human clone embryos, was critical of Klondyke's announcement, and said of it that, "An announcement of this type has no scientific corroboration and risks creating confusion." but Florida attorney Bernard Siegel filed a petition as a private citizen in the Broward County Circuit Court requesting that a temporary guardian be appointed for the purported cloned child. Two local attorneys, Barry Wax and Jonathan Schwartz were retained to represent Clonaid in the matter. As the court case played out over the next month, Dr. Boisselier testified under oath that there was a cloned child born outside of the U.S. living in Israel. However, Clonaid did not present demonstrative evidence that the child really existed. Boisselier said that Eve would travel to the United States that day for DNA tests. She said that a pediatrician saw Eve and her mother in good condition, but she refused to mention the location of the surrogate birth, the testing lab, or the biological mother's home, which she wanted to reveal at a later time. The mother was said to be 31 years old with an infertile husband.

Request for a DNA verification test

Michael Guillen, a former ABC News science editor, made an agreement with Boisselier for him to choose independent experts to test for a DNA match. Clonaid refused to identify the independent experts, because if revealed too soon, others could track the baby from the testing place into the mother's house. Clonaid said the parents had the final say on whether they want to test the baby and that a Dutch lesbian couple would be the parents of the next cloned baby. Boisselier said she would hand over the evidence to show that a clone had been born but was concerned that the details of Clonaid's cloning procedure might leak out.

Thomas Kaenzig refused to testify in a court hearing, but Florida judge John Frusciante Sr., father of musician John Frusciante, was able to convince Kaenzig through a telephone call to reveal some of the details. Kaenzig testified that Clonaid left him ignorant of the cloning project and that it was not even a corporation. The judge summoned Kaenzig and Brigitte Boisselier to a Florida court and warned the two that they would be condemned if they did not show there on January 29, 2003. As the court case played out, Boisselier testified under oath that she saw videos of a cloned child born in Israel.

Claims of further human clones

The day after Boisselier made her announcement, she added that four more human clones were to be born within a few weeks, Boisselier claimed that Clonaid had a list of couples who were ready to have a cloned child. On January 5, 2003, Brigitte Boisselier said to the BBC that her medical team produced hundreds of human clone embryos before proceeding to ten implantations, two of which led to births. The head of the UK Roslin Institute was critical of the assertion, "Clonaid [has] no track record but claim[s] to have cloned hundreds of embryos – it just doesn't ring true."

A Raëlian spokeswoman from Japan

According to Boisselier, Mark and Tracy Hunt, who were seeking to clone their dead son, invested $500,000 in the former Clonaid lab in West Virginia and its equipment, which the Food and Drug Administration shut down. The Clonaid CEO proposed a cloning lab on Brazilian Island for creating the next generation of clone babies.

In late July 2002, Clonaid's branch in South Korea, BioFusion Tech, said a woman became pregnant with a human clone. However, in the week of September 27, 2002, South Korea's Ministry of Health and Welfare announced that it would ban human cloning and sentence violators to a 10-year prison term.

In February 2004, Clonaid claimed that a sixth clone baby was born in Australia. Additionally, it claimed to have produced human embryos in South Korea. The small number of companies that have access to cloning technology has resulted skepticism by cloning experts in Korea, who accused Clonaid of defaming the now debunked stem cell work of Doctor Hwang Woo-suk. By March 2004, Clonaid claimed that eight extra baby clones had been brought to term for a total of thirteen baby clones.

In September 2018, rapper Kid Buu claimed he was a human clone produced by Clonaid. However, this is commonly perceived as a publicity stunt.

Embryonic cell fusion machine

Besides offering cloning services, Clonaid has developed one product, an "embryonic cell fusion device" called the RMX 2010.

CNN Money has listed the RMX 2010 as the fourth "Dumbest Moment in Business 2003", stating "Clonaid sells the RMX 2010, a $9,220 contraption that ... well, nobody's quite sure what it does. To help clarify the matter, Clonaid lends one to a British science museum—under strict orders not to open it to find out what's inside."

Additional skepticism

Scientists interviewed about the announcement expressed skepticism regarding both the authenticity and the ethics of Clonaid's procedures. These included Lord Robert Winston, head of the IVF research team at London's Hammersmith Hospital, and Tanja Dominko of the Oregon Regional Primate Center's monkey cloning project. Scientists with experience in animal cloning have encountered low rates of success per implantation, where cloned fetuses are often malformed and dead before birth. Regardless, people continue to be surprised that Clonaid appears to have overcome those problems; either Clonaid has been extremely lucky in discovering a superior method of cloning, or the company is making false claims. CBS News reported that Clonaid was not a company. Boisselier revealed that in a strict sense, Clonaid was just the product name, even though Clonaid's website had touted it as the company name.

References

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External links

Rael.org The philosophy behind the Clonaid project.
BBC news story: Clonaid ordered to reveal 'clone'
Reflections on the Cloning Case