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CONNIE CHUNG, HOST: Good evening. I'm Connie
Chung. Tonight, a staggering step in human
history. Is the world ready for the creation
of a human clone?
ANNOUNCER: They tried for years to have
a baby, but couldn't. Desperate, they have
chosen to have a child by cloning.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED
FEMALE: I think that God really wants us to
do that. (END VIDEO CLIP)
ANNOUNCER:
For the first time, you'll meet the pioneering
couple and the controversial doctor who could
make their dream a reality.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The public will realize
that this is not as monstrous as it really
sounds.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ANNOUNCER:
Would you, could you ever conceive a being
cloned to have a baby? Tonight, a look at the
ethical, religious, scientific and legal implications
of human cloning.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED
FEMALE: I don't care what the rest of the world
thinks. (END VIDEO CLIP)
ANNOUNCER:
Missing in America. Are children across the
nation targets? As her daughter's alleged killer
awaits trial, the mother of Samantha Runnion
leads a new crusade to protect our children.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ERIN RUNNION,
SAMANTHA RUNNION'S MOTHER: This is my opportunity
to make something out of my baby's death.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ANNOUNCER:
This is CONNIE CHUNG TONIGHT. From the CNN
Broadcast Center in New York, Connie Chung.
CHUNG: Good evening.
Tonight, a story your grandchildren may
read about in the history books one day.
In its own way, it's a story as big as
humans walking on the moon. And like
that story, it hinges upon one small
step. In this case, that step is a couple's
decision to have a baby. It's history
because this couple plans to do it through
cloning. If the procedure is successful,
next year, we'll see the first birth of a human
clone in history.
Contributing correspondent Michael Guillen
has the exclusive story of the couple who just
may give birth to the first of a new kind of
human being -- Michael.
MICHAEL GUILLEN, CONTRIBUTING CORRESPONDENT:
Good evening, Connie. You know, I first met
Bill and Kathy a year ago. I flew to a secret
location and heard their personal story. Tonight,
for the first time on television, you're going
to hear it for yourselves.
For reasons they'll explain, we had to
decide their faces and their voices.
But you'll have no trouble understanding
where they're coming from. Their story
might make you angry or it might make
you sad. It might change your mind about
cloning, or confirm your worst fears.
Either way, you're going to see just how powerful
the human urge to reproduce really is.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
(voice-over):
For most people, having a baby is child's play.
It comes naturally.
BILL, PLANNING ON HAVING
A CLONED CHILD: At times, you feel like you're
meaningless, like you've left nothing on earth.
KATHY, PLANNING ON HAVING A CLONED CHILD:
It's like this empty feeling. It's a
hollowness. We want our family. We want
to complete that circle.
GUILLEN: Bill and Kathy want a baby so
badly, they're going to have one cloned,
using her DNA. It means flying in the
face of huge public, political, religious
and scientific opposition. But they don't
care.
BILL: It's a concern, absolutely.
KATHY: And that's why we're in shadow,
because we don't want to hurt that little
life that comes into this world.
GUILLEN (on camera): Why is it so important
then to tell your story to the world, Bill?
BILL: Education, so people slowly, slowly,
or faster or faster, get to know what this
is all about.
GUILLEN: And that's why you're willing
to risk going public with your story?
KATHY: Absolutely.
GUILLEN: But you haven't even told your
mother?
KATHY: No. I will, when the time is right,
once we know that there is a baby coming. My
mother will be so excited, she'll be jumping
through hoops.
BILL: I think my mom will say, leave
it up to you, Bill, you'll find a way.
GUILLEN: You think they would accept
and be loving of a child that was born
this way?
KATHY: Why not?
BILL: I think so.
KATHY: A little, sweet, delicious baby,
what could you not love?
GUILLEN: Bill and Kathy's unusual story
began when they met in 1989. He was a
40-something divorcee. She was a 30-something
career woman looking for Mr. Right. Back
then, they had no idea that having a
delicious little baby would turn out
to be so incredibly difficult. Back then,
everything seemed so perfect.
KATHY: When I met Bill, he put his arm
around me in six minutes and asked me
what I was going to do for the rest of
my life.
