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Groups Claims to Have Cloned Baby

Aired December 27, 2002 - 14:01   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.


KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: The claim that's being made of the first human clone. Skeptics are saying consider the source. It's announcement today. A pro-cloning group says the baby girl is one-day old, is in good health and is a copy of her mother.
CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta has been on the story all day, and he joins us with the latest from New York -- Sanjay.

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning.

Yes, we have been following this story all day, and the press conference at 9:00 a.m. left a lot of people sort of scratching their heads. As you mentioned, Kyra, they claimed that 11:55 yesterday morning, the first human clone was born. They didn't tell us where. They didn't show us the baby. There's no pictures. And there's no proof, which is why everyone is sort of left wondering, is this -- did this really happening, or is this somebody who went to the podium and is making these claims?

The Raelian organization that we've been hearing so much about is a Clonaid, the organization is actually an offshoot of that organization. And they have, for a long time, been saying that they would actually clone a human being, and that we've been sort of following the story for several years now.

Yesterday, they say that that actually did happen for the first time. You can see some footage there. This is the Raelians actually meditating. This is the organization that we've been hearing so much about actually -- they believe that the entire earth was actually populated by genetic clones of aliens, and that cloning is sort of a natural sort of progression of events, and that a lot of cloning will occur over the next several years. That's a part of society. Some very strange, unusual conversations we've had today about this, but again, the news being, of course a clone, according to them, was born yesterday at 11:55 in the morning.

PHILLIPS: Still yet, we haven't seen proof, we haven't seen a baby, we haven't seen anything to prove to us this is for real. So we'll talk about that in a minute.

But, Sanjay, looking at the videotape again and talking about the Raelians, I mean, what do you know about the background of these individuals that call themselves scientists? Are they doctors? Are they M.D.s? you're in the medical community. You're a surgeon. Have you heard about their background or their credentials?

GUPTA: Certainly, have heard about them, but everyone agrees they're more of a fringe organization. You can see their Web site there.

The woman we've been hearing so much about today is a woman by the name of Brigitte Boisselier. She's actually a chemist, was at Hamilton College, I believe, for a while.

Most importantly, the most important thing is this woman doesn't have any background in cloning. She's actually never cloned anything before. The natural progression from a scientific standpoint is to really develop a lab, develop an expertise in cloning, and to slowly work your way up in terms of the types of animals that you clone. She's never done any of this before, so people are somewhat skeptical about that.

But I think what's even more concerning and we have -- and I interviewed her a few hours ago, about why it is she wants to clone, what her goals are. Let's see if we can hear from her directly.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BRIGITTE BOISSELIER, SCIENTIFIC DIR., CLONAID: I started to have requests from parents, would like to have a child -- infertile couple, homosexual couples, single individuals or people with AIDS, or all kind of peoples would like to benefit from this service. And after a few years talking to them, actually, I did that for them, because I think they deserve it, and it's not fair to tell them that they shouldn't do it for what, for human dignity?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GUPTA: What is human dignity, she finished? And that's obviously a very difficult question, you know, buy just the whole premise upon which they're doing the cloning has been strange, quite honestly, Kyra. It's hard to figure out.

PHILLIPS: Any word on when we will meet this family or see this baby? Also, DNA tests have to be done on this child to prove, if, indeed, it is a clone, right?

GUPTA: That's right. And again, everyone was hoping that if she was going to have this press conference today, there would be some proof. There was none. In order to prove it, you'd have to do DNA testing, which is a pretty commonly done test. People do genetic testing for paternity reasons, for rape, violent crimes like that, to try and figure out if there's a genetic match. What they do is actually take some blood from the baby, some blood from the mom, and see if they match. Now if they match, that would, in fact, mean that this baby was a clone, which would make the baby not only the daughter of the mother, but also the twin sister of the mother as well, which, you know, has, obviously, got a lot of people thinking.

PHILLIPS: Dr. Sanjay Gupta, thank you.

