ltd. founded bahamas 1997 founder ra l key people brigitte boisselier thomas kaenzig products rmx568 rmx2010 services clonaid insuraclone ovulaid clonapet subsidiaries biofusion tech inc. website http www.clonaid.com a series of articles on the ra lian movement founder history beliefs & practices cloning clonaid funds views on politics economics cosmology this box view talk edit clonaid is an american based human cloning organization registered as a company in the bahamas . founded in 1997 it has philosophical ties with the ufo religion ra lism which sees cloning as the first step in achieving immortality . on december 27 2002 clonaid s chief executive brigitte boisselier claimed that a baby clone named eve was born . media coverage of the claim sparked serious criticism and ethical debate that lasted more than a year . florida attorney bernard siegel tried to appoint a special guardian for eve and threatened to sue clonaid because he was afraid that the child might be treated like a lab rat . 1 siegel who heard the company s actual name was not clonaid decided that the clonaid project was a sham . 2 bioethicist clara alto condemned clonaid for premature human experimentation and noted the high incidence of malformations and fetal deaths in animal cloning . 3 contents 1 company founding 1.1 premise 1.2 responses by scientists 2 the year before the alleged clone baby claim 3 alleged clone baby eve 3.1 responses by politicians and ethicists 3.2 request for a temporary guardian 3.3 request for a dna verification test 4 claims of further human clones 5 embryonic cell fusion machine 6 additional skepticism 7 references 8 further reading 9 external links company founding edit on may 31 1997 an issue of the popular science magazine new scientist said that the international ra lian movement was starting a company to fund the research and development of human cloning . this alarmed bioethicists who were opposed to such plans . they warned lawmakers against failing to regulate human cloning . at the time european countries such as britain had banned human cloning but the united states had merely a moratorium on the use of federal funds for human cloning research . u.s. president bill clinton requested that private companies pass their own moratorium . claude vorilhon the founder of ra lism was opposed to this move and denied that the technology used to clone was inherently dangerous . 4 on june 15 1998 brigitte boisselier said the headquarters of clonaid was located in las vegas and that clonaid did not have enough funds for human cloning research . 5 on december 19 1998 a new scientist article said the cost of clonaid cloning services would be 200 000 much lower than the 2.3 million that researchers at texas a & m university planned to use for cloning a dog named missy . mainstream scientists said it was unlikely that clonaid would be able to clone anything in the near future . 6 although the project s ultimate objective was human cloning boisselier said that pet cloning would help finance the operations . 5 premise edit on june 9 1997 clonaid stated its intention to offer homosexual and or infertile couples the chance to have a genetically identical child and take a step toward immortality . according to an internet announcement the ra lian leader and a group of investors founded a company in the bahamas and called it valiant venture ltd. whose project mission was named clonaid . valiant venture expected to have one million potential customers . 7 claude vorilhon held a meeting in a montreal hotel on september 21 2000 where he announced that a wealthy american couple was willing to fund the clonaid project . the first pending clone according to vorilhon at the time was the couple s 10 month old girl who had died due to a medical mistake . he said that the couple was willing to pay 500 000 to clone their deceased daughter but the wife was not willing to be the surrogate mother . jamie grifo a fertility specialist at the new york university school of medicine and nobel laureate paul berg of stanford university said that vorilhon was providing a false hope that the child was going to be the same one . boisselier revealed the roles of four scientists she says were involved a biochemist a geneticist a cell fusion expert and a french medical doctor but without revealing their identity . she did not identify the wealthy american couple . 8 responses by scientists edit according to cloning specialist and physiologist george seidel of colorado state university cloning a human being would not be difficult if many people donated their eggs or offered their wombs for implantation of clone embryos . 8 lee silver a molecular biologist from princeton university noted the advantages that ra lians had as a pro cloning religious group in finding willing surrogates . 8 a biotechnology company called advanced cell technology had cloned human embryo cells for medical purposes and its ceo michael d. west said that the directions for cloning a human being were available in published scientific literature . 8 experts knowledgeable of the scientific advances in the field have noted that human reproductive chemistry is better understood than that of most animals . 8 for this reason they thought that a higher rate of success was possible in human cloning compared with animal cloning . 8 brigitte boisselier anticipated that the work could begin on the preserved cells as soon as october but there was no evidence that clonaid had medical knowledge necessary for its success . 8 there was no evidence that the clonaid claim was more than a publicity stunt . 8 the year before the alleged clone baby claim edit in the spring of 2001 9 the food and drug administration office of criminal investigations inspected clonaid s lab in the small city of nitro in west virginia . 