First Cloned Baby Coming in Jan. 2003, Couple Talks on a CNN Interview

[Soulja]

I saw this, I dont know if anyone else did. Anyway i do not oppose cloning, but who gives a crap about my opinion...

 

Opinions are like assholes, everybody got one

 

Well in this CNN Interview, it was shown that sperm is NOT NEEDED in reproduction. An egg-cell from a Sergate mother will be taken, all the DNA will be stripped of this cell and the mother's (who will be cloned) DNA is inserted into the egg. The mitocondrial DNA will not be removed however, which will cause the clone to be a 99% copy. The 1% comes from the sergate mother's mitocondrial DNA.

 

This was very interesting indeed.

 

My question to you is, do you think the clone will have the same personaliy as the mother? The clone will have different experiences in life than the mother, so will this cause the clone to be different from the mother? How much of a factor is Environment in all of this?

[Ami]

Your enviroment, I think, is the biggest factor, you have to live and strive in your enviroment, so I would have to say that the child will be nothing like the donor. If one is bourn in a time of war, and the other in peace, then the one bourn in war will have a tendency to be violent or protective, where as the one bourn in peace will probably not see the need for either, or phsycologically speaking it could be vice versa, not wanting to emmulate the persons surroundings...

[Ami]

0 O o . Interesting thought, what would be the affect of knowing that everyone one is unique but you? that could really through them off the deep end, that's something dear old donor didn't have to face......

[fafalone]

Yeah, cloning generally doesn't require sperm.

 

Mitochondrial DNA would not change anyway.

[Soulja]

I dont get how people say its "immoral"

and its "playing God". How are you playing God? You still are making something out of something not nothing. Its ridiculous, its like these people think cloning is spontaneous generation! You are NOT "being God".

[Soulja]

Being the nice person that I am, LOL, I have a transcript of the interview and an interview with the doctor who is doing this:

 

 

 

Tonight, the amazing claim: Come January 2003, the first human clone is born. Could it be true?

 

ANNOUNCER: A scientist announces the first cloned human being.

 

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

 

DR. SEVERINO ANTINORI, FERTILITY SPECIALIST: It's the 33rd week. I expect the birth for the first week of January.

 

(END VIDEO CLIP)

 

ANNOUNCER: Is this a scientific breakthrough or an outrageous hoax?

 

This is CONNIE CHUNG TONIGHT. Live from the CNN Broadcast Center in New York: Connie Chung.

 

CHUNG: Good evening.

 

Could the first month of the new year go down in history for the birth of the first human clone? Well, that's the claim of a doctor in Italy, Severino Antinori, who has made similar claims in the past, but never actually produced a human clone. He said he will not elaborate on his newest claim until tomorrow, but today he gave some specifics about an unidentified couple and the embryo he says the woman is carrying.

 

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

 

ANTINORI: It's the 33rd week. I expect the birth for the first week of January.

 

QUESTION: And can you tell us where this will be?

 

ANTINORI: Where exactly, I don't really want to speak about that.

 

(END VIDEO CLIP)

 

CHUNG: The research is highly controversial, with many researchers warning that the new technology still poses dangers to an infant clone. And the entire field is rather murky, with researchers dodging political opposition and questioning each other's credibility.

 

Our guest tonight is no stranger to cloning controversies. He is Panos Zavos, scientific director of the Kentucky Center for Reproductive Medicine, a former partner of the Italian Dr. Antinori, until they had a falling out. He's predicted his own work will yield a cloned birth next year. And he joins us tonight from Lexington.

 

Thank you for being with us. We appreciate it. Good to see you again.

 

PANOS ZAVOS, KENTUCKY CENTER FOR REPRODUCTIVE MEDICINE: Thank you, Connie. It's good to be with you.

 

CHUNG: Does the technology exist, first?

 

ZAVOS: The technology is there and it can be done. There's no doubt about that. The question is, is what Severino telling us true or not? And, obviously, we can elaborate further on this.

 

CHUNG: All right, we'll get to that.

