Researchers Linked to Raelians Announce Cloned Embryos Implanted in Women
Researchers from Clonaid (http://www.clonaid.com/), a French firm with ties to the Raelians, who believe that cloning will lead to eternal life for humanity, said this week that they have implanted cloned human embryos in women in an attempt to bring a pregnancy to term, Agence France-Presse reports. In an interview with Agence France-Presse, Clonaid’s scientific director Brigitte Boisselier said that the company has developed embryos up to the blastocyst stage, when the embryo has more than 100 cells, but she would not give details on how many attempted pregnancies are in progress, where the research is taking place or how close the women are to giving birth.
“I will only make that announcement when a baby is born, whenever that is, because, as with in vitro fertilization, there is a risk of miscarriage,” Boisselier said. “All I can tell you is that it is going very well,” she added.
The announcement by the Raelians follows reports last week that Italian fertility specialist and human cloning “maverick” Dr. Severino Antinori has a patient who is eight weeks pregnant with a cloned embryo. Neither Antinori nor the unidentified woman have confirmed these reports.
(Temman, Agence France-Presse, 4/12).