Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Live Today

Controversial Group Claims It's Cloned Human Being

Aired December 27, 2002 - 11:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Up first, on CNN, a controversial group claims that it has cloned a human being. The announcement this morning raises the medical, moral, and ethical debate over human cloning to a new level.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BRIGITTE BOISSELIER, SCIENTIFIC DIR., CLONAID: I'm very, very pleased to announce that the first baby clone is born. She was born yesterday at 11:55 a.m., in the country where she was born, so this will not give you more details about the location, she's fine, we call her "Eve."

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WHITFIELD: Some scientists are reacting with skepticism to the announcement by Clonaid. The group says results from independent DNA testing are expected within a week.

And joining us with some insight and perspective on the announcement and the controversy over human cloning is CNN Medical Correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta. Hi, Dr. Gupta.

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Fredricka. We've been certainly following the story all morning and listening to that live conference sort of anxiously, as many other people did. You know, this organization, the Raelians, Clonaid is a part of the Raelians, and offshoot of the Raelians, has been a sort of a interesting organization to follow along, since its inception back in '97. They've been talking about cloning for quite some time, along with some other folks, as well. But certainly, this announcement sort of took people a little bit by storm. Let's hear a little bit more about -- from Dr. Brigitte Boisselier and what she said earlier this morning.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BOISELLIER: We had 10 implantations, and five of them during the first three weeks, were terminated spontaneously. Five others were successful and are still successful. The first one, though, was born yesterday. The next one is due in Europe next week. So it's very -- it's very close and the three others will be by the end of January.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GUPTA: And what we're hearing there, Fredrick, if you sort of do the math there, she said five out of 10 implantations were successful. That is an extraordinarily high fertility rate for any procedure, let alone cloning, which supposedly has never been done before, 50 percent.

You'll be reminded, Fredricka, that back when Dolly the sheep was cloned, it took 260 -- I'm sorry, 276 attempts, before Dolly was successfully cloned. There is a lot of skepticism, as you mentioned, Fredricka. Certainly, the origin of this organization lends itself to a lot of skepticism. They believe that the world was inhabited by cloned aliens, actually, aliens cloned themselves to populate the earth originally. That's one of their tenets, and that certainly has drawn a lot of criticism.

But more importantly than that, just being truly objective. There was no proof today of anything. There was no baby, there was no chart showing that a genetic clone had been actually created. There was actually no proof of anything of that. There's also a lot of concerns that if a baby was born, that it might be defective, it might damages, it may have even been born dead. D. Boisselier, in all fairness, says the baby is, quote, unquote, "fine." But nobody really said what does that mean.

And also, Fredricka, I want to add, as well, that with a lot of these other animals that have been cloned, and several animals have been cloned since Dolly, a lot of them developed very significant, troublesome and even deadly problems, shortly after they were born and that has also been a reason, a good reason why scientists have been very, very cautious about entering into the world of reproductive. There's probably not a scientist on earth, besides the one that we just heard from a few minutes ago, who think this is a good idea. And so, a lot of skepticism in the air. Fredricka.

WHITFIELD: Well, Sanjay, first, we were hearing the argument over whether cloning will, indeed, benefit stem cell research. Now we're talking about reproductive cloning used for an entirely different purpose. Her argument that scientists' argument is that this type of research, reproductive cloning, will help those couples, help those families that have a difficult time conceiving.

GUPTA: Well, I'll tell you, and there is a lot of -- I mean, this is such a loaded issue, and I want to be very careful here. But let me just say a couple of things. First of all, there's a big difference between therapeutic cloning and reproductive cloning. I think all of America is going to sort of understand this within the next few weeks.

Now, therapeutic cloning, basically, is creating a clump of cells for the express purpose of extracting some stem cells, why, because those could stem cells could potentially be used for treatments for Altzheimer's, Parkinson's, heart disease. If you take the therapeutic cloning another step and that is actually take these cells and implant them into a woman's uterus, you're doing reproductive cloning.

