Zavos Claims Implant of Cloned Human Embryo
Saturday, 17 January 2004, 5:40 PM, CET
Dr. Panos Zavos, on a visit to London, claims he has implanted a cloned embryo into a woman's womb. Dr Zavos staged the announcement at a news conference held in a central London hotel on Saturday.
The embryo came from the immature egg of the infertile 35-year-old woman, and a skin cell from her husband, he said. Dr. Zavos claim there was about a 30% chance that the embryo would develop successfully and be born. The doctor also claimed the procedure had been filmed, but many critics said there was no evidence to back up the claims and that even if he was telling the truth, it would be "highly unethical and irresponsible".
The professor is teaming up with the British doctor Paul Rainsbury who has controversially helped send couples to choose the sex of their baby in America.
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Dr. Panos Zavos in London
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"Since it has not been two weeks since we transferred the embryo, we are waiting for the results of the pregnancy"
— Dr Panos Zavos |
"Human reproductive cloning and advertising for surrogacy are both illegal in the UK," Lord May, the president of Britain's Royal Society of leading scientists, said in a statement.
"Zavos attempts to recruit volunteers from the UK — and fly them to a country where there are laxer controls on this form of distasteful experimentation — is unethical in the extreme," he added.
"Claims to have cloned a human being when made through the media and without proper assessment by credible scientific and medical authorities, tend to create understandable public anxiety and, as the example of the Raelian’s in January last year illustrates, should be treated with extreme scepticism," May also added.
Lord May urged Britain's Human Fertilisation on Embryology Authority (HFEA), which licenses and monitors fertility clinics in Britain, to investigate whether his actions are a breach of their regulations.
The HFEA said human reproductive cloning, including implanting a cloned embryo in a surrogate, is illegal in Britain.
"Anything involving embryos created outside the body needs a licence from us," an HFEA spokeswoman told Reuters.
"There is absolutely no way he could do it here," she added.
Bob Ward, from the UK National Academy of Scientists, told BBC News after the announcement:
"Like most scientists and doctors I remain extremely sceptical of the claims made here today."
He said there was "absolutely no evidence" for the claims, and nothing to distinguish them from those made by the Raelian cult 18 months ago.
He added that, with no published evidence of the technique's safety either:
"...one wonders what his motive is behind this".
IVF expert Dr Simon Fischel told BBC News Online:
"It doesn't matter how far advanced Professor Zavos is. It has to be unethical to consider reproductive cloning in humans at this point on the basis of the abnormalities that have resulted from all the animal work."
Dr Zavos also spoke of his plans to split a cloned embryo, which is illegal in the UK without a licence, and said it would provide an "additional tool" for infertile couples.
The spare embryo could be stored to become a baby later, he said.
But, "futuristically", it could also be stored and used as a source of stem cells — which can then be grown into almost any body part — to treat the first baby should it become ill.
Dr Zavos could not give a time scale of when such a procedure could be developed, but admitted he was not talking about "tomorrow".
"What I'm saying is, we're ready to begin on the journey of embryo splitting in humans," he said.
Professor Alison Murdoch, chair of the British Fertility Society, said:
"We feel that giving undue credence to this unethical, dangerous and highly experimental field is irresponsible."
"The small minority of mavericks pursuing human reproductive cloning procedures are not supported by the British Fertility Society or the wider fertility community."
The Raelian Movement, a cult that believes life on Earth was engineered by visitors from outer space, a year ago said it had produced the world's first cloned human but it never produced any scientific proof.
Zavos has been saying since May 2002 that he was ready to try to create a human clone. His former colleague, Italian fertility doctor Severino Antinori, said nearly two years ago that three women were pregnant with clones. He also failed to back up the claim with evidence.
RELATED INTERNET LINKS:
Kentucky Centre for IVF
HFEA
British Fertility Society
Zavos: Implant of Cloned Human Embryo
