Group claims to have cloned baby girl

A chemist connected to a group that believes life on Earth was created by extraterrestrials claimed today to have produced the world’s first human clone, a baby girl named Eve.

The baby was born on Boxing Day, said Brigitte Boisselier, head of Clonaid, the company that claimed success in the project.

She wouldn’t say where the baby was born.

Speaking in Florida, she said the baby is a clone of the 31-year-old American woman who donated the DNA for the cloning process. If confirmed, that would make the child an exact genetic duplicate of her mother.

Boisselier did not present DNA evidence showing a genetic match between mother and daughter however. That omission leaves her claim scientifically unsupported.

“I saw them change. I saw them becoming so happy with the birth coming, and yesterday I can tell you it was the best day of their life. I wished them a very happy life,” she said.

In Rome, fertility doctor Severino Antinori, who said weeks ago a cloned baby boy would be born in January, dismissed Clonaid’s claims and said the group has no scientific credibility.

The news “makes me laugh and at the same time disconcerts me, because it creates confusion between those who make serious scientific research” and those who don’t, Antinori said.

“We keep up our scientific work, without making announcements,” he added. “I don’t take part in this race.”

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.

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.

“The baby is very healthy. She’s doing fine,” Boisellier said. “We’re very happy parents.”

She said the baby will go home in three days, and an independent expert will take DNA samples from the baby to prove she had been cloned. Those test results are expected within a week after the testing.

She said the mother carried to term.