Yes, Fredricka, to answer your question, that is a way to conceive a child, possibly. It's never been done before, that we know of. It could be a very disastrous way to try and conceive a child. Certainly, there are other ways to try and conceive a child. But that is what the Raelians are saying, the Clonaid organization is saying is one way of trying to conceive a child.

Let me just say, as well, you know, conceiving children through the cloning process is something that, again, most scientists, if not all scientists, think is a really bad idea. But if you really look at the tenet of the Raelian organization of Clonaid, what they believe is that they want to do all sorts of things. They want to actually imprint the thoughts and the memories of the person from which the clone was actually derived and implant them in this baby, so not only is this baby going to be someone who looks like the person that they were cloned from, but also acts like, talks like, thinks like, all those sorts of things. Frankly, it's kind of spooky and I'm not sure what the real advantage of that is, Fredricka, but that is certainly something that they're talking about, as well.

WHITFIELD: All right. And so far, all we know right now about the little girl, the baby born and the mother, is that according to the chemist, it's a 31-year-old mother and they used her egg and a skin cell in which to help produce this cloned baby.

GUPTA: That's right. And that's...

WHITFIELD: And that's all we know, so far.

GUPTA: ... that is what we know. And she did say, as well, at that press conference that the technique they used to actually clone this baby -- if, in fact they did that -- was very similar, quote unquote, to the technique used to clone Dolly, the sheep. And basically, Fredricka, just as you described, you're basically taking the genetic material of an existing human being, either living or dead, and actually implanting that into an egg that's sort of been cleaned out of all of its genetic material, so you're sort of adding this brand new genetic material into this egg, and then allowing it to grow. So when that baby is born -- if, in fact, that baby was born to the mother -- she would be not only the daughter of her mother, but she'd also be the twin sister of her mother.

WHITFIELD: Oh, boy.

GUPTA: And that's sort of another way of thinking about it.

WHITFIELD: Yes. That's a tough one for everyone to swallow, I'm sure. All right. Thanks very much, Dr. Sanjay Gupta. Appreciate it.

WHITFIELD: Thank you, Fredricka.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com






Aired December 27, 2002 - 11:00   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Up first, on CNN, a controversial group claims that it has cloned a human being. The announcement this morning raises the medical, moral, and ethical debate over human cloning to a new level.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BRIGITTE BOISSELIER, SCIENTIFIC DIR., CLONAID: I'm very, very pleased to announce that the first baby clone is born. She was born yesterday at 11:55 a.m., in the country where she was born, so this will not give you more details about the location, she's fine, we call her "Eve."

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WHITFIELD: Some scientists are reacting with skepticism to the announcement by Clonaid. The group says results from independent DNA testing are expected within a week.

And joining us with some insight and perspective on the announcement and the controversy over human cloning is CNN Medical Correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta. Hi, Dr. Gupta.

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Fredricka. We've been certainly following the story all morning and listening to that live conference sort of anxiously, as many other people did. You know, this organization, the Raelians, Clonaid is a part of the Raelians, and offshoot of the Raelians, has been a sort of a interesting organization to follow along, since its inception back in '97. They've been talking about cloning for quite some time, along with some other folks, as well. But certainly, this announcement sort of took people a little bit by storm. Let's hear a little bit more about -- from Dr. Brigitte Boisselier and what she said earlier this morning.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BOISELLIER: We had 10 implantations, and five of them during the first three weeks, were terminated spontaneously. Five others were successful and are still successful. The first one, though, was born yesterday. The next one is due in Europe next week. So it's very -- it's very close and the three others will be by the end of January.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GUPTA: And what we're hearing there, Fredrick, if you sort of do the math there, she said five out of 10 implantations were successful. That is an extraordinarily high fertility rate for any procedure, let alone cloning, which supposedly has never been done before, 50 percent.

You'll be reminded, Fredricka, that back when Dolly the sheep was cloned, it took 260 -- I'm sorry, 276 attempts, before Dolly was successfully cloned. There is a lot of skepticism, as you mentioned, Fredricka. Certainly, the origin of this organization lends itself to a lot of skepticism. They believe that the world was inhabited by cloned aliens, actually, aliens cloned themselves to populate the earth originally. That's one of their tenets, and that certainly has drawn a lot of criticism.

