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CNN Saturday Morning News

Human Baby Cloned?

Aired December 28, 2002 - 07:30   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.


MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: All right, let's get back to that cloning controversy. Clonaid claims that it has produced the worlds produced first human clone.
As the world waits for proof, scientists are expressing skepticism not only about the group's claim, but about it's credibility completely. That's because Clonaid was founded by the leader of a religious sect that believes space aliens launched life on earth through cloning.

Last night on CNN's "NEWSNIGHT," the group's leader said he sees cloning as the key to immortality.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: What is the point of -- in -- as you see it -- of cloning?

RAEL, RAELIAN MOVEMENT LEADER: Cloning is -- right now cloning a baby is just a first step. It's not for in -- for me it's not so important. It's a good step, but my ultimate goal is to give humanity eternal life through cloning. That's my goal.

COOPER: And I've heard you say this before, you want to give humanity eternal life and that ultimately you believe people will be able to download their memories into the clones...

RAEL: Exactly.

COOPER: ... how is that going to happen?

RAEL: Just to give you -- OK -- just to give you an image. Right now, we take a cell from your body. Then you can have cloning -- we need nine month in the womb of a mother who has a child and then you need eight years to have a clone of yourself. This is not so interesting.

When you will discover some (UNINTELLIGIBLE) growth process which is a to (UNINTELLIGIBLE) and you can have an adult clone of yourself in a few hours it will be like a blank tape, no memory, no personality, nothing -- just the hardware if you want, the body.

Then the first step which is diluting the body is to transfer, to download or upload everything which make you who you are, your personality your memory everything you can recall here in your brain to download it when you die in an effort -- a another clone of yourself and then you can have eternal life in a body. (END VIDEO CLIP)

CATHERINE CALLAWAY, CNN ANCHOR: And joining us now to weigh in on all of this is Arthur Caplan; he is Director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania. Thanks for being with us this morning.

ARTHUR CAPLAN, BIOETHICIST: Good morning.

CALLAWAY: All I have to say is where's the proof? Can anyone just go on national television and say they have a clone?

CAPLAN: Apparently so. We got an hour press conference yesterday from Brigitte Boisselier and Clonaid and not one shred of proof. There was a lot of hand waving, there was a lot of there's a baby here and it's out of the country and so forth, but not any evidence, no pictures, no interviews, no genetic tests which is really what you need to establish a clone and in fact a kind of cuckoo claim that we had to wait nine days. Actually you could test the DNA of the baby and the mother today...

CALLAWAY: I was going to ask you about the testing and how reliable that would be.

CAPLAN: Well it would be reliable, you'd just have to have an independent person, not on the payroll of Clonaid, get cells -- you'd get them just by swabbing the inside of your mouth -- do the same thing to the baby. Say that's where the cells came from, and if they matched genetically which is not that hard to test, you'd say those are -- those are basically -- that's irrefutable proof that those are clones.

CALLAWAY: All right, let's talk about how close in the scientific community is it believed that anyone is coming -- has come -- to actually cloning a human. I know that there's a fertility clinic in Italy and a lab in Kentucky and now this group, Clonaid, all claiming -- well now they're claiming they have cloned someone but at least the other two claiming they were close to it. As far as you're concerned, your knowledge -- is anyone close to it?

CAPLAN: Well I'd have to say no, Catherine. I'll tell you why. Basically the failure rights in sheep and mice, pigs, goats have been enormous. It took one out of basically 300 tries to produce Dolly the Sheep. And even she was born with arthritis and immune disorders and she has seizures...

CALLAWAY: Let me interrupt you just for a second. You say failure rate -- but -- you mean failure by the fact that they -- they were cloned or failure that they weren't cloned and they were just significant problems?

CAPLAN: Really the latter. You make 300 cloned embryos, you start these out roughly 250 of them don't go anywhere; they just sit in the dish and don't divide. Of the roughly a quarter that do, the enormous -- the bottom line is that almost all those are deformed, stillborns, spontaneous abortions. So the failure rates that way -- death, dying, developing incorrectly is just enormous. But no one -- here's the real test of where we're gong to get a human clone -- no one has succeeded in cloning a monkey, a baboon, or any primate. And that's where the best researchers are in terms of trying to move on from the animals that have been cloned and for some reason it's not working in primates.