 

But first, why don't we explain exactly what happens? In in vitro fertilization, you take a woman's egg and you take a man's sperm. You unite them in a petri dish and then implant the embryo in the woman. How is cloning different?

 

ZAVOS: Well, here we have -- we take the DNA from only one partner, either the male or female. And, incidentally, we take the DNA from a somatic cell. That's from a body cell. And we insert it into the egg, which is enucleated.

 

CHUNG: And there is no sperm, is that correct?

 

ZAVOS: Yes. We use no sperm. We use the DNA exclusively from the one partner or the other. Then, that baby will be the sex of the mother or the father. And, therefore, we can predetermine the sex of that offspring. But there's no fertilization here. It's asexual reproduction.

 

CHUNG: Which is probably the extraordinary part of it and the problem that many people have with it.

 

Now, this Dr. Antinori -- who was a partner of yours, but the two of you split up -- do you believe that he actually has and will be part of this cloned baby in January, that there will be one born?

 

ZAVOS: Well, we are going to have to wait and see here.

 

I think that what I have been faced with during my collaboration with Severino is that I had to really get him out of trouble many, many times during our collaborative effort, because, very simply, he was making statements that they were not true or they could not be substantiated. And that is really -- when he made the statement last May that there is a cloned baby expected and that he announced that at the United Arab Emirates, when we looked into the specifics -- and we were collaborating then. He announced this in collaboration with me.

 

And he said that, "This pregnancy was established between me and with Dr. Zavos as well." When we looked at our team's efforts, there was nothing there done. I had nothing to do with this. When I questioned Severino, his reaction was that: "Hey, this is not a big deal. What are you worried about?"

 

CHUNG: So, in this case, are you questioning his credibility?

 

ZAVOS: Yes, I do. I certainly do. And, actually, I am involved now in the creation of a cloned baby myself.

 

CHUNG: Yes, I know. We are going to get to that in just one second. I want to ask you one question, though.

 

ZAVOS: Sure.

 

CHUNG: Is what you're saying a little more professional envy or professional jealousy that he may indeed succeed before you do?

 

ZAVOS: Not really.

 

If Severino accomplishes this, I would congratulate him tomorrow, as a matter of fact. It's just that I think that the facts don't speak very clearly here.

 

CHUNG: All right, so let's get to your case.

 

ZAVOS: When he announces a pregnancy with me and it is not there, then I have to question him. CHUNG: Yes, all right, Dr. Zavos, let's get to your case.

 

We had the good fortune of being able to meet Kathy and Bill, the couple you're working with. And our contributing correspondent Michael Gillen did an interview with them. They wanted their identities kept secret.

 

But let me show a little clip of that and then I'll have a question for you.

 

ZAVOS: OK.

 

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

 

KATHY: his is the future. And you know something? If God didn't want us to learn how to do all these things, then God would not have enabled the scientists to be able to move on and learn and do.

 

MICHAEL GILLEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): In fact, Bill and Kathy believe it's their divine destiny to have a cloned baby.

 

KATHY: I think that God really wants us to do this, that it is the next step. I can't imagine any other reason why we haven't had a child, other than this is what we were meant to do.

 

BILL: We realize there are a lot of people against it, for whatever reason. And, hopefully, they'll educated and understand and be sympathetic and can change. I really hope so. I really would like their approval, but we're going to do it regardless.

 

GILLEN: You are willing to risk public opinion, scientific opinion. You are willing to risk being recognized and the secret getting out and maybe turning your lives upside down, right? Are you prepared for that?

 

KATHY: Oh, my life is always upside down every day anyway, so what's the difference?

 

(END VIDEOTAPE)

 

CHUNG: Have you cloned Kathy yet?

 

ZAVOS: No. We are very, very close to that. We do have their cells already obtained, ready for nuclear transfers. But we have not done that, no.

 

CHUNG: So it will take some time. After you accomplish the technical part of it, it would be nine months later.

 

ZAVOS: That's correct. Yes.