GUILLEN: Within six minutes of meeting
you, he put his arm around you? Bill...
BILL: I think it was actually five and
a half minutes. But within six minutes,
I knew that Kathy was the woman I wanted.
GUILLEN (voice-over): In 1993, Bill and
Kathy got married and immediately set
out to have a baby.
KATHY: We first tried doing it the natural
way. And when that wasn't happening, Bill suggested
that we go to the doctor.
GUILLEN: The doctor put Kathy on Clomid,
a drug designed to increase the odds
of having a natural pregnancy. But after
seven months of trying, nothing. Partly
the problem was Kathy's eggs. They're
too old and brittle. And partly, it's
Bill's sperm.
BILL: I've had problems. I had three
(UNINTELLIGIBLE). You know, it's when
-- you have a vein going to that area
and raise the temperature too high, so
the sperm goes down.
GUILLEN: Bill and Kathy decided to try
artificial insemination. The man's sperm
is collected and manually injected into
the women's uterus. The woman's body
is primed beforehand with a cocktail
of potent fertility drugs. The injections
were scary and painful enough, Kathy says,
but even worse were the side effects.
KATHY: You go crazy. You just...
GUILLEN: What do you mean?
BILL: The drugs would make her crazy,
paranoid, insecure. You could say it's
rainy outside, rainy outside, why are
you talking about rain, because you're
so on edge.
GUILLEN: Worst of all, after 17 artificial
inseminations, still no baby.
(on camera): At any point during that,
did you ever ask yourself, why are we
putting ourselves through this?
KATHY: Absolutely, all the time.
BILL: Why? We want a child. We want a
child so badly. But is it worth all this
anguish? Absolutely, Michael. We said
it over and over to ourselves many times.
This is the last time we're doing it,
this is the last time, this is it.
KATHY: After each one, I said, that's
it, I'm done. And then a month or so
later, we both looked at each other and
said, want to do it again?
GUILLEN (voice-over): Next, Bill and
Kathy tried in-vitro fertilization, or
IVF. A woman's eggs are harvested. A
man's sperm is collected. Then, the two
are brought together in a petri dish.
The fertilized eggs are then implanted
into the woman, with hopes that at least one
will take. Bill and Kathy tried IVF seven times.
KATHY: It's almost as if someone is playing
a big joke on us. When I had a great egg month,
Bill had a bad sperm month. When he had a great
sperm month, I had a bad egg month. I mean,
we just couldn't seem to make egg salad together
at the same time.
GUILLEN (on camera): Tell me about the
last time, the last IVF procedure.
KATHY: That was the killer.
GUILLEN: Tell me.
That one, that one was a great egg month,
a great sperm month. Everything was moving
along rather well.
GUILLEN (voice-over): It was December
1998. The doctors harvested four eggs
from Kathy, fertilized them with Bill's
sperm, then placed all four embryos back
into her uterus.
BILL: He did it so slowly and so carefully
and so delicately, I was sure that two were
going to attach, and to make it as children.
GUILLEN: For two whole weeks, Kathy stayed
in bed.
KATHY: We figured if I stayed completely
still, these little babies have to hold.
And we named them. We figured if we named
them, they were little people, they were
going to become little babies and they
were going to be born.
GUILLEN: On New Year's
Eve, the phone rang with the news.
KATHY: Bill answered the phone and got
the news. And it was very, very sad.
Saying they were sorry, but your pregnancy
test came back negative.
BILL: And that was five years -- felt
really devastated.
GUILLEN: For the next four years, Bill
and Kathy gave it a rest. They'd run
out of options.
But then one day Bill read this book
on cloning. Then he happened to see a
newspaper article about a cloning doctor
based in Lexington, Kentucky. His name
was Panos Zavos.
BILL: They tracked him down, and I called
him and I called him and I called him.
GUILLEN (on camera): He wasn't returning
your calls?
BILL: Nope. He finally picked up the
phone, and he said, I see you've been
calling a number of times and you're
quite persistent.
I said, correct.
PANOS ZAVOS, PHD, EMBRYOLOGIST: Persistence
always pays.
