November 27, 2002

Woman to Bear a Clone, a Doctor Says

By THE NEW YORK TIMES

An Italian doctor who announced previously that he was trying to clone humans said yesterday that a woman would give birth to a clone in January. But the doctor, Dr. Severino Antinori of Rome, would not reveal who the woman was or provide any scientific details of the cloning, Reuters reported.

He also said at a news conference that he was not in charge of the cloning project but added that he had made a "scientific and cultural contribution."

Fertility and cloning experts have long been skeptical of Dr. Antinori's cloning project, including his claims, last May, that three women were pregnant with embryo clones and that the farthest advanced pregnancy was 10 weeks. He would not say whether the woman due to give birth in January was one of the three.

"Why be so secretive about this if it is truthful?" said Dr. Jacques Cohen, the scientific director of assisted reproduction at St. Barnabas Medical Center in Livingston, N.J. "Why not tell us how this was done and where it was done and who the patient is? I would like to see some evidence."

For now, Dr. Cohen said, the pressing question for cloning is to understand why, in animals, so few embryo clones survive and why those that do survive so often have serious medical problems. While scientists have cloned a variety of species, including sheep, cows, pigs, mice, and cats, every effort has been beset with those problems and no one has found a way to solve them.

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