NEWS ALERT !!
Chance of success: 1 in 100
Cult Researcher wants to clone dead babies
In October French biologist will implant mothers with reproduced embryos.
Berlin, Germany
September 6, 2000
Die Welt
by Jean-Michel Stoullig and Henning Lohse
Washington - Worldwide, the cloning of humans is at least officially taboo, but a French woman scientist wants to make a solo try at sweeping through the barriers in the USA: in October, announced Brigitte Broisselier, she will clone a dead baby. The infant died several days ago in the USA at the age of ten months because of a medical error. As a result, the parents asked her to "resurrect" their baby, confirmed the 44 year old woman. She has no moral objections - Broisselier is a Raelian.
Behind the Raelian Movement, as abstruse as it is scientific, lurks a sect which was founded by Claude Vorilhon (53), who resides in Canada. The former sports journalist claims that 27 years ago in France, on the site of an extinct volcano, he was confronted by an extraterrestrial who explained to him about the "true source" of all life: he said aliens in UFOs landed on the earth 25 thousand years ago and created humans and animals out of dead material by using cloning technology. Cloning is supposed to make eternal life possible for humanity.
When the Scottish, cloned sheep, Dolly, blinked in the flash bulbs for the media three years ago, the sect rejoiced - as far as they were concerned, Dolly was living proof of their theory. The Raelians found the Clonaid company in the Bahamas for genetic reproduction. According to Vorilhon, the "service," never before performed on humans, costs between 340,000 and 510,000 marks. The sect says it has 50,000 adherents in 50 countries, including Switzerland, Belgium, England and Canada. The sect members must pay about 5 percent of their income.
Broisselier, the "scientific director" of the sect company, said they had already been contacted by hundreds of people. Most of those asking were either infertile, or had lost their child and wanted to have it reproduced. That is no problem in a real case. The cells of the baby are available and the expenses are covered, "The doctors made a mistake and the parents got a lot of money which will help them to resurrect their child," said the molecular biologist and doctor of chemistry and physics. They are keeping the time and place of the process secret. They will only say that their laboratory is located in a country in which cloning humans is permitted. The team consists of a genetic technician, two biologists and a doctor who specializes in test-tube fertilization.
David Kirby, genetic researcher at the University of Washington, does not believe the operation will be a success. He estimates the chances of success at one percent. He said the cloned embryos would probably have to be implanted in a number of women because there would be numerous miscarriages. Even the cloned sheep Dolly did not come into this world until after hundreds of failures. Nevertheless Kirby commented that the technology had improved considerably. He said he would "not be surprised if there were a human clone in the near future."
Brigitte Broisselier does no more fear failure than she has ethical objections. She assured us that she does not want to produce a monster. "Parents have the right to have a child with their own genetics. Imagine the joy of a widow who raises a child that resembles her deceased spouse, down to the last hair.
German Scientology News
cisar.org
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