GUILLEN (voice-over): Dr. Zavos runs
a conventional fertility clinic in Lexington.
He has a PhD in reproductive medicine.
He's a professor emeritus at the University
of Kentucky, a member of the American
Society of Reproductive Medicine and
an outspoken defender of human cloning.
He's testified before Congress, before
the National Academy of Sciences, and
made headlines worldwide by claiming
he and a secret team of doctors are only
months away from trying to clone a human
baby.
ZAVOS: The public realize that this is
not as monstrous as it may sound. Once
they see a baby dressed in pink or blue,
they will say, what a wonderful thing.
GUILLEN: Dr. Zavos says he's got a waiting
list of some 5,000 desperately infertile couples,
but only six will be cloned in the first round.
That includes Bill and Kathy.
At their advanced age, he says, time
is of the essence.
ZAVOS: If they don't reproduce within
the next five years, the chance of having
quality time with this child will diminish
significantly.
BILL: I think we're doing medical history.
I think we're on the cutting edge and on the
beginning of a brave new world.
GUILLEN: It all begins next month or
so when Dr. Zavos tells Bill and Kathy,
pack your bags, you're flying to a secret
overseas lab where cloning is legal.
KATHY: I don't believe he's told anybody
where it is. And he wants to make sure
that the privacy of it is kept as such
so that the paparazzi don't get in the
way of this scientific procedure.
BILL: The only thing he does say is that
we're going to be flying someplace warm.
GUILLEN: At the secret lab, a team of
doctors will take a plug of Kathy's tissue
and harvest her DNA. Also, they'll take
the egg from a younger women and then
replace its DNA with Kathy's. They'll
implant that egg into a surrogate mother.
If the pregnancy holds, nine months later,
out will come Kathy's nearly identical
body double.
(on camera): Why the decision to clone
Kathy and not you, Bill?
BILL: Kathy suffered far greater than
I did. She went through 24 months of
drugs, of injectable drugs which could
possibly cause cancer, and also, I think
I'd rather have a girl than a boy. As
simple as that. And God willing, if this
works, maybe two years from now, we'll
clone me.
KATHY: Why not? Instant family.
GUILLEN: Why not just adopt?
KATHY: Well, we have thought about that.
You can adopt a baby overseas, and then
in a lot of countries, what happens is
by the time you get the baby, they've
been so messed up in the orphanage where
they are that you are taking on a health
hazard.
GUILLEN: But isn't that an argument for
all the more wanting to adopt a child
like that, to show them some love and
kindness?
KATHY: Yes, you're right. You're right
about that.
BILL: But there is also nothing wrong
with wanting your own, and having that
right.
GUILLEN (voice-over): But what about
the medical risks involved? Scientists
are finding that animal clones are often
born with awful defects. Doctor Zavos
claims it's just the result of sloppy
cloning.
ZAVOS: There are bad mechanics and good
mechanics. There are bad doctors and
good doctors. There are good electricians
and bad electricians. We are going to
hire the good mechanics, the good doctors
and the good electricians to do this.
Therefore, our team believes in what
we're doing, and I think we're going
to hit a home run.
GUILLEN: His team,
he says, plans to use the latest prenatal
technology to ensure a healthy birth.
ZAVOS: We have ultrasonic equipment with
computers attached to them, that they
measure different things and different
growth measurements from the head to
the toe, and everything in between.
BILL: We're not going to give birth to
a monster or an abnormal child. If there
is serious abnormality, absolutely we
will -- and Dr. Zavos concurs that we
will abort.
GUILLEN (on camera): And when you said
the word
"abort," you know, lots of people
are going think, oh my gosh, you're piling
one abomination on top of another.
KATHY: Well, at least they'll have stem cells
to possibly help improve someone's life who
is having a problem.
GUILLEN: So you would harvest stem cells
from the aborted fetus for purposes of
research? But you know how controversial
that is, too.
KATHY: Well, I'm a controversial person.
I'm not politically correct. I never
have been. I never will be.
GUILLEN (voice-over): But there is yet
another objection to this procedure.
