Cloned baby claim met with doubt

" No-one should expect the secretary-general to send flowers "
Fred Eckhard,
UN spokesman

However, the announcement has been viewed with deep scepticism by the scientific community at large - and no proof has so far been put forward.

At a press conference, US-based company Clonaid claimed the birth of a healthy cloned baby girl, nicknamed Eve by scientists, who was born by Caesarean section on Thursday to a 31-year-old US mother.

The location of the alleged birth has been kept secret.

The DNA to be cloned was taken from the mother's skin cell, Clonaid said.

The scientist leading Clonaid's efforts, Dr Brigitte Boisselier, said she was "celebrating a scientific success".

However a White House spokesman said that US President George W Bush had found the news "deeply troubling", adding that the news underscored the need for legislation to ban all human cloning in the US.

And Fred Eckhard, a spokesman for United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan, said that in the absence of any scientific proof "we can't automatically accept it as a fact".

"No-one should expect the secretary-general to send flowers," he said.

'Healthy baby'

Dr Boisselier, former deputy director of research at the Air Liquid Group, a French producer of industrial and medical gasses, said that another cloned baby was due in northern Europe next week, and three others shortly afterwards.

She told a news conference:

"Science can be used for the best and the worst. I believe that this is the best.

"I hope that you remember them when you talk about this baby, not like a monster, not like some results of something that is disgusting. She is a very healthy baby."

Two of the expected babies were, she said, copies of dead children made using preserved cells.

She said five other implantation attempts had ended in miscarriage.

The company says that independent scrutiny and DNA testing of mother and child would be allowed in "eight or nine days".

'No monster'

Clonaid is linked to a sect called the Raelians, whose founder, Claude Vorihon describes himself as a prophet and calls himself Rael.

" There's a global race by maverick scientists to produce clones, motivated by fame, money and warped and twisted beliefs "
Patrick Dixon,
ethicist

Dr Patrick Dixon, an expert on the ethics of human cloning, described the news as "totally inevitable", but expressed fears over the morality of the project and the possibility that many abnormal foetuses would have been aborted before a healthy one survived.

He said: "There's a global race by maverick scientists to produce clones, motivated by fame, money and warped and twisted beliefs."

The Raelians believe humans are the result of a genetic engineering project run by super intelligent extra-terrestrials.

But BBC science correspondent Richard Black says most scientists doubt Clonaid's ability to clone a human and their motives, pointing to the company's intention to charge around $200,000 for each cloned child.

Cattle, mice, sheep and some other animals have been cloned with mixed success.

But some animals have shown defects as they age - and scientists fear the same could happen with humans.

Cloning race

Clonaid has been racing against the Italian fertility doctor Severino Antinori to produce the first cloned baby.

Mr Antinori has claimed that one of his patients will give birth to a cloned baby in January.

Mr Antinori rubbished Clonaid's claims, saying they were "not substantiated on a scientific basis" and "only risk engendering confusion".

Dr Robert Lanza of Advanced Cell Technology, the Massachusetts company that last year produced the first reported cloned human embryo, said Clonaid had "no scientific credibility at this point".