 

CHUNG: All right, sir, we thank you so much. I think all of us will be watching tomorrow morning to see what the results of this new information from Italy will be. You as well, right?

 

ZAVOS: Oh, of course. CHUNG: OK. Thank you so much.

 

ZAVOS: Thank you, Connie.

 

CHUNG: Dr. Severino Antinori declined to talk us again tonight, as we had said. He says he'll have more to say about the human clone due in January tomorrow.

[Soulja]

This is what was said about cloning on "tommorrow's show" which was friday.

 

CONNIE CHUNG, CNN HOST: Good evening.

 

Tonight, some incredible stories, ranging from our exclusive look at how science fiction may be about to radically change family realities to a very funny, very politically incorrect at what happens when man and woman become husband and wife.

 

Plus, airing for the first time, an all new interview with four Olympic skaters. You remember them, the Canadian pair and the Russian pair and the controversy over who deserved the gold. Well these days, they skate side by side and we've got all four of them. And we'll ask the personal question about each duo that you're always dying to ask.

 

We're going to start, though, with that science fiction story I mentioned, and it's actually very real. It's a story we brought you earlier this year. It's a story your grandchildren might someday read as history. It's the story of an average American couple, a husband and wife, who want something absolutely normal -- a baby, and they're willing to get it by doing something absolutely revolutionary -- cloning.

 

If they succeed, next year could see the birth of the first human clone ever. They asked us not to reveal their identities, but they allowed contributing correspondent Michael GUILLEN:, to bring us the exclusive story of their attempt to give birth to the first of a new kind of human being.

 

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

 

MICHAEL GUILLEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): For most people, having a baby is child's play. It comes naturally.

 

BILL, PLANNING ON HAVING A CLONED CHILD: At times, you feel like you're meaningless, like you've left nothing on earth.

 

KATHY, PLANNING ON HAVING A CLONED CHILD: It's like this empty feeling. It's a hollowness. We want our family. We want to complete that circle.

 

GUILLEN:: Bill and Kathy want a baby so badly, they're going to have one cloned, using her DNA. It means flying in the face of huge public, political, religious and scientific opposition. But they don't care.

 

BILL: It's a concern, absolutely.

 

KATHY: And that's why we're in shadow, because we don't want to hurt that little life that comes into this world.

 

GUILLEN (on camera): Why is it so important then to tell your story to the world, Bill?

 

BILL: Education, so people slowly, slowly, or faster or faster, get to know what this is all about.

 

GUILLEN:: And that's why you're willing to risk going public with your story?

 

KATHY: Absolutely.

 

GUILLEN:: But you haven't even told your mother?

 

KATHY: No. I will, when the time is right, once we know that there is a baby coming. My mother will be so excited, she'll be jumping through hoops.

 

BILL: I think my mom will say, leave it up to you, Bill, you'll find a way.

 

GUILLEN:: You think they would accept and be loving of a child that was born this way?

 

KATHY: Why not?

 

BILL: I think so.

 

KATHY: A little, sweet, delicious baby, what could you not love?

 

GUILLEN:: Bill and Kathy's unusual story began when they met in 1989. He was a 40-something divorcee. She was a 30-something career woman looking for Mr. Right. Back then, they had no idea that having a delicious little baby would turn out to be so incredibly difficult. Back then, everything seemed so perfect.

 

KATHY: When I met Bill, he put his arm around me in six minutes and asked me what I was going to do for the rest of my life.

 

GUILLEN:: Within six minutes of meeting you, he put his arm around you? Bill...

 

BILL: I think it was actually five and a half minutes. But within six minutes, I knew that Kathy was the woman I wanted.

 

GUILLEN: (voice-over): In 1993, Bill and Kathy got married and immediately set out to have a baby.

 

KATHY: We first tried doing it the natural way. And when that wasn't happening, Bill suggested that we go to the doctor. GUILLEN:: The doctor put Kathy on Clomid, a drug designed to increase the odds of having a natural pregnancy. But after seven months of trying, nothing. Partly the problem was Kathy's eggs. They're too old and brittle. And partly, it's Bill's sperm.