But more importantly than that, just being truly objective. There was no proof today of anything. There was no baby, there was no chart showing that a genetic clone had been actually created. There was actually no proof of anything of that. There's also a lot of concerns that if a baby was born, that it might be defective, it might damages, it may have even been born dead. D. Boisselier, in all fairness, says the baby is, quote, unquote, "fine." But nobody really said what does that mean.

And also, Fredricka, I want to add, as well, that with a lot of these other animals that have been cloned, and several animals have been cloned since Dolly, a lot of them developed very significant, troublesome and even deadly problems, shortly after they were born and that has also been a reason, a good reason why scientists have been very, very cautious about entering into the world of reproductive. There's probably not a scientist on earth, besides the one that we just heard from a few minutes ago, who think this is a good idea. And so, a lot of skepticism in the air. Fredricka.

WHITFIELD: Well, Sanjay, first, we were hearing the argument over whether cloning will, indeed, benefit stem cell research. Now we're talking about reproductive cloning used for an entirely different purpose. Her argument that scientists' argument is that this type of research, reproductive cloning, will help those couples, help those families that have a difficult time conceiving.

GUPTA: Well, I'll tell you, and there is a lot of -- I mean, this is such a loaded issue, and I want to be very careful here. But let me just say a couple of things. First of all, there's a big difference between therapeutic cloning and reproductive cloning. I think all of America is going to sort of understand this within the next few weeks.

Now, therapeutic cloning, basically, is creating a clump of cells for the express purpose of extracting some stem cells, why, because those could stem cells could potentially be used for treatments for Altzheimer's, Parkinson's, heart disease. If you take the therapeutic cloning another step and that is actually take these cells and implant them into a woman's uterus, you're doing reproductive cloning.

Yes, Fredricka, to answer your question, that is a way to conceive a child, possibly. It's never been done before, that we know of. It could be a very disastrous way to try and conceive a child. Certainly, there are other ways to try and conceive a child. But that is what the Raelians are saying, the Clonaid organization is saying is one way of trying to conceive a child.

Let me just say, as well, you know, conceiving children through the cloning process is something that, again, most scientists, if not all scientists, think is a really bad idea. But if you really look at the tenet of the Raelian organization of Clonaid, what they believe is that they want to do all sorts of things. They want to actually imprint the thoughts and the memories of the person from which the clone was actually derived and implant them in this baby, so not only is this baby going to be someone who looks like the person that they were cloned from, but also acts like, talks like, thinks like, all those sorts of things. Frankly, it's kind of spooky and I'm not sure what the real advantage of that is, Fredricka, but that is certainly something that they're talking about, as well.

WHITFIELD: All right. And so far, all we know right now about the little girl, the baby born and the mother, is that according to the chemist, it's a 31-year-old mother and they used her egg and a skin cell in which to help produce this cloned baby.

GUPTA: That's right. And that's...

WHITFIELD: And that's all we know, so far.

GUPTA: ... that is what we know. And she did say, as well, at that press conference that the technique they used to actually clone this baby -- if, in fact they did that -- was very similar, quote unquote, to the technique used to clone Dolly, the sheep. And basically, Fredricka, just as you described, you're basically taking the genetic material of an existing human being, either living or dead, and actually implanting that into an egg that's sort of been cleaned out of all of its genetic material, so you're sort of adding this brand new genetic material into this egg, and then allowing it to grow. So when that baby is born -- if, in fact, that baby was born to the mother -- she would be not only the daughter of her mother, but she'd also be the twin sister of her mother.

WHITFIELD: Oh, boy.

GUPTA: And that's sort of another way of thinking about it.

WHITFIELD: Yes. That's a tough one for everyone to swallow, I'm sure. All right. Thanks very much, Dr. Sanjay Gupta. Appreciate it.

WHITFIELD: Thank you, Fredricka.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com