Even when animal clones seem to be born
healthy, time delayed defects often rear
their heads. The famous cloned sheep
Dolly, for example, appears to be developing
premature arthritis. Dr. Zavos disputes
the evidence, but he admits cloning is
risky.
ZAVOS: For me to say that there are no
risks involved, that would be a pure
lie. And for me to say I'm not willing
to take the risks, that would be finding
me as a chicken. I'm neither one of the
two. I'm a risk-taker, but at the same
time, I'm a very cautious individual.
GUILLEN (on camera): As older parents,
how are you going to cope with the child
who may evidence some of these delayed
birth defects?
KATHY: We'll face it and we'll deal with
it.
BILL: If anyone can face and deal with
it, it's us.
GUILLEN (voice-over): Bill and Kathy
are equally confident they'll be able
to deal with success.
(on camera): Suppose you succeed. Suppose
you have a child through this procedure.
Will you raise it in secret? Or will
you go public?
KATHY: We'll tell the world that this
child was conceived through cloning when
it's safe for the child, when the political
climate and the emotional climate will
be accepting.
GUILLEN: What will you the tell the child
herself? Would you tell her that she
is a clone?
KATHY: Eventually, yes.
BILL: I think I would just tell the child
that she was born by an in vitro process,
without getting into specifics until
the child is an adult.
GUILLEN: What if she just gets angry
at you? Why did you bring me into the
world this way, I'm a freak? I'm completely
different than any other human being
who has ever lived on the face of the
earth. Are you prepared that this child
could be angry at you for bringing her
into the world this way?
KATHY: She's going to be treated like
a very special person from day one. And
she's going to be loved, loved and loved,
and she's not going to ever feel like
a freak.
BILL: Absolutely not.
GUILLEN; What do you tell the child's
doctor? I mean, you can't keep that secret
from a doctor.
KATHY: I never thought of that. We'll
figure that out, one step at a time.
GUILLEN (voice-over): Another thing Bill
an Kathy haven't figured out yet is how
to pay Dr. Zavos. It can cost up to $80,000,
depending on whether an egg donor or
surrogate mother are involved.
(on camera): You are working class folks,
you're hard working people. Where are
you going to get that money?
KATHY: I don't know.
BILL: All our savings, credit cards,
borrowing, begging and stealing.
KATHY: We're not going to steal.
(LAUGHTER)
GUILLEN: Figuratively speaking, I understood.
But I mean, seriously, how far would you be
willing to go to get this done? Would you be
willing, say, to mortgage your home?
BILL: I would be. She wouldn't be.
KATHY: I don't want to end up without
a roof over our heads.
GUILLEN: I know there are going to be
some people who will listen and they'll
say, we don't all get what we want in
life. And part of maturity is accepting
that. Do you feel in your heart of hearts
that you're being a little bit immature,
maybe a little irresponsible?
KATHY: Absolutely not.
GUILLEN: ... by
not accepting and just moving on?
KATHY: No, no, I don't think there is
any immaturity here. I mean, come on,
this is the future, and you know something?
If God didn't want us to learn how to
do all these things, then God would not
have enabled the scientists to be able
to move on and learn and do.
GUILLEN (voice-over): In fact, Bill and
Kathy believe it's their divine destiny
to have a cloned baby.
KATHY: I think that God really wants
us to do this, that it is the next step.
I can't imagine any other reason why
we haven't had a child, other than this
is what we were meant to do.
BILL: We realize there are a lot of people
against it for whatever reason, and hopefully
they'll be educated and understand and be sympathetic,
and change. I really hope so. I really would
like their approval, but we're going to do
it regardless.
GUILLEN (on camera): You're willing to
risk public opinion, scientific opinion,
you're willing to risk being recognized
and the secret getting out, and maybe
turning your lives upside down, right?
I mean, are you prepared for that?
KATHY: Oh, my life is always upside down
every day anyway, so what's the difference.
GUILLEN (voice-over): And what if, after
all this, they still don't get a baby?
Then will they finally call it quits?
Well...
KATHY: Yes. We will call it a day at
that point. We'll say, OK, we tried.