 

BILL: I've had problems. I had three (UNINTELLIGIBLE). You know, it's when -- you have a vein going to that area and raise the temperature too high, so the sperm goes down.

 

GUILLEN:: Bill and Kathy decided to try artificial insemination. The man's sperm is collected and manually injected into the women's uterus. The woman's body is primed beforehand with a cocktail of potent fertility drugs. The injections were scary and painful enough, Kathy says, but even worse were the side effects.

 

KATHY: You go crazy. You just...

 

GUILLEN:: What do you mean?

 

BILL: The drugs would make her crazy, paranoid, insecure. You could say it's rainy outside, rainy outside, why are you talking about rain, because you're so on edge.

 

GUILLEN:: Worst of all, after 17 artificial inseminations, still no baby.

 

(on camera): At any point during that, did you ever ask yourself, why are we putting ourselves through this?

 

KATHY: Absolutely, all the time.

 

BILL: Why? We want a child. We want a child so badly. But is it worth all this anguish? Absolutely, Michael. We said it over and over to ourselves many times. This is the last time we're doing it, this is the last time, this is it.

 

KATHY: After each one, I said, that's it, I'm done. And then a month or so later, we both looked at each other and said, want to do it again?

 

GUILLEN: (voice-over): Next, Bill and Kathy tried in-vitro fertilization, or IVF. A woman's eggs are harvested. A man's sperm is collected. Then, the two are brought together in a petri dish. The fertilized eggs are then implanted into the woman, with hopes that at least one will take. Bill and Kathy tried IVF seven times.

 

KATHY: It's almost as if someone is playing a big joke on us. When I had a great egg month, Bill had a bad sperm month. When he had a great sperm month, I had a bad egg month. I mean, we just couldn't seem to make egg salad together at the same time.

 

GUILLEN: (on camera): Tell me about the last time, the last IVF procedure.

 

KATHY: That was the killer.

 

GUILLEN:: Tell me.

 

That one, that one was a great egg month, a great sperm month. Everything was moving along rather well.

 

GUILLEN: (voice-over): It was December 1998. The doctors harvested four eggs from Kathy, fertilized them with Bill's sperm, then placed all four embryos back into her uterus.

 

BILL: He did it so slowly and so carefully and so delicately, I was sure that two were going to attach, and to make it as children.

 

GUILLEN:: For two whole weeks, Kathy stayed in bed.

 

KATHY: We figured if I stayed completely still, these little babies have to hold. And we named them. We figured if we named them, they were little people, they were going to become little babies and they were going to be born.

 

GUILLEN:: On New Year's Eve, the phone rang with the news.

 

KATHY: Bill answered the phone and got the news. And it was very, very sad. Saying they were sorry, but your pregnancy test came back negative.

 

BILL: And that was five years -- felt really devastated.

 

GUILLEN:: For the next four years, Bill and Kathy gave it a rest. They'd run out of options.

 

But then one day Bill read this book on cloning. Then he happened to see a newspaper article about a cloning doctor based in Lexington, Kentucky. His name was Panos Zavos.

 

BILL: They tracked him down, and I called him and I called him and I called him.

 

GUILLEN: (on camera): He wasn't returning your calls?

 

BILL: Nope. He finally picked up the phone, and he said, I see you've been calling a number of times and you're quite persistent.

 

I said, correct.

 

PANOS ZAVOS, PHD, EMBRYOLOGIST: Persistence always pace.

 

GUILLEN: (voice-over): Dr. Zavos runs a conventional fertility clinic in Lexington. He has a PhD in reproductive medicine. He's a professor emeritus at the University of Kentucky, a member of the American Society of Reproductive Medicine and an outspoken defender of human cloning.

 

He's testified before Congress, before the National Academy of Sciences, and made headlines worldwide by claiming he and a secret team of doctors are only months away from trying to clone a human baby. ZAVOS: The public realize that this is not as monstrous as it may sound. Once they see a baby dressed in pink or blue, they will say, what a wonderful thing.

