Researcher Says Team Will Try to Impregnate 200 Women With Eggs Containing Cloned Human DNA
DONNA KELLEY, CNN ANCHOR: A researcher based in Lexington, Kentucky says that he's assembled a team that will try to impregnate 200 women somewhere in the world with eggs containing cloned human DNA. A public announcement is scheduled for tomorrow in Washington, but CNN medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen is there already with the details -- Elizabeth.</s>ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: You know, Donna, this really is case of truth being stranger than fiction. This is news many dreading. Two scientist, one American and one Italian, says that in November, they will impregnate 200 women, with what would be the world's first human clones. Let's look at who these two scientist are. One of them, Dr. Panos Zavos, is A former professor from the University of Kentucky, and the other, who you see on the left there with the white mustache, is Dr. Severino Antionori, and he's Italian. He actually, you might remember him seven years ago, he helped a 62-year-old woman get pregnant. And these scientists say, hey, if we cloned Dolly the Sheep four and a half years ago, that technology can work for human beings as well. And they say that what they are going to do is these -- here we see Dolly. And they say it worked for Dolly, it can work for people, too. They say they have 200 couples who were unable to conceive on their own. So instead, they will use cloning to help them have children.</s>DR. PANOS ZAVOS, CLONING RESEARCHER: We are talking about the development of a technology that can an give infertile and childless couple the right to reproduce and have a child, and above all, complete its life cycle. This is a human right, and should not be taken away from people because a group of people have doubts about this development. We have no intentions -- and I emphasize that -- we have no intentions to step over dead bodies or deformed babies to accomplish this. We never did in the past, and have no intentions of doing this while we attempt to develop this revolutionary and yet magnificent technology. Thank you.</s>COHEN: Now that's Dr. Panos Zavos, testifying to Congress in March. Now you'll notice that he said, we're not going to have nay dead bodies, no one is going to get hurt here, well, other scientists and bioethicists said, you know what, wherever we've tried to clone animals, first of all, it took many, many tries. It took nearly 300 tries to get Dolly. And on the way, scientist have created many, many deformed animals. And so these bioethicist say it would horrifying to try this in human beings.</s>ART CAPLAN, UNIV. OF PA., BIOETHICIST: Put aside whether it's good to be a clone, whether it's odd to be a clone, whether it's strange to be made in someone else's image, the way this science is right now, not working with well in animals, you absolutely don't want to do in people, it's just barbaric human experimentation.</s>COHEN: Now, Dr. Zavos says that they will screen the embryos before they implant them into women, and they Claim that they won't have deformed babies.</s>KELLEY: Elizabeth, are these 200 identical clones, or will they be 200 different clones?</s>COHEN: They will be 200 different babies, if all of them are born. The way that it works, these are 200 couples, and they have not been able to have children on their own, they would take DNA from either the mother or father and turn that into a clone. So you would get 200 different babies, each of whom would be a clone of the mother or the father.</s>KELLEY: OK, so the clone is that of the mother or the father. What if they needed some help? Would they try to take a clone of somebody else?</s>COHEN: No, because the way the that cloning works is it doesn't really matter if you've been infertile in the past. The way that it works, let's say you were going to, God forbid, clone me, you could just scrape my skin and you would get enough DNA, you would take that DNA, you would put it into a human egg where the DNA has been taken out of that egg, and then that is turned into an embryo. So you have an embryo, that Instead of having DNA from a man and a woman, you would just have my DNA. You would then implant that embryo into a women's uterus. It could be me. It could be any women really; any surrogate could carry that baby. And then you would have a baby Elizabeth Cohen, theoretically, nine months later. Now it's important to notice, you don't snap your fingers and get a clone of me who is 35 years old, you would have a baby who would be 35 years behind me, but would look just like I did as a baby.</s>KELLEY: OK, so that's a little bit of how it works, but it sounds like you don't need much to get the DNA that you need.</s>COHEN: No, theoretically, you really don't. I mean, all the cells in our body have the DNA that you need. If you scrape my skin, you would have the DNA that you need.</s>KELLEY: Elizabeth Cohen, thanks very much. And stay with CNN for much more on this story. TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com