‘Duplicate child’ claim stirs uproar

Press, 6 March 1978, Page 8

‘Duplicate child’ claim stirs uproar

NZPA-Reuter New York An as-yet unpublished book has set off an uproar in the American scientific community by its claim that a child had been created from a test-tube. The book, “In His Image: the Cloning of Man,” by a science writer, David Rorvik, says that in 1975 scientists created a human baby from a single male cell in a laboratory. He says that the cloned child is now a healthy 14-month-old boy whose creation was paid for by a millionaire who wanted an exact duplicate of himself. Cloning is a process in which genetically duplicated individuals are produced from a single cell. Respected scientists said the claim was either a hoax or the successful completion of the most dangerous medical experiment in history. The book’s publisher.

the well-established firm of J. P. Lippincott, says in an advertisement in "Publishers Weekly,” the booktrade magazine, that Mr Rorvick’s work was “the scientific investigative report of the century.” The advertisement was the first word anyone in Americr’s scientific community had of Mr Rorvik’s contentions. The author himself was unavailable for comment yesterday. His agent, Miss Barbara Lowenstein, said the California-based writer was. “out of the country.” “His book was not to be published until June 5. We weren’t prepared for this onslaught of interest. He’ll be back in the Unite! States to answer questions when the book comes out,” she said. Lippincott declined comment on the book, saying its advertisement in “Publisher’s Weekly” was meant for the book trade.

But as the film became swamped with phone calls demanding more details about “In His Image” it decided, according to sources within the firm, to move up the publication date. “There are,. technical problems involved in something like this that would have had to be discussed. Word would have leaked out. The whole thing sounds like a hoax,” said Dr Liebe Cavalieri, a molecular biologist at the Sloan Kettering Cancer Research Institute in a telephone interview. He added that if the story turned out to be true, “it would be worse than Hitler, a thousand times worse. The whole idea is horrible.” Other scientists said that if true, it meant that one could “breed people in laboratories to 'erform certain tasks — for example, passive person-

alities for assembly-like work. And the powerful and the important could pay for exact duplicates of themselves.” Dr Cavalieri said the cloning of human beings was something that should be stopped “violently if necessary.” According to press accounts of Mr Rorvik’s book, he claims to have been approached by a millionaire well-versed in cloning's possibilities in 1973. Mr Rorvik, whose previous books have dealt with the new worlds cloning could create, introduced him to scientists he knew and says he was “present at the creation” two years later. In his book. Mr Rorvik refuses to name those who took part in the experiment or the millionaire. He calls the boy “Billy” and says that he will not reveal his identity

in order to assure him a normal life So far as is known, only carrots, sea urchins, and frogs have been successfully cloned. The process, according to geneticists, is extremely difficult as it involves minute cel) manipulation. In the case of creating a person, the nucleus of a donor’s cell would have had to have been isolated, removed and implanted into an unfertilised female egg cell in which the woman’s characteristics had been destroyed. After several additional steps, the clone would then have had to have been introduced into a lite woman’s womb, where it would be carried to a normal nine-month term. If the story is true, Billy should develop into an exact duplicate of his single parent — even to the point of having the same fingerprints.