And the last time I looked, we're kind of closely related to primates. And if no one has made this work for a monkey or for a baboon or a chimpanzee, that tells me that we're not close yet. So I don't think we're close at all despite what Clonaid says or Panos Zavos says or other people out on the fringe have to say.

CALLAWAY: You know this -- despite what you're saying there are still going to be people who believe what Clonaid has said -- that they have cloned -- even if there's not any scientific proof. Any laws, you think, banning this kind of statement of this kind of movement by Clonaid?

CAPLAN: Well you know, I had the opportunity last year to chair the United Nations panel on Clonaid, an advisory panel. It was clear, despite all the cultural and religious differences at the U.N. that every delegate from every country was ready to put in a ban on human cloning to prohibit using this technique to make babies. Simply because it's not safe.

I think the Congress of the United States is ready to do that too. The real problem is this issue is tied up in using cloning for research to make embryos and then turn them into cells or tissues for therapy -- that's called cloning for research, as opposed to using it to make babies. The two issues are tied together.

Basically people don't want to see just a ban on making -- making clones using the techniques to make human beings. I think that we ought to get over that fight, put in a ban where everybody agrees don't clone babies because it's not safe, we could get national consensus, we could get international consensus and in a sense we could take Clonaid off the table.

CALLAWAY: Well there has to be some type of test to prove that this baby, this Eve is indeed a clone. What -- you know -- it's obviously going to prove whether or not Eve is a clone or not, but why would Clonaid claim such a thing and where do they get the money to do these type of so-called tests?

CAPLAN: Well we have a technical term in ethics for groups like Clonaid -- we call them wacky. And I think what we're doing here is I think they're going to try and string this out and say our experts have done the tests and they were picked by other independent experts and that proves that it's a clone but actually no one can come in and see this baby because we don't want to violate privacy and we don't want to make life tough on the family.

So, my prediction is over the next couple of weeks they're going to string this story along, get the name of the cult out there, look for new members, draw more people in to give them money. I think their idea is basically to use this to push themselves forward and I think so far pretty effectively.

CALLAWAY: Yes, they've been pretty successful so far, haven't they? Arthur Caplan, thank you for being with us and sharing your thoughts this morning.

CAPLAN: My pleasure.

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 28, 2002 - 07:30   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: All right, let's get back to that cloning controversy. Clonaid claims that it has produced the worlds produced first human clone.
As the world waits for proof, scientists are expressing skepticism not only about the group's claim, but about it's credibility completely. That's because Clonaid was founded by the leader of a religious sect that believes space aliens launched life on earth through cloning.

Last night on CNN's "NEWSNIGHT," the group's leader said he sees cloning as the key to immortality.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: What is the point of -- in -- as you see it -- of cloning?

RAEL, RAELIAN MOVEMENT LEADER: Cloning is -- right now cloning a baby is just a first step. It's not for in -- for me it's not so important. It's a good step, but my ultimate goal is to give humanity eternal life through cloning. That's my goal.

COOPER: And I've heard you say this before, you want to give humanity eternal life and that ultimately you believe people will be able to download their memories into the clones...

RAEL: Exactly.

COOPER: ... how is that going to happen?

RAEL: Just to give you -- OK -- just to give you an image. Right now, we take a cell from your body. Then you can have cloning -- we need nine month in the womb of a mother who has a child and then you need eight years to have a clone of yourself. This is not so interesting.

When you will discover some (UNINTELLIGIBLE) growth process which is a to (UNINTELLIGIBLE) and you can have an adult clone of yourself in a few hours it will be like a blank tape, no memory, no personality, nothing -- just the hardware if you want, the body.

Then the first step which is diluting the body is to transfer, to download or upload everything which make you who you are, your personality your memory everything you can recall here in your brain to download it when you die in an effort -- a another clone of yourself and then you can have eternal life in a body. (END VIDEO CLIP)

CATHERINE CALLAWAY, CNN ANCHOR: And joining us now to weigh in on all of this is Arthur Caplan; he is Director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania. Thanks for being with us this morning.

ARTHUR CAPLAN, BIOETHICIST: Good morning.

CALLAWAY: All I have to say is where's the proof? Can anyone just go on national television and say they have a clone?

