news on March 3, 1978. Soon after, NBC's Tom Brokaw interviewed Rorvik on The Today Show. The book was very popular and caused much discussion about the ethics of cloning. However, scientists including Yale University professor Clement Markert generally disbelieved Rorvik's claims. Efforts to clone mammals had not been undertaken at that time and it was widely assumed that there would be enormous obstacles to achieving successful mammalian cloning. British scientist Derek Bromhall filed a $7,000,000 defamation suit against Rorvik's publisher, J. B. Lippincott, alleging that the book was a hoax, that it incorporated parts of his doctoral thesis as the theoretical basis for the cloning process, and that it had used his name without permission. When Rorvik refused to reveal the identity of "Max" or provide proof of the existence of the clone, judge John Fullam found that the book was a "fraud and a hoax" in a pretrial ruling. The case went to trial in 1982, with the charges being reduced to invasion of privacy. The publisher soon entered into an out-of-court settlement that included a payment of $100,000 and a public representation that the book was a hoax. No evidence, however, was presented in pre-trial proceedings, during the trial, or thereafter that established either the truthfulness or the falsity of the book. Rorvik himself denied that there had been any hoax, and refused either to be party to the out-of-court settlement or to contribute to it financially. He wrote an article defending In his Image for Omni in 1980. Rorvik has since written, ghost-written, edited and agented several books on diet and nutrition, psychology and other topics, including the Physician Desk Reference for Nutritional Supplements (2001). In 2006, a sixth edition of Your Baby's Sex: Now You Can Choose was published, marking nearly 40 years of continuous print. References External links "The Cloning of a Man" at Museum of Hoaxes (hoaxes.org) 1944 births Literary forgeries Living people Writers from Montana University of Montana alumni Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism alumni Time (magazine) people People from McCone County, Montana American male writers