-Caveat Lector- Attack Of The Clones: Fresh Warnings About Replication
by Richard Ingham Paris (AFP) May 26, 2002 http://spacedaily.com/news/clone-02g.html Fresh evidence emerged Sunday about the perils of cloning, amid claims by rogue scientists that the first human replicant may be born just months from now. Research published in the journal Nature Genetics highlighted abnormalities among cloned animals which powerfully back fears that a cloned child could die in infancy or be condemned to life as a freak or a cripple. A team led by Jerry Yang at the University of Connecticut found that cloned cows had flaws in nine out of 10 genes studied on their X-chromosome -- one of the two sex chromosomes that determine a mammal's gender. Females have two X chromosomes, whereas males have an X and a Y chromosome. Among females, one of the X chromosomes is "silent": it does not activate genes. Among the cloned cows, though, the flaws meant the copy of the X chromosome was incompletely switched off. Rather like a computer which receives spluttering, conflicting instructions from two sets of the same software programme, the cow's protein-making machinery went haywire, with catastrophic results for the animal's survival. Yang team member Cindy Tian said the findings were important because the secret labs trying to replicate a human being basically use the same cloning method. "It's a very similar procedure," she told AFP by phone. "It's very dangerous to use this current cloning technique for humans. What we have found is really a warning against it." She predicted that "99 percent (of cloned human embryoes) will fail to come to term, and of the one percent that might live, a high percentage will die shortly after birth because of gene expression problems." Cloning provides a genetic duplicate of another creature. The predominant method around the world entails removing the nucleus, or core, from an egg and replacing it with DNA from a donor. This DNA "reprograms" the egg, transferring into it the entire genetic code of the donor. The big problem, however, is to ensure that all the genes in this transferred code work properly, performing the dazzlingly complex business which is the making of tissue and the repairing of it. Wide-ranging tests in lab animals, and the experience of cloned farm animals including Dolly the Sheep, have found that -- even though all the genes are there -- many of them do not appear to switch on and off as they should. Malfunctioning genes can cause an embryo to become malformed, prompting the body to expel it in a miscarriage. Or they can stealthily pass on tiny flaws that later show up in crippling handicaps or chronic ill-health. Among cloned animals, only one in six of the embryos survive to birth and many die within a few weeks because of malformation. Many biotechnologists are repelled by the ethical dilemma posed by human cloning as well as the risk to the first cloned babies, and many governments have raced to pass laws that ban reproductive cloning. Yet this has not prevented a race among scientific mavericks to become the first to clone a human. One of them, Italian gynaecologist Severino Antinori, told the French daily Le Monde in an interview published on Saturday that three women were currently pregnant with clones. All were derived from the nuclear transfer method, he said. "Two of them are in Russia and the third is in another country," Antinori said. "The births should take place in December 2002 or January 2003." There are five groups of scientists racing to produce the first cloned human baby, US specialist Panos Zavos said in testimony to the US Congress on May 15. Zavos said he expected the world's first clone to be born some time in 2003. One of those teams is headed by French chemist Brigitte Boisselier, who works for the Raelian religious sect, which believes that mankind was created by extra-terrestrials. All rights reserved. © 2002 Agence France-Presse. ------------------------ "In little more than a year we have gone from enjoying peace and the most prosperous economy in our history, to a nation plunged into war, recession and fear. This is a nation being transformed before our very eyes." http://www.truthout.com Steve Wingate, Webmaster ANOMALOUS IMAGES AND UFO FILES http://www.anomalous-images.com <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/";>www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance—not soap-boxing—please! 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