U.S. Doc Makes Human Cloning Claim

A Kentucky fertility specialist said Saturday he had implanted a cloned human embryo in a 35-year-old woman - a claim met with skepticism by many scientists.

Dr. Panos Zavos said it was too early to say whether the woman would become pregnant and give birth to a cloned baby.

British Health Secretary John Reid said attempting to create a cloned baby was illegal in Britain and a "gross misuse of genetic science."

A spokesman for Britain's Royal Society said the scientists' group was "extremely skeptical." Wolff Reik, a cloning expert at the Babraham Institute in Cambridge, called the attempt to clone a human irresponsible.

What's different about the claim, made in London, is that it comes from an American doctor. Zavos runs a fertility clinic in Lexington, Kentucky. What's familiar, CBS News Correspondent Richard Roth reports, is that he's giving few details and no evidence.

"I cannot tell you where the woman is," Dr. Zavos said at a press conference. "I mean, I did not give any specifics for a reason. I do not want to reveal the geographic location of the woman, the dates that were done or any specific details."

Zavos is not the first to make such a claim. Just over a year ago, a cult called the Raelians – who trace their roots to outer space – said they'd overseen the birth of five cloned babies, including a girl named Eve. But that group never allowed scientific scrutiny.

Zavos said the procedure was similar to the technology that created Dolly the sheep, the first mammal cloned from an adult cell. He said it used skin cells from the woman's husband and one of her eggs to create an embryo that was implanted into the woman's womb.

Roth reports that Zavos says he came to London for press coverage he couldn't get at home in Kentucky, almost echoing a British critic who complained he's seeking publicity – not advancing science.