Hello, DollyHello, Dolly
'Good chance' human clone has been born, author says
|
By MICHAEL CLEMENT
There's a "good chance" a cloned human being has already been born somewhere in the world, a magazine is reporting. That shocking suggestion will be made in the February issue of Wired magazine, in a cover story prepared by San Diego-based writer Brian Alexander. "And if it hasn't already happened, it's about to," the 41-year-old freelancer said in an interview yesterday with The Toronto Sun. "We quote at least one animal cloner as saying that he firmly believes human cloning is going on right now," Alexander said. Convergence His article builds a case that there are three or four "streams" converging: Science, underground "pro-cloning agitation," and the fact that cloning is becoming a routine industrial enterprise. "There is a market for cloning," Alexander said. "And probably the strongest market for it is among infertile couples." In the story, Alexander says he visits a Wisconsin company called infigen, whose business is cloning cattle and pigs: "And they do it every day." "The guy who runs infigen was the man who said he feels it would be stupid and naive to think .human cloning is-not being done,"-said Alexander, whose article is called (You) 2. The writer was quick to point out that he doesn't know "personally" where it's being done, "we only have suspicions and I can't report my suspicions. The article also quotes a man Alexander calls only "The Creator," an "intense dark haired man in his 30s, living in the United States with a PhD in molecular biology and a research job "at a big-name university." The scientist has been in touch with a man Alexander calls only "The Client," who lives in Western Europe and wants to have his dead son cloned. "It's in the planning stages right now," said Alexander, who has also written for Esquire and The New York Times Sunday Magazine. "And our argument is ... whether or not this plan works, and it very well could work, and the rest of the story describes why this is so possible and so likely," he said. Some of the dead son's cells have been preserved by the Client he says.. .. In his article, Alexander argues society has "reacted irrationally to the prospect of human cloning." Those fears erupted in 1996 when a sheep named Dolly became the first mammal to be cloned. Using the example of the son, Alexander said, it would be "impossible" to create a replica of the dead son. This "will be a new life,?'he said. Such a clone would "not necessarily" have the same personality. "The idea that you can make a copy of a person is a fiction," Alexander said. Alexander visited a sect called the Raelians, whose headquarters is in the town of Valcourt, a 40-minute drive from Montreal."They believe that cloning human beings is a step toward becoming like the extra terrestrials," he said. Alexander said the sect calls these ETs the Elohim, who are "supposed to have cloned themselvs to populate the earth." "And so by us cloning ourselves,
we are becoming a step closer to them." |
|
|
 |