 

GUILLEN:: Dr. Zavos says he's got a waiting list of some 5,000 desperately infertile couples, but only six will be cloned in the first round. That includes Bill and Kathy.

 

At their advanced age, he says, time is of the essence.

 

ZAVOS: If they don't reproduce within the next five years, the chance of having quality time with this child will diminish significantly.

 

BILL: I think we're doing medical history. I think we're on the cutting edge and on the beginning of a brave new world.

 

GUILLEN:: It all begins next month or so when Dr. Zavos tells Bill and Kathy, pack your bags, you're flying to a secret overseas lab where cloning is legal.

 

KATHY: I don't believe he's told anybody where it is. And he wants to make sure that the privacy of it is kept as such so that the paparazzi don't get in the way of this scientific procedure.

 

BILL: The only thing he does say is that we're going to be flying someplace warm.

 

GUILLEN:: At the secret lab, a team of doctors will take a plug of Kathy's tissue and harvest her DNA. Also, they'll take the egg from a younger women and then replace its DNA with Kathy's. They'll implant that egg into a surrogate mother. If the pregnancy holds, nine months later, out will come Kathy's nearly identical body double.

 

(on camera): Why the decision to clone Kathy and not you, Bill?

[Soulja]

Continued... (Sorry... I couldn't fit it inside one post!)

 

BILL: Kathy suffered far greater than I did. She went through 24 months of drugs, of injectable drugs which could possibly cause cancer, and also, I think I'd rather have a girl than a boy. As simple as that. And God willing, if this works, maybe two years from now, we'll clone me.

 

KATHY: Why not? Instant family.

 

GUILLEN:: Why not just adopt?

 

KATHY: Well, we have thought about that. You can adopt a baby overseas, and then in a lot of countries, what happens is by the time you get the baby, they've been so messed up in the orphanage where they are that you are taking on a health hazard.

 

GUILLEN:: But isn't that an argument for all the more wanting to adopt a child like that, to show them some love and kindness?

 

KATHY: Yes, you're right. You're right about that.

 

BILL: But there is also nothing wrong with wanting your own, and having that right.

 

GUILLEN: (voice-over): But what about the medical risks involved? Scientists are finding that animal clones are often born with awful defects. Doctor Zavos claims it's just the result of sloppy cloning.

 

ZAVOS: There are bad mechanics and good mechanics. There are bad doctors and good doctors. There are good electricians and bad electricians. We are going to hire the good mechanics, the good doctors and the good electricians to do this. Therefore, our team believes in what we're doing, and I think we're going to hit a home run.

 

GUILLEN:: His team, he says, plans to use the latest prenatal technology to ensure a healthy birth.

 

ZAVOS: We have ultrasonic equipment with computers attached to them, that they measure different things and different growth measurements from the head to the toe, and everything in between.

 

BILL: We're not going to give birth to a monster or an abnormal child. If there is serious abnormality, absolutely we will -- and Dr. Zavos concurs that we will abort.

 

GUILLEN: (on camera): And when you said the word "abort," you know, lots of people are going think, oh my gosh, you're piling one abomination on top of another.

 

KATHY: Well, at least they'll have stem cells to possibly help improve someone's life who is having a problem.

 

GUILLEN:: So you would harvest stem cells from the aborted fetus for purposes of research? But you know how controversial that is, too.

 

KATHY: Well, I'm a controversial person. I'm not politically correct. I never have been. I never will be.

 

GUILLEN: (voice-over): But there is yet another objection to this procedure. Even when animal clones seem to be born healthy, time delayed defects often rear their heads. The famous cloned sheep Dolly, for example, appears to be developing premature arthritis. Dr. Zavos disputes the evidence, but he admits cloning is risky.

 

ZAVOS: For me to say that there are no risks involved, that would be a pure lie. And for me to say I'm not willing to take the risks, that would be finding me as a chicken. I'm neither one of the two. I'm a risk-taker, but at the same time, I'm a very cautious individual.

