- CHICAGO (Reuters) - Physicist Richard Seed said Thursday that he
foresees as many as 200,000 human clones a year once his process is perfected,
at a price for each clone far lower than the $1 million the first one will
cost.
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- ``When I was seven years old I was brilliant
and crazy. I don't mind being called crazy,'' the 69-year-old scientist
told his first formal news conference since he startled the world earlier
this week by saying he was ready to clone a human.
-
- Seed said the initial market for human
clones will come from the 10 to 15 percent of infertile couples who cannot
conceive by alternative methods such as test tube fertilization or the
use of surrogate mothers.
-
- In the United States, he said, that probably
represents a maximum of 5,000 to 10,000 couples.
-
- ``It's my opinion that after that it
will be 200,000 (couples) a year,'' he said.
-
- There will be very little profit on the
first successful clone, he said, because it will cost about $1 million
to produce. But after that the cost will sink dramatically, he said, and
there are profits to be made.
-
- ``Profit is a desirable word. Profit
is essential,'' he said. ``Every human activity has to make a profit.''
If the United States does ban human cloning, he said, ''we're in the process
of arranging an offshore location'' to proceed.
-
- He said his choice would be Tijuana,
Mexico, while one of his colleagues prefers the Cayman Islands, another
The Bahamas. Seed has said he has a medical team lined up but has not named
the members. He is also reported to be broke and is trying to raise $1
million to $2 million for the project.
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- Seed also talked about his personal life,
saying he has been married three times, has seven children and six grandchildren.
He said he was the most unpopular student in his high school class in suburban
Chicago because ``I knew too much about too many things.''
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- While researchers in Scotland used a
mammary gland cell to clone Dolly the sheep, he said, he would use a white
blood cell for a human, employing an electric current to initiate cell
division.
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- For the patient, he said, it would take
40 seconds to implant the embryo, with no anesthetic. She would be in and
out of the office in 20 minutes, he said.
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- ``Science has much more experience with
the human embryo and than other animals,'' making the chances for success
high, he said. Seed, who lives in Riverside, Ill., just outside Chicago,
said he called the news conference so that everyone who had sought an interview
would be able to question him.
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