- LONDON - A controversial U.S. scientist who wants to be the first person
to clone humans said on Tuesday the technology could also be used to restore
youth.
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- Dr. Richard Seed said it would be impossible
to stop human cloning because it was such a huge intellectual challenge.
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- The race has already started and once
the technique has been perfected, rejuvenation will be the next step, he
said.
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- "We are talking real, genuine rejuvenation
here and now. Just turn the regulatory program halfway back " from
old age to youth. No informed biologist can now say this is impossible,
only difficult," he told a conference on human cloning.
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- "The torrent of research has already
started. All the processes for rejuvenation are already in place."
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- The Chicago-based researcher said cloning
involves manipulating DNA, the genetic material that controls life, which
can be altered and controlled.
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- "You could turn the program back
from age 50 to age 22," he told the conference, which was sponsored
by public interest group The Committee on Reproductive Ethics.
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- He defended human cloning as a legitimate
treatment for infertility and predicted a market for about 100,000 cloned
babies a year.
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- Many of Seed's remarks were derided by
the audience of scientists and academics at the meeting.
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- For some, his predictions represented
the worst fears sparked by the birth of the world's first cloned animal,
Dolly the sheep, two years ago.
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- Dr. Harry Griffin, one of the scientists
at the Roslin Institute in Edinburgh that cloned Dolly, said her birth
seemed to have distorted people's judgement. It was necessary to separate
fact from fiction, he added.
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- Far from being an easy technique, Dolly's
birth involved more than 400 unfertilized eggs, 29 embryos and 13 surrogate
mothers to achieve one birth.
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- "Cloning of human beings is impractical.
It is clearly unsafe, particularly for the child," he told the meeting,
adding that the interest of the child should be paramount.
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- Griffin said the Roslin Institute supported
Britain's position on the issue.
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- The government has banned human reproductive
cloning but left the door open to use the technique to create cloned tissue
and organs that could be used in treating people with brain disease and
various types of cancer.
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