Human cloning could effectively create a replica of another living or dead person. Scientists could create the first cloned human before the end of the year. Dr. Panayiotis Zavos, who along with his Italian colleague Dr. Severino Antinori has triggered worldwide alarm with plans to create tailor-made offspring.
Countries like France and Germany have appealed to the United Nations to get human cloning banned in an international treaty. The team has been banned from carrying out research in most European Union countries, but Zavos said that was not hindering progress.He said he was not in the business of creating "genetically-modified doppelgangers," but in helping infertile couples have a child. "We are not interested in cloning the bin Ladens of this world, the Michael Jacksons or the Michael Jordans of this world," the Kentucky-based fertility specialist added. "We are not interested in the replica of dead people. We are interested in assisting a father who does not have the sperm to have a biological child of his own...in assisting couples to reproduce."
He added that governments that had banned human clone tests were making a mistake in mixing politics with medical issues. He said thousands of childless people from all over the world were helping in their research.