 

GUILLEN: (on camera): As older parents, how are you going to cope with the child who may evidence some of these delayed birth defects?

 

KATHY: We'll face it and we'll deal with it.

 

BILL: If anyone can face and deal with it, it's us.

 

GUILLEN: (voice-over): Bill and Kathy are equally confident they'll be able to deal with success.

 

(on camera): Suppose you succeed. Suppose you have a child through this procedure. Will you raise it in secret? Or will you go public?

 

KATHY: We'll tell the world that this child was conceived through cloning when it's safe for the child, when the political climate and the emotional climate will be accepting.

 

GUILLEN:: What will you the tell the child herself? Would you tell her that she is a clone?

 

KATHY: Eventually, yes.

 

BILL: I think I would just tell the child that she was born by an in vitro process, without getting into specifics until the child is an adult.

 

GUILLEN:: What if she just gets angry at you? Why did you bring me into the world this way, I'm a freak? I'm completely different than any other human being who has ever lived on the face of the earth. Are you prepared that this child could be angry at you for bringing her into the world this way?

 

KATHY: She's going to be treated like a very special person from day one. And she's going to be loved, loved and loved, and she's not going to ever feel like a freak.

 

BILL: Absolutely not.

 

GUILLEN:; What do you tell the child's doctor? I mean, you can't keep that secret from a doctor.

 

KATHY: I never thought of that. We'll figure that out, one step at a time.

 

GUILLEN: (voice-over): Another thing Bill an Kathy haven't figured out yet is how to pay Dr. Zavos. It can cost up to $80,000, depending on whether an egg donor or surrogate mother are involved.

 

(on camera): You are working class folks, you're hard working people. Where are you going to get that money?

 

KATHY: I don't know.

 

BILL: All our savings, credit cards, borrowing, begging and stealing.

 

KATHY: We're not going to steal.

 

(LAUGHTER)

 

GUILLEN:: Figuratively speaking, I understood. But I mean, seriously, how far would you be willing to go to get this done? Would you be willing, say, to mortgage your home?

 

BILL: I would be. She wouldn't be.

 

KATHY: I don't want to end up without a roof over our heads.

 

GUILLEN:: I know there are going to be some people who will listen and they'll say, we don't all get what we want in life. And part of maturity is accepting that. Do you feel in your heart of hearts that you're being a little bit immature, maybe a little irresponsible?

 

KATHY: Absolutely not.

 

GUILLEN:: ... by not accepting and just moving on?

 

KATHY: No, no, I don't think there is any immaturity here. I mean, come on, this is the future, and you know something? If God didn't want us to learn how to do all these things, then God would not have enabled the scientists to be able to move on and learn and do.

 

GUILLEN: (voice-over): In fact, Bill and Kathy believe it's their divine destiny to have a cloned baby.

 

KATHY: I think that God really wants us to do this, that it is the next step. I can't imagine any other reason why we haven't had a child, other than this is what we were meant to do.

 

BILL: We realize there are a lot of people against it for whatever reason, and hopefully they'll be educated and understand and be sympathetic, and change. I really hope so. I really would like their approval, but we're going to do it regardless.

 

GUILLEN: (on camera): You're willing to risk public opinion, scientific opinion, you're willing to risk being recognized and the secret getting out, and maybe turning your lives upside down, right? I mean, are you prepared for that?

 

KATHY: Oh, my life is always upside down every day anyway, so what's the difference.

 

GUILLEN: (voice-over): And what if, after all this, they still don't get a baby? Then will they finally call it quits? Well...

 

KATHY: Yes. We will call it a day at that point. We'll say, OK, we tried.

 

GUILLEN: (on camera): It will be the end of the road for Bill and Kathy?

 

BILL: Maybe we'll try it once or twice more, but we're not going to try it forever.

