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Italian cloning guru says babies on their way
( 2002-05-09 11:00 ) (7 )

The Italian fertility expert whose avowed aim is to create the first human clone, said on Wednesday three women were pregnant with clones, but complained that the babies would be viewed as freaks by a hostile society. Severino Antinori called himself the "cultural and scientific co-ordinator" of the top secret cloning projects, and said one of the pregnancies was in the 10th week, one in the seventh and one in the sixth.

"One thing is certain, in the country where these babies will be born, if the climate of persecution does not change ... at the first birth everyone will say 'This is a monster'," the white-haired Antinori told a news conference.

He denied that he was specifically in charge of any of the three pregnancy cases and declined to say where the women were, indicating only that one of the trio lived in an Islamic nation.

Never shy of courting controversy, Antinori caused alarm in the scientific community, outrage in religious circles and confusion for law makers when he announced more than a year ago his desire to clone humans to help infertile couples.

Exiled from the wider scientific community for his refusal to abandon his research, Antinori said some 40 people were involved in the project across 18 countries.

"I am not isolated. There is fear to talk about these things. There is a criminalisation of my activities," he said.

Antinori said the women, who had undergone successful ultrasound screenings in recent weeks, were all volunteers who had paid nothing to become pregnant with clones.

CLONING DOUBTS

However, a former colleague of Antinori cast doubt on the pregnancy claims on Wednesday, saying that none of the Italian doctor's original team was participating.

"I don't believe what he has said," Panos Zavos told the English language daily Cyprus Mail. Zavos is continuing his own cloning research for childless couples.

Scientists have condemned human cloning as irresponsible because of the risk of deformities and miscarriage.

The United Nations set up a panel last year aimed at drafting an international treaty to outlaw the cloning of human beings, but Antinori insisted that many of his colleagues were continuing his research underground.

Antinori went on to accuse US President George W. Bush of practising "ethical Talibanism" because of the strong stance he has taken against cloning experiments.

"The West and Europe simply aren't realistic in wanting to ban cloning. Bush wants to put me and other researchers under the burka," fumed the bronzed professor.

"They have to understand - reproduction, sex, everything linked to privacy cannot be meddled with by the State."

Antinori gained fame after helping a 62-year-old women become a mother using a donated egg in the early 1990s and he told Wednesday's news conference that one thousand babies had now been born using his fertility treatment.

"The (cloning) project will give millions of people the chance to exercise their ancestoral right to reproduce," he said on Wednesday.