Just as we had figured...
Posted on 01/04/2003 10:23:39 AM PST by knighthawk
SUSPICIONS mounted yesterday over a scientist’s claims to have created the world’s first human clone after she failed to submit the baby for DNA testing.
Dr Brigitte Boisselier - medical director of Clonaid, a maverick scientific research company founded by an alien-worshipping cult - announced the child’s birth a week ago.
Now she says the American parents of baby Eve have changed their mind about submitting the child to an independent medical examination to prove it is indeed identical to its 31-year-old mother.
Dr Boisselier blamed a lawsuit launched in Florida earlier this week for the change of heart.
Dr Boisselier’s Christmas week claims that Eve is the first of five cloned babies to be born created headlines world-wide and have revived the debate on human cloning, with new laws proposed in the US and elsewhere to ban it.
Dr Boisselier says proof may be provided by a second baby due to be born somewhere in Europe in the next few days.
The Eve case, filed by a child advocacy lawyer, calls for Eve to be placed under court protection - if indeed she exists at all - because she may be at risk and is the subject of a "dangerous medical experiment".
"Let’s bring the child before the court so the judge can determine what kind of protective services she needs," urged attorney Bernard Siegel, whose case has been listed for a hearing at Broward circuit court, Fort Lauderdale on 22 January.
"If this child exists, I believe she is being abused in that she is being commercially exploited by Clonaid. Also, this is brand new technology and they have inflicted on her potential genetic defects."
He added: "She is going to be used as a poster child for raising money for their business. Who does that child have who will speak up for her? She is being used like a guinea pig."
Mr Siegel says he is acting on his own and has no connection to any third party on either side of the cloning debate. He says he can only believe that his lawsuit has called Dr Boisselier’s bluff, because it calls for the baby to be produced.
Dr Boisselier is a member of the Raelians, a cult that believes mankind was created by extra-terrestrials. Its French leader, Rael, claims to have been taken aboard a spaceship parked on a French mountain top by a short, green alien, while pink and blue squirrels skipped around outside.
A week ago, Dr Boisselier hastily convened a press conference in Florida to announce that the world’s first human clone had been delivered in an undisclosed location somewhere outside America on Boxing Day.
Former ABC television science editor, Dr Michael Guillen, was given the task of recruiting an independent scientist to test this claim.
Now, however, Dr Boisselier has admitted the test has failed to happen, confirming sceptics’ predictions that after a week’s worth of world-wide publicity for its bizarre beliefs, Clonaid would find a reason to stall.
She said the lawsuit, which demands that the baby and her parents be produced before a judge, John Frusciante, had frightened the parents off. "That is a lot of turbulence for the parents who have gone home and just want to have some peace and spend time with their children," she added, speaking on French television.
But Rael had a different story.
"A judge in Florida signed a paper saying that the baby Eve should be take from the family, from her mother," he told CNN.
"I called [Dr Boisselier] immediately because to take away this poor baby from a mother, I think this is completely crazy, just because she was cloned. So I called Dr Boisselier, and I said: ‘If I was you, I would not test anything.’"
Dr Art Caplan, a bio-ethicist at the University of Pennsylvania, said: "There is no excuse for not testing. This tells me what I suspected all along, that this cloning claim is not true and Dr Boisselier is a fraud."
Dr Richard Seed, an Illinois-based researcher who declared several years ago that he too planned to clone a human, said: "It’s hard for me to believe that she would concoct this, but that is what people are going to think."
Wow, must have been a heavy LSD-trip!
I would bet it's all a fraud ---Boisselier looks like a fraud herself. She's a nutcase.
Just as we had figured...
| A claim of human cloning? It's been done before - Raelians '78 announcement was ruled a fraud |
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| Posted by MeeknMing On 01/01/2003 5:47 AM CST with 7 comments The Washington Post ^ | January 1, 2003 | The Washington Post Staff A claim of human cloning? It's been done before '78 announcement was ruled a fraud; new case awaiting validation 01/01/2003 The Washington Post For all the speed with which science was progressing, virtually no one thought it would happen so soon. Yet there it was in huge block letters on the front page of the New York Post: The world's first human clone had been born. The next day, The Washington Post and other newspapers across the country ran with the story about the rogue scientists who had cloned a human on an undisclosed island. A spokesman connected to... |
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if more of these clones are announced they will have to provide proof or go away...
but look forward to a debunking of whatever it is they offer as proof as being pure fabrication...
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