CAPLAN: Apparently so. We got an hour press conference yesterday from Brigitte Boisselier and Clonaid and not one shred of proof. There was a lot of hand waving, there was a lot of there's a baby here and it's out of the country and so forth, but not any evidence, no pictures, no interviews, no genetic tests which is really what you need to establish a clone and in fact a kind of cuckoo claim that we had to wait nine days. Actually you could test the DNA of the baby and the mother today...

CALLAWAY: I was going to ask you about the testing and how reliable that would be.

CAPLAN: Well it would be reliable, you'd just have to have an independent person, not on the payroll of Clonaid, get cells -- you'd get them just by swabbing the inside of your mouth -- do the same thing to the baby. Say that's where the cells came from, and if they matched genetically which is not that hard to test, you'd say those are -- those are basically -- that's irrefutable proof that those are clones.

CALLAWAY: All right, let's talk about how close in the scientific community is it believed that anyone is coming -- has come -- to actually cloning a human. I know that there's a fertility clinic in Italy and a lab in Kentucky and now this group, Clonaid, all claiming -- well now they're claiming they have cloned someone but at least the other two claiming they were close to it. As far as you're concerned, your knowledge -- is anyone close to it?

CAPLAN: Well I'd have to say no, Catherine. I'll tell you why. Basically the failure rights in sheep and mice, pigs, goats have been enormous. It took one out of basically 300 tries to produce Dolly the Sheep. And even she was born with arthritis and immune disorders and she has seizures...

CALLAWAY: Let me interrupt you just for a second. You say failure rate -- but -- you mean failure by the fact that they -- they were cloned or failure that they weren't cloned and they were just significant problems?

CAPLAN: Really the latter. You make 300 cloned embryos, you start these out roughly 250 of them don't go anywhere; they just sit in the dish and don't divide. Of the roughly a quarter that do, the enormous -- the bottom line is that almost all those are deformed, stillborns, spontaneous abortions. So the failure rates that way -- death, dying, developing incorrectly is just enormous. But no one -- here's the real test of where we're gong to get a human clone -- no one has succeeded in cloning a monkey, a baboon, or any primate. And that's where the best researchers are in terms of trying to move on from the animals that have been cloned and for some reason it's not working in primates.

And the last time I looked, we're kind of closely related to primates. And if no one has made this work for a monkey or for a baboon or a chimpanzee, that tells me that we're not close yet. So I don't think we're close at all despite what Clonaid says or Panos Zavos says or other people out on the fringe have to say.

CALLAWAY: You know this -- despite what you're saying there are still going to be people who believe what Clonaid has said -- that they have cloned -- even if there's not any scientific proof. Any laws, you think, banning this kind of statement of this kind of movement by Clonaid?

CAPLAN: Well you know, I had the opportunity last year to chair the United Nations panel on Clonaid, an advisory panel. It was clear, despite all the cultural and religious differences at the U.N. that every delegate from every country was ready to put in a ban on human cloning to prohibit using this technique to make babies. Simply because it's not safe.

I think the Congress of the United States is ready to do that too. The real problem is this issue is tied up in using cloning for research to make embryos and then turn them into cells or tissues for therapy -- that's called cloning for research, as opposed to using it to make babies. The two issues are tied together.

Basically people don't want to see just a ban on making -- making clones using the techniques to make human beings. I think that we ought to get over that fight, put in a ban where everybody agrees don't clone babies because it's not safe, we could get national consensus, we could get international consensus and in a sense we could take Clonaid off the table.

CALLAWAY: Well there has to be some type of test to prove that this baby, this Eve is indeed a clone. What -- you know -- it's obviously going to prove whether or not Eve is a clone or not, but why would Clonaid claim such a thing and where do they get the money to do these type of so-called tests?

CAPLAN: Well we have a technical term in ethics for groups like Clonaid -- we call them wacky. And I think what we're doing here is I think they're going to try and string this out and say our experts have done the tests and they were picked by other independent experts and that proves that it's a clone but actually no one can come in and see this baby because we don't want to violate privacy and we don't want to make life tough on the family.

So, my prediction is over the next couple of weeks they're going to string this story along, get the name of the cult out there, look for new members, draw more people in to give them money. I think their idea is basically to use this to push themselves forward and I think so far pretty effectively.

CALLAWAY: Yes, they've been pretty successful so far, haven't they? Arthur Caplan, thank you for being with us and sharing your thoughts this morning.

CAPLAN: My pleasure.

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