Human Clone Is Born, Company Claims

Ushering in either a brave new world or a spectacular hoax, a company founded by a religious sect that believes space aliens populated the planet announced Friday that it has produced the world’s first cloned baby.

A healthy 7-pound girl, nicknamed Eve by scientists, was delivered by Caesarean section Thursday somewhere outside the United States, said Brigitte Boisselier, chief executive of Clonaid. Boisselier said the girl is an exact copy of the American woman who gave birth to her.

At a news conference, Boisselier offered no scientific proof, provided no photos and did not produce the mother or child. She said proof -- in the form of DNA testing by independent experts -- will be available in perhaps eight or nine days.

“You can still go back to your office and treat me as a fraud,” she told reporters. “You have one week to do that.”

Cloning experts were skeptical or reserved judgment on the announcement, which is certain to touch off fierce ethical, religious and scientific debate. In Washington, the Food and Drug Administration said the agency will investigate whether the experiments violated U.S. law.

The United States has no specific law against human cloning. But the FDA contends its regulations forbid human cloning without agency permission.

“The very attempt to clone a human being is evil,” said Stanley M. Hauerwas, a professor of theological ethics at Duke University. “That the allegedly cloned child is to be called Eve confirms the godlike stature these people so desperately seek.”

Boisselier would not say where Clonaid has been carrying out its experiments and did not identify the scientists involved.

She said the mother is 31 and has an infertile husband. The couple have decided not to face the media now, she said.

Four other couples are expected to give birth to Clonaid-created clones by early February, she said.

Clonaid was founded in the Bahamas in 1997 by Claude Vorilhon, a former French journalist and leader of a sect called the Raelians. Vorilhon, who calls himself Rael, claims a space alien visited him in 1973 and revealed that extraterrestrials had created all life on Earth through genetic engineering.

Boisselier, who claims two chemistry degrees, identifies herself as a Raelian “bishop” and said Clonaid retains philosophical but not economic links to the Raelians. Rael is “my spiritual leader,” Boisselier said.

“I do believe we’ve been created by scientists,” she said. “And I’m grateful to them for my life.”

She said none of the couples are Raelians.

So far, 10 women have been implanted with Clonaid-created cloned embryos, Boisselier said; five had miscarriages in the first three weeks, and the other five led to “Eve” and the four current pregnancies.

No couple has paid for the cloning effort, but some of the first five couples invested in Clonaid, she said. She said she does not know how much Clonaid will charge once it begins to offer the service commercially.

To gain convincing proof that “Eve” is a clone, Boisselier said she accepted an offer by former ABC News science editor Michael Guillen.

Guillen, now a free-lance journalist who said he has no connection to Clonaid, said he has chosen “world-class, independent experts” whom he did not identify to draw DNA from the mother and the newborn and test them for a match.

“The baby is very healthy,” Boisselier said. “The parents are happy. I hope that you remember them when you talk about this baby -- not like a monster, like some results of something that is disgusting.”

The notion of human cloning is controversial, both because of the apparent risk to a baby -- cloned animals have shown a host of abnormalities -- and because of other ethical considerations. Boisselier contends that defects seen in cloned animals will not necessarily appear in humans.

“If my science is giving babies to parents who have been dying to get one with their own genes, is my science worse than the one preparing bombs to kill people?” she asked. “I am creating life.”