LV Raelian to appear in clone case

Tuesday, Jan. 28, 2003 | 10:31 a.m.

The vice president of Clonaid, Thomas Kaenzig of Las Vegas, is expected to appear in person in a Florida courtroom Wednesday to address the company's claims that it has cloned three babies.

Nadine Gary, a Clonaid spokeswoman in Las Vegas, said Kaenzig plans to show up in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., before Circuit Judge John Frusciante, who threatened Kaenzig with contempt last week when he refused to answer questions while testifying via telephone from Las Vegas.

"There's a pretty good chance (of Kaenzig testifying in Florida)," Gary said. "You cannot play with those things."

The judge is deciding whether to appoint a guardian for Eve, the baby Clonaid claims is the first of the three human clones.

Kaenzig said he does not know where Eve is. If Clonaid's claims are true, Eve would be the world's first human clone.

Clonaid is associated with the Raelian movement, a sect that believes aliens created life on earth.

The Raelians held a free lecture at the Green Valley Library last week, although those on hand would not address the cloning issues directly.

Kimi Kim, a Raelian since 1989, said before the lecture that people should have patience.

"We can't prove everything yet," she said. "(For) some parts of the future, we have to wait."

Wendy Webster, a Raelian from Las Vegas, said only that "science and spirit are coming together."

Clonaid officials said Eve was born last month and that a second cloned baby, a girl, was born to a Dutch lesbian on Jan. 3. The group claimed a third cloned child, a boy, was born in Japan last week.

None of the three alleged clones has been independently verified. Without scientific evidence to prove the three are clones, medical researchers have become more skeptical.

"Cloning is a ruse," said Sue Benford, a registered nurse, health care researcher and executive director of a nonprofit biomedical organization in Ohio. "One thing you can't do is catch the essence of a person by cloning."

Benford was involved in a debate over the Shroud of Turin last year. After skeptical scientists claimed the shroud was a medieval forgery, Benford said her methods indicated that a corner of the shroud had been repaired in medieval times, which produced false results from carbon dating tests. Many believe the shroud contains the image of a crucified Jesus.

Senior scientist Dean Radin of the Institute of Noetic Sciences in Petaluma, Calif., said Clonaid's secrecy and the public's concerns about cloning are unwarranted.

"I think that a great deal of the concern about cloning is misplaced, probably based on misunderstandings about what a clone is," Radin said.

Identical twins are natural clones, Radin said. "And there doesn't seem to be much of an uproar about that," he said.

But a more difficult question arises as to whether scientists can genetically engineer children, he said.

"That will eventually be a big problem because it may reduce human genetic diversity," Radin said. "The technology is there and people are willing to pay for it."

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