Zavos clones babies from dead people’s DNA
US-BASED Cypriot infertility specialist Panayiotis Zavos has sparked a “Frankenstein” debate in the UK ahead of his official announcement that he has taken DNA from a dead child as part of his latest cloning attempt.
In the wake of an exclusive interview with Britain’s Mail on Sunday, Zavos, who plans to present his announcement before a panel of experts in London today, was accused of taking part in a grotesque experiment.
He told the newspaper that he had succeeded in taking DNA from two dead people, an 11-year-old-child named Cady, and a 33-year-old man, and that he had successfully implanted it into living bovine eggs. Both had died in car accidents.
Zavos said the desperate parents had contacted him and begged him to clone their lost loved ones. He has also detailed his claims in a film which was due to be shown on Channel 4 News.
“In disturbing footage, which will undoubtedly lead to accusations that he is exploiting innocent people who are overcome with grief, the mother said: ‘Cady was simply everything to me. If there is one chance in a billion that it would work, of course I want to do that’,” the Mail on Sunday reported.
“This is for Cady. This is a mother expressing love for a daughter and trying to give her daughter life. What I am doing is trying to give her biological presence in this world continuation,” Zavos said.
Although Zavos said that so far he has only experimented with bovine eggs, as they are receptive, he claims the same technique could be used to implant DNA from a corpse into a human egg.
“This is powerful stuff,” he said. “If anyone ever accused me of playing God, this is as close as you can get. I am not God, I play no God, I just do God’s work.
“We are not talking about Hollywood here, we are not talking about fiction, we are talking about the realities of life. I don’t wish to be involved in resurrecting anyone. The dead people are gone but they left behind the cells that their relatives wish to use to reproduce a child. That is where it begins for me, not where the source of the material is.”
The interview published on Sunday sparked outrage in the UK yesterday. Nuala Scarisbrick, of pro-life campaign group Life told the Daily Mirror: “We find the reports that he is using the DNA of dead people with cow’s eggs disgusting.
“There’s a macabre aspect to what this man is doing. He’s playing upon vulnerable people by kidding them with the idea he can replicate their lost ones. Let’s hope the public in America are as revolted as we are here. It should be banned. You don’t have to be pro-life to feel the tremendous sickness that goes along with this.”
The Human Fertilisation & Embryology Authority said what Zavos was doing would be illegal in the UK. A spokeswoman said: “It’s not necessary. There’s no need for reproductive cloning. You have to look at the potential for this. You are creating a new human being from someone else’s DNA.”
Earlier this year Zavos claimed to have implanted a cloned human embryo in a woman’s womb. The announcement was greeted with derision by mainstream scientists and fertility experts who branded his work odious. He later revealed the attempt had been unsuccessful.