10 it was located inside a rented room within a former high school . staff scientists reviewed the lab s research documentation and found them inadequate the work of a graduate student extracting ovum from cow ovaries from a slaughterhouse . the fda said that the equipment in lab was state of the art and had been bought by mark hunt a former west virginia state legislator who wanted to clone his 10 month old son andrew who died in 1999 due to congenital heart disease . following investigation of the west virginia lab mark hunt made an agreement with the fda oci to not clone his dead son within the united states . 10 on march 2001 boisselier said that a woman would be pregnant with a cloned fetus in april . she said that cells had reached the blastocyst stage but she refused to speak of any specific implantation or pregnancy associated with them . according to a cnn article that november the clonaid laboratory was outside the united states . clonaid claimed that it had developed human cloned embryos before advanced cell technology was able to do the same . 11 cnn could not confirm the unpublished work . due to clonaid s association with ra lians and the lack of evidence for cloning authorities remained skeptical as to whether clonaid could clone anything at all . 12 alleged clone baby eve edit on friday december 27 2002 boisselier a ra lian bishop and ceo of clonaid announced at a press conference in hollywood florida that clonaid had successfully performed the first human reproductive cloning . boisselier said that the mother delivered eve by caesarean section somewhere outside the united states and that both were healthy . dr. boisselier did not present the mother or child or dna samples that would allow for confirmation of her claim at the press conference . it has subsequently become apparent that she announced the birth before genetic testing to evaluate whether the child in question is actually a clone dr. boisselier was therefore stating her belief that her procedure had resulted in a clone not announcing results showing that the child was a clone . 13 shortly after the announcement korean prosecutors raided the offices of clonaid s korean branch biofusion tech . in the process the prosecutors removed records from homes and offices while barring two representatives of biofusion tech from leaving the country . an official company statement revealed that three korean women applied to become surrogate mothers . officials of biofusion tech told the prosecutors that 10 korean women wanted to clone themselves and have filled out applications . 14 the food and drug administration stated its intention to investigate clonaid to see if it had done anything illegal . the fda contended that its regulations forbid human cloning without prior agency permission . however some members of the united states congress believed that the jurisdiction of the fda on human cloning matters was shaky and decided to push congress to explicitly ban human cloning . 15 responses by politicians and ethicists edit president george w. bush said that human cloning was deeply troubling to most americans . kansas republican sam brownback said that congress should ban all human cloning while some democrats were worried that clonaid announcement would lead to the banning of therapeutic cloning . fda biotechnology chief dr. phil noguchi warned that the human cloning even if it worked risked transferring sexually transmitted diseases to the newly born child . 15 the white house was also critical of the claims . 3 panos zavos a former professor of the university of kentucky at the time had plans to create human clone embryos but he stated to the effect that clonaid s claims were without merit and that eve did not exist . 16 severino antinori who had worked with zavos on the development of human clone embryos was critical of clonaid s announcement and said of it that an announcement of this type has no scientific corroboration and risks creating confusion . 13 robert lanza of advanced cell technologies said that clonaid has no record of accomplishment for cloning anything but he said that if clonaid actually succeeded there would be public unrest that may lead to the banning of therapeutic cloning which has the capacity to cure millions of patients . the vatican said that the claims expressed a mentality that was brutal and lacked ethical consideration . 3 the christian coalition of america urged a human cloning ban and saw the alleged clone baby as an aberration . 16 university of wisconsin madison bioethicist alta charo said that even in other ape like mammals the risk for miscarriage birth defects and life problems remains high . 3 arthur caplan the director of the center for bioethics at the university of pennsylvania expressed concerns that many dead and sick children could result from the cloning of human beings . 16 request for a temporary guardian edit clonaid spokeswoman nadine gary claimed that eve went home with her mother on 30 december 2002 17 but florida attorney bernard siegel filed a petition as a private citizen 18 in the broward county circuit court requesting that a temporary guardian be appointed for the purported cloned child . two local attorneys barry wax and jonathan schwartz were retained to represent clonaid in the matter . citation needed as the court case played out over the next month dr. boisselier testified under oath that there was a cloned child born in israel . however clonaid did not present demonstrative evidence that the child really existed . 19 boisselier said that eve would travel to the united states that day for dna tests . she said that a pediatrician saw eve and her mother in good condition but she refused to mention the location of the surrogate birth the testing lab or the biological mother s home which she wanted to reveal at a later time . the mother was said to be