Probing Asian Clone Link

South Korean prosecutors are trying to verify reports that Clonaid officials impregnated a South Korean woman with a cloned human embryo and moved her out of the country in July, media said Tuesday.

The prosecutors recently seized documents and research data from a South Korea biotech company that reportedly helped Clonaid with the impregnation, the national Yonhap news agency reported.

Prosecution officials quoted by Yonhap did not say to which country the South Korean woman was thought to have gone.
Clonaid — which was founded in 1997 by the Raelian Movement, a sect that believes life on earth was created by clones of extraterrestrials — claimed last week that it had produced the world's first cloned baby, born to an American woman.
There has been no independent confirmation of the cloning claims by the group, and many experts have expressed skepticism.

Clonaid said Sunday that the cloned baby and the American woman were going to return to the United States on Monday. But where they live and further details were not released.

Clonaid officials in the United States did not answer phone messages and e-mails Monday from The Associated Press.

In addition to the cloned baby already claimed to have been born, Clonaid has said that four other women, including two from Asia, are expected to give birth to clones by early February. Reports here have speculated that the South Korean is one of these women.

The Seoul office of Clonaid told the press in July that a South Korean woman was two months pregnant with a cloned embryo. Kwak Ji-hwa, a spokesman for Clonaid in South Korea, said at the time that the implant was arranged through BioFusion Tech, a firm based in the southeastern city of Daegu.

After that announcement, South Korean prosecutors opened their investigation into BioFusion and Clonaid's activities in the country. The probe has focused on whether the companies violated laws that ban unlicensed, unethical medical activities or practices.

Investigators confirmed that three Korean women applied to have cloned human embryos implanted and located one of them, a former model identified only by her surname Kim, the Yonhap report said.

They said Kim testified that she applied for the cloning test but had never been implanted with a cloned embryo, it said.

Prosecution officials refused to comment on the report.

South Korea has no law banning human cloning yet, but has been accelerating efforts to enact one since the investigations began. The Science and Technology Ministry has drafted a bill that calls for a prison term of up to 10 years for those who attempt or help to clone humans.

The United States also has no specific law against human cloning. But the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, which regulates human experiments, says its regulations forbid human cloning without prior agency permission, and it has launched an investigation into whether Clonaid illegally performed any work on U.S. soil.

Research on embryonic stem cells could revolutionize the treatment of diseases such as cancer and Parkinson's disease. But the research is controversial because embryos must be destroyed to recover the stem cells.

"I think it's a big step for human beings in the future. It will bring us eternal life. That's the best thing that can happen to humanity. We can not only cure all diseases but also it will give us eternal life," said Claude Vorilhon on The Early Show.

The former French journalist founded Clonaid and is the leader of a sect called the Raelians. Vorilhon, who calls himself Rael, claims a space alien visiting him in 1973 revealed that extraterrestrials had created all life on Earth through genetic engineering.

Little more is known about Clonaid, including how many countries in which it operates. On Monday, a top Clonaid official said the company was founded in the Bahamas, but its presence there was limited to a post office box for receiving correspondence.

Scientists are skeptical of the group's claims to have cloned successfully.

"I don't believe that this group has the scientific expertise, the know-how to bring this off. The best cloners in the world are in veterinary medicine. They make it work in about 1 in 400 times," said Art Caplan, director of the Department of Medical Ethics at the University of Pennsylvania.