UK will 'never see cloned babies'

Dr Panos Zavos has provided no evidence to back up his claims

John Reid has said there will never be babies cloned in the UK "while I am Secretary of State for Health".

Mr Reid was responding to claims by a controversial US fertility specialist who chose Britain to announce he had cloned a human embryo.

Dr Panos Zavos claimed on Saturday he had implanted it into a woman's womb but offered no proof.

Dr Reid condemned the attempt to produce the first cloned human as a "gross misuse of genetic science".

Fertility experts said it was an "incredibly risky" step to take and Dr Zavos was giving false hope to people desperate to have children.

Cloning illegal

Dr Reid said: "It is illegal to clone a child in the UK. The government has already acted to stop this happening here.

"We are one of the few countries in the world who have passed legislation to ban this possibility.

"There will be no cloned babies in the UK while I am Secretary of State for Health."

Dr Zavos said it was still too early to tell if the procedure had resulted in pregnancy.

To embark on human cloning at this stage... just seems to me quite astoundingly irresponsible Professor Richard Gardner, Royal Society Human cloning: Your views

He said the embryo came from the immature egg of the infertile 35-year-old woman, and a skin cell from her husband.

He said it was a "very recent event" that did not happen in the US, the UK or anywhere else in Europe.

They were still waiting to see if the implantation had been successful, of which he said there was a 30% chance.

"I do not have a pregnancy to announce - stand by two or three weeks when we will know more," he told reporters.

The doctor also claimed the procedure had been filmed, and he would allow DNA testing to check his claims at a later date.

Risky plan

Reproductive cloning takes DNA from the donor and transfers it into an egg which has had its nucleus, and therefore most of its own genetic material, removed.

It is similar to the technology used to create Dolly the sheep, but its use on humans is illegal in the UK.

Dr Zavos says his work gives hope to infertile couples by offering them the chance of a different sort of baby.

But critics say that aside from ethical considerations, human cloning is incredibly risky and animal experiments in the field have often led to premature deaths and abnormalities.

Professor Richard Gardner, chairman of the Royal Society's working group on cloning, said: "To embark on human cloning at this stage with our current knowledge of what happens in animals, just seems to me quite astoundingly irresponsible."

Bob Ward, from the UK National Academy of Scientists, called the news conference a "circus" and told BBC News: "Like most scientists and doctors I remain extremely sceptical of the claims made here today."

Professor Arne Sunde, chairman of the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology, said: "It is totally irresponsible and unethical to attempt human reproductive cloning.

"Apart from the ethical objections, which are serious enough, there are major practical problems, not least of which is the high chance of abnormal babies - even if those abnormalities are not apparent at birth."