GUPTA: Thank you.

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 - 14:01   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: The claim that's being made of the first human clone. Skeptics are saying consider the source. It's announcement today. A pro-cloning group says the baby girl is one-day old, is in good health and is a copy of her mother.
CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta has been on the story all day, and he joins us with the latest from New York -- Sanjay.

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning.

Yes, we have been following this story all day, and the press conference at 9:00 a.m. left a lot of people sort of scratching their heads. As you mentioned, Kyra, they claimed that 11:55 yesterday morning, the first human clone was born. They didn't tell us where. They didn't show us the baby. There's no pictures. And there's no proof, which is why everyone is sort of left wondering, is this -- did this really happening, or is this somebody who went to the podium and is making these claims?

The Raelian organization that we've been hearing so much about is a Clonaid, the organization is actually an offshoot of that organization. And they have, for a long time, been saying that they would actually clone a human being, and that we've been sort of following the story for several years now.

Yesterday, they say that that actually did happen for the first time. You can see some footage there. This is the Raelians actually meditating. This is the organization that we've been hearing so much about actually -- they believe that the entire earth was actually populated by genetic clones of aliens, and that cloning is sort of a natural sort of progression of events, and that a lot of cloning will occur over the next several years. That's a part of society. Some very strange, unusual conversations we've had today about this, but again, the news being, of course a clone, according to them, was born yesterday at 11:55 in the morning.

PHILLIPS: Still yet, we haven't seen proof, we haven't seen a baby, we haven't seen anything to prove to us this is for real. So we'll talk about that in a minute.

But, Sanjay, looking at the videotape again and talking about the Raelians, I mean, what do you know about the background of these individuals that call themselves scientists? Are they doctors? Are they M.D.s? you're in the medical community. You're a surgeon. Have you heard about their background or their credentials?

GUPTA: Certainly, have heard about them, but everyone agrees they're more of a fringe organization. You can see their Web site there.

The woman we've been hearing so much about today is a woman by the name of Brigitte Boisselier. She's actually a chemist, was at Hamilton College, I believe, for a while.

Most importantly, the most important thing is this woman doesn't have any background in cloning. She's actually never cloned anything before. The natural progression from a scientific standpoint is to really develop a lab, develop an expertise in cloning, and to slowly work your way up in terms of the types of animals that you clone. She's never done any of this before, so people are somewhat skeptical about that.

But I think what's even more concerning and we have -- and I interviewed her a few hours ago, about why it is she wants to clone, what her goals are. Let's see if we can hear from her directly.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BRIGITTE BOISSELIER, SCIENTIFIC DIR., CLONAID: I started to have requests from parents, would like to have a child -- infertile couple, homosexual couples, single individuals or people with AIDS, or all kind of peoples would like to benefit from this service. And after a few years talking to them, actually, I did that for them, because I think they deserve it, and it's not fair to tell them that they shouldn't do it for what, for human dignity?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GUPTA: What is human dignity, she finished? And that's obviously a very difficult question, you know, buy just the whole premise upon which they're doing the cloning has been strange, quite honestly, Kyra. It's hard to figure out.

PHILLIPS: Any word on when we will meet this family or see this baby? Also, DNA tests have to be done on this child to prove, if, indeed, it is a clone, right?

GUPTA: That's right. And again, everyone was hoping that if she was going to have this press conference today, there would be some proof. There was none. In order to prove it, you'd have to do DNA testing, which is a pretty commonly done test. People do genetic testing for paternity reasons, for rape, violent crimes like that, to try and figure out if there's a genetic match. What they do is actually take some blood from the baby, some blood from the mom, and see if they match. Now if they match, that would, in fact, mean that this baby was a clone, which would make the baby not only the daughter of the mother, but also the twin sister of the mother as well, which, you know, has, obviously, got a lot of people thinking.

PHILLIPS: Dr. Sanjay Gupta, thank you.

GUPTA: Thank you.

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