Prof. Abdul Majid Clonaid, a biotechnology company set up by the Raelians, announced in the last week of December (at a news conference in Hollywood, Fla on December 27, 02) that their scientists produced the world’s first human clone named “Eve” through skin cell taken from a 31 year old American woman. This claim was not supported by any scientific proof. Neither the parents nor the baby girl ‘Eve’ were present at the press conference. Also no data of any DNA test for the confirmation of clone was presented at the news conference. Due to these and other reasons, this claim of Clonaid was greeted by a chorus of skepticism from scientists all over the world. Dr. Barry Zirkin, who is the head of the division of reproductive biology at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore said, “It would be a surprise to me if it were that simple to clone humans. Based on the experience with animals, one would imagine it would take many many shots to actually get a human baby.” Another cloning expert at the University of Missouri, Dr. Randall Prather Criticized the human cloning by saying, “In animals work so far only about 1 to 5 percent of cloning attempts succeed. That is for every 100 eggs, one to five clones are born…, with many problems.” He further says, “So we shouldn’t do it (in humans)”. Dr. Harry Griffin of the Roslin Institute in Scotland, where Dolly, the sheep was produced, says: “Clonaid have made claims of two births, but of yet provided no evidence that either baby exists, no evidence from DNA tests, and as yet, therefore, there is anything other than a long, drawn out publicity stunt.” Scientists are very sceptical about the claim because they think the group has no scientific track record. They have never published a single scientific paper in this area, they have no research experience in this area and they have never even cloned a mouse or a rabbit. The claim of clonaid is true or false, the time will tell, however in the following pages we are giving implications of human cloning in scientific and Islamic perspectives. For this, we are publishing the article of Syed Salahuddin Qadri and Aleem Ahmad and then the article contributed by Dr. Yashab Tur and Dr. Muzaffar Iqbal from the Centre of Islam & Science, Canada. We are very grateful to these writers that they allowed us to publish their articles.
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