Sect claims world's first human clone

A sect claims the world’s first cloned human – a girl – has been born. The child was born yesterday by caesarean section and the birth “went very well”, said Brigitte Boisselier, a French chemist and member of the Raelian sect.

Boisselier has called a news conference in Florida today to make the announcement and a spokesman said she would have an “independent inspector” take DNA evidence from baby and her 30-year-old-mother.

The Raelians, who claim 55,000 followers worldwide, believe that life on Earth was established by extra-terrestrials who arrived in flying saucers 25,000 years ago, and that humans themselves were created by cloning.

The movement’s founder, Rael – the former French journalist Claude Vorilhon - lives in Canada.

He describes himself as a prophet and claims that cloning will enable humanity to attain eternal life.

The sect formed the company Clonaid in 1997 to produce cloned humans but many scientists are sceptical about its ability to accomplish the feat.

Cloning produces a new individual using only one person’s DNA. The process is technically difficult but conceptually simple. Scientists remove the genetic material from an unfertilised egg, then introduce new DNA from a cell of the animal to be cloned. Under the proper conditions, the egg begins dividing into new cells according to the instructions in the introduced DNA.

Boisselier, who says she has two chemistry degrees and was previously marketing director for a chemical company in France, identifies herself as a Raelian “bishop” and said Clonaid retained philosophical but not economic links to the Raelians. She is not a specialist in reproductive medicine.

Human cloning for reproductive purposes is banned in several countries. There is no specific law against it in the United States, but the Food and Drug Administration says it must approve any human experiments in the country. Boisselier would not say where Clonaid had been carrying out its experiments.

Controversial Italian fertility doctor Severino Antinori also claims he has engineered a cloned baby boy who will be born in January.

So far scientists have succeeded in cloning sheep, mice, cows, pigs, goats and cats.

Last year, scientists in Massachusetts produced cloned human embryos with the intention of using them as a source of stem cells, but the cloned embryos never grew bigger than six cells.

Many scientists oppose cloning to produce humans, saying it is too risky because of abnormalities seen in cloned animals.