 

(LAUGHTER)

 

(END VIDEOTAPE) CHUNG: Whether you are rooting for Bill and Kathy or rooting against them, the reality is, what they're doing is perfectly legal. President Bush and most of Congress oppose it, but they have not made cloning a federal crime. In any case, Bill and Kathy are pursuing their plan outside the U.S.

 

And when we come back, you'll meet the man who is bucking the system to make a baby in a way no one ever has before. Stay with us.

 

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

 

CHUNG: Contributing correspondent Michael Guillen just introduced us to Bill and Kathy, who want a child so badly they're willing to have that child be the first human clone in history. But I also wanted to talk to the doctor, who is spearheading the effort to create a human clone, Panos Zavos, scientific director of the Kentucky Center for Reproductive Medicine.

 

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

 

CHUNG: First, Dr. Zavos, I'll try to explain in the simplest way so I hope that the viewers can understand. A normal in vitro fertilization, you take an egg from the woman, the sperm from the man, put in it a dish and it unites to create an embryo, which you then put in the woman.

 

ZAVOS: Yes, that's correct.

 

CHUNG: Now, this cloning process, you take an egg from the woman and you change the DNA...

 

ZAVOS: You remove the DNA.

 

CHUNG: And put new DNA in.

 

ZAVOS: New DNA, which comes from the donor.

 

CHUNG: From the donor, and that's all do you. It becomes an embryo, no sperm.

 

ZAVOS: No sperm involved.

 

CHUNG: No sperm involved.

 

Now, most people would say, I think: That's not natural. That's weird. And that's why I think critics say to you, you're going to create a freak.

 

ZAVOS: Not true, of course. And, you know, they used to say the same thing about in vitro when we decided to do in vitro 25 years ago, that creating a baby in a petri dish or in a test tube is unheard of.

 

And, of course, they were saying exactly the same things, the same arguments to Bob Edwards, the gentleman that developed this technology in 1978 when Louise Brown was born, that he was going to create freaks. CHUNG: Yes.

 

ZAVOS: He was going to create people that don't belong in this world.

 

CHUNG: But how do you know that that egg with the changed DNA is going to grow into a normal human being? You don't know that.

 

ZAVOS: Well, the results of various experiments that we have executed plus the good results -- and I must indicate here, the good results from many other studies that have been done with success rates up to 100 percent of normal offsprings born in animal models, OK.

 

CHUNG: Animals. Only animals, not human beings.

 

ZAVOS: Only animals. That's correct -- indicate that this particular procedure can work in the human with less difficulties than we see in animals.

 

The reason for that, obviously, is that we in the human arena will be doing human IVF, that's manipulating the sperm and the eggs and the dishes and the petri dishes and the test tubes for almost 25 years.

 

CHUNG: But a lot of mistakes were made with animals, right?

 

ZAVOS: Yes.

 

CHUNG: Isn't the success rate something like 1 percent?

 

ZAVOS: One percent when Dolly was produced.

 

CHUNG: Right. Dolly the sheep.

 

ZAVOS: But today there are studies that -- they show successes of 30 and 80 percent of births from embryo transfers.

 

CHUNG: Still animals, right?

 

ZAVOS: Still animals.

 

CHUNG: OK, let's stop that for a minute and go over to Michael.

 

I think the big curiosity for everyone is, will this little girl that Kathy hopefully will have, will she look exactly like Kathy?

 

GUILLEN: Well, it's an interesting question. Nearly so; about 99 percent so.

 

The reason she won't be identical-identical is because there is a little bit of DNA left over in the egg that is taken from the younger woman.

 

CHUNG: Because Kathy doesn't have good eggs, so they're going to take a donor egg?

 

GUILLEN: Correct. Because Kathy's eggs are old...

 

CHUNG: And, OK, and that donor egg's DNA is going to be taken out and Kathy's DNA is going to be put in.

 

GUILLEN: Correct. And even though you have removed the nucleus from the donor woman's egg, nevertheless there is a little residual DNA we call mitochondrial DNA that is left over in the outer portions of the egg. So even though you've removed the nucleus, that mitochondrial DNA remains, and it will contribute about 1 percent of the total DNA.

