A French scientist said Friday that her organization had succeeded in creating the first human clone, a 7-pound girl born the day after Christmas to an American couple at an undisclosed location.

The claims of Brigitte Boisselier are scientifically unsupported, opening her up to criticism.

By Marc Serota, Reuters

"The baby is fine," said Brigitte Boisselier, the head of Clonaid, a cloning company with links to a group called Raelians that believes life on Earth was created by extraterrestrials. She delivered the news before a roomful of reporters at a Hollywood, Fla., press conference.

Because of the association with the Raelians and the high failure rate that that has been the hallmark of all animal cloning to date, scientists and others greeted the announcement with skepticism.

Still, if DNA evidence proves the child is a clone - evidence promised within eight or nine days - the birth of the girl the scientists are calling Eve could ratchet up the debate on the ethics of cloning. It also could hasten the renewed efforts in Congress to pass legislation banning any form of human cloning.

"The parents are very happy," Boisselier said. "I hope that you remember them when you talk about this, not like a monster, like some result of something that is disgusting."

Boisselier also indicated more clones are on the way: A second is due next week in Europe, she said; three others are expected to be delivered by late January or early February.

The first, according to Boisselier, was born at 11:55 a.m. Thursday in a country that Boisselier did not disclose. She said the baby was a clone of its 31-year-old mother, using a technique that the French scientist described as similar to the one that led to the first cloning of a mammal, Dolly the sheep, in 1996.

Cloning produces a new individual using only one person's DNA. Scientists remove the genetic material from an unfertilized egg, then introduce new DNA from a cell of the animal to be cloned. Under the proper conditions, the egg begins dividing into new cells according to the instructions in the introduced DNA.

Boisselier said the cloned embryo was made using a skin cell from the mother and was electronically stimulated to begin dividing.

Although scientists to date have succeeded in cloning sheep, mice, cows, pigs, goats and cats, many experts warned the process was too dangerous to try on humans because of the high failure rate and abnormalities seen in the animals.

Mark Westhusin, a professor at Texas A&M University and a preeminent cloner of cattle, says when he was able to clone a cow named Second Chance, he performed 189 nuclear transfers (cloning procedures), resulting in 40 embryos. Of the 26 implanted, six resulted in pregnancies, which led to the one live birth.

Still, he said that given enough eggs and enough money, "it's not unreasonable to me to think they (Clonaid) did it."

Boisselier said her group had implanted 10 cloned embryos in women, five of which "were terminated spontaneously." Five led to pregnancies, she said.

Boisselier said proof that the baby Eve was a clone would be provided by an independent group of experts selected by Michael Guillen, now a freelance journalist and former science editor for ABC News. He is assembling experts to do DNA tests to determine whether the child is a clone of the mother. The results should be known in eight to nine days, Boisselier said.

Human cloning for reproductive purposes is banned in several countries. There is no specific law against it in the United States, but the Food and Drug Administration contends it must approve any human experiments in this country. Boisselier would not say where Clonaid has been carrying out its experiments. Bush administration officials said in Washington on Thursday they were aware of rumors of an announcement but had no plans to comment on the matter until after the details were known.

Clonaid was founded in the Bahamas in 1997 by Claude Vorilhon, a former French journalist and leader of a group called the Raelians. Vorilhon and his followers claim aliens visiting him in the 1970s revealed they had created all life on Earth through genetic engineering.

In Rome, fertility doctor Severino Antinori, who said weeks ago he had engineered a cloned baby boy who would be born in January, dismissed Clonaid's claims and said the group has no scientific credibility.

The news "makes me laugh and at the same time disconcerts me because it creates confusion between those who make serious scientific research" and those who don't, Antinori said.

Boisselier defended the birth against those who find cloning ethically repugnant.

"If you elect to have a child through cloning technology, why not?" she asked. "Who are we to tell parents what child they are to have?"

Contributing: Elizabeth Weise and Associated Press

Fonte: Usa Today