AR-News: Why Does Cloning Create Abnormalities? Scientists Take A Step Towards Finding Ou

[jim robertson]

Why Does Cloning Create Abnormalities? Scientists Take A Step Towards 
Finding Out
Berlin, Germany -- Significant abnormalities observed in cloned mice help 
reinforce the need to continue to avoid the reproductive cloning of humans, 
a scientist said today (Wednesday 30 June 2004) at the 20th annual 
conference of the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology. Dr. 
Takumi Takeuchi, from Cornell University, New York, USA told a media 
briefing that he and Dr. Gianpiero Palermo's team had compared imprinting 
abnormalities (the process where specific genes inherited from both parents 
are silent) in mice embryos derived from assisted reproduction techniques 
and from cloning.

"We found significantly impaired development in the cloned embryos compared 
with those derived from more conventional ART techniques", said Dr. 
Takeuchi, "and this has made us more convinced that reproductive cloning is 
unsafe and should not be applied to humans."

full story: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2004/07/040701085957.htm


“The Stone Age did not end for lack of stone, and the Oil Age will end long 
before the world runs out of oil.” - Sheikh Zaki Yamani, former Saudi 
Arabian oil minister