 

So it will be Kathy's DNA...

 

CHUNG: From the donor egg?

 

GUILLEN: Correct. So it will be Kathy's DNA, which is 99 percent of the total, and then 1 percent from the donor mother.

 

Another variation...

 

CHUNG: How about -- let me ask you this: How about personality, sense of humor, the same -- liking the same kinds of food?

 

GUILLEN: That's the $64,000 question, although it's very interesting.

 

I covered the story of the Texas A&M scientists who recently cloned a cat, which is a fairly complex animal. And before that they cloned a bull, a brahma bull is that he has very much the same mannerisms as the old, original bull.

 

But no one can tell you. I mean, no one can tell you how much your personality is encoded in the genes. That's the $64,000,000 question, among other things.

 

CHUNG: Why are you doing this? Because 85 percent of Americans, according to surveys, don't think it should be done.

 

ZAVOS: Well, obviously they don't. And some of the research that has been done and some of the understandings that we have is that some of those people are against it because of fear of the unknown.

 

And I think that by people knowing about this and what the complexities may be and the benefits will be, I think more people will accept it.

 

The same ratio of opposition took place back when the IVF business began.

 

CHUNG: I don't know, you said that before. And I understand that; it's just that, I think with IVF, wasn't there experimentation? For this...

 

ZAVOS: Very little.

 

CHUNG: Your team -- oh, good dear. Well your team -- has your team actually experimented with human eggs?

 

ZAVOS: Well, we work with human eggs every day.

 

CHUNG: Right. But you haven't done cloning with human eggs.

 

ZAVOS: No. And, of course, we don't believe in experimenting with human eggs or embryos until we're ready to execute the real thing, because we're simply -- we are opposed to experimenting with human embryos for the idea of creating human embryos and killing them.

 

CHUNG: Would you allow me to be devil's advocate and say, well, then, aren't Kathy and Bill going to end up being guinea pigs?

 

ZAVOS: Well, you can say that. I think that when a new technology is pioneered and is developed, you can say that the people that receive this treatment first are, obviously, guinea pigs to a certain degree.

 

But, you know, that's one way of looking at it. I don't think that they do feel that way. And we don't feel like that any of those people are guinea pigs. They're just, really, people that are going to go first, and then -- during the first team, we have six or seven couples. Then as soon as we complete this team, we're going to go onto the next team, which may be seven to 10 couples.

 

So somebody has got to go first. But we feel like that the level of confidence of accomplishing this particular puzzle here is very good. And our team feels very good about coming up with healthy children born from such effort.

 

CHUNG: All right. You say that you're going to check for abnormalities, right?

 

ZAVOS: Yes.

 

CHUNG: But, as I understand it, Kathy and Bill will, after they've taken care of what they need to do, which is provide the DNA -- Kathy's DNA -- they'll fly back to the United States and just wait. And it's the surrogate who has the baby in her.

 

And even though -- I mean, nobody will necessarily know that she's got a cloned baby in her stomach, but doesn't she have to have this special medical care to make sure that she doesn't have an abnormality?

 

ZAVOS: Oh, absolutely. We do have the experts -- maternal fetal medicine experts that will monitor those pregnancies from day one of conception until the birth of that child.

 

And we intend to study the behavior of those fetuses, the growth, the measurements, the deficiencies, the assets -- whatever -- and then, of course, learn from those procedures as such.

 

Now, this is something that that the animal cloners have never even dreamed of doing. And this is really why it gives us a tremendous advantage over the animal cloners, is that in the animal business of reproduction, we only do it right, we cannot afford to do it wrong.

 

CHUNG: Michael Guillen and Panos Zavos, thank you so much.

 

(END VIDEOTAPE)

 

CHUNG: A few weeks ago, Kathy's cells were harvested for their DNA. Doctors hope to create an embryo this year, or early next year. You can bet we'll hear about it if they succeed.