GUILLEN (on camera): It will be the end
of the road for Bill and Kathy?
BILL: Maybe we'll try it once or twice
more, but we're not going to try it forever.
(LAUGHTER)
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CHUNG: Not
forever, huh?
GUILLEN: Never say die.
CHUNG: Michael, is what they're doing
legal?
GUILLEN: You know, the short answer is
yes. I mean, cloning, human cloning is
illegal in certain states, but there
is no federal law, believe it or not,
against cloning. A lot of people have
the impression that there is. Congress
is contemplating making it illegal, and Republicans
and Democrats and President Bush are all against
it, but so far it's legal. In any case, the
whole issue is moot, because they're going
to be doing the cloning, as I indicated, in
a secret lab in a country where it is legal.
And even though there are a lot of countries
that are opposed to human cloning, believe
it or not, there are still some who are for
it. So everything is above board legally.
CHUNG: All right. Michael, don't go away,
because we're going to bring you back
in again.
We've heard what Dr. Zavos had to say
in Michael's report, but when we come
back, you'll meet this man who's bucking
the system to make history and possibly
make a human baby in a way no one ever
has before. Stay with us.
ANNOUNCER: CONNIE CHUNG TONIGHT continues
in a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CHUNG: Contributing
correspondent Michael Guillen just introduced
us to Kathy and Bill, who want to make history
by having a baby through the process of human
cloning. You also saw the man who is pioneering
this effort, and has weathered a firestorm
of criticism for doing so.
He is Panos Zavos, scientific director
and chief embryologist of the Kentucky
Center for Reproductive Medicine.
Thank you, sir, for being with us. We
so appreciate it.
PANOS ZAVOS, PHD, KENTUCKY CENTER FOR
REPRODUCTIVE MEDICINE: It's my pleasure.
CHUNG:
And Michael, I'll get to you in a minute.
But first, Dr. Zavos, I'll try to explain
in the simplest way so I hope that the
viewers can understand. A normal in vitro
fertilization, you take an egg from the
woman, the sperm from the man, put in
it a dish and it unites to create an
embryo, which you then put in the woman.
ZAVOS: Yes, that's correct.
CHUNG: Now, this cloning process, you
take an egg from the woman and you change
the DNA...
ZAVOS: You remove the DNA.
CHUNG: And put new DNA in.
ZAVOS: New DNA, which comes from the
donor.
CHUNG: From the donor, and that's all
do you. It becomes an embryo, no sperm.
ZAVOS:
No sperm involved.
CHUNG: No sperm involved.
Now most people would say, I think: That's
not natural. That's weird. And that's why I
think critics say to you, you're going to create
a freak.
ZAVOS: Not true, of course. And, you
know, they used to say the same thing
about in vitro when we decided to do
in vitro 25 years ago, that creating
a baby in a petri dish or in a test tube
is unheard of.
And, of course, they were saying exactly
the same things, the same arguments to
Bob Edwards, the gentleman that developed
this technology in 1978 when Louise Brown
was born, that he was going to create
freaks.
CHUNG: Yes.
ZAVOS: He was going to create people
that don't belong in this world.
CHUNG: But how do you know that that
egg with the changed DNA is going to
grow into a normal human being? You don't
know that.
ZAVOS: Well, the results of various experiments
that we have executed plus the good results
-- and I must indicate here, the good results
from many other studies that have been done
with success rates up to 100 percent of normal
offsprings born in animal models, OK.
CHUNG: Animals. Only animals, not human
beings.
ZAVOS: Only animals. That's correct --
indicate that this particular procedure
can work in the human with less difficulties
than we see in animals.
The reason for that, obviously, is that
we in the human arena will be doing human
IVF, that's manipulating the sperm and
the eggs and the dishes and the petri
dishes and the test tubes for almost
25 years.
CHUNG: But a lot of mistakes with made
with animals, right?
ZAVOS: Yes.
CHUNG: Isn't the success rate something
like 1 percent?
ZAVOS: One percent when Dolly was produced.
CHUNG: Right. Dolly the sheep.
ZAVOS: But today there are studies that
-- they show successes of 30 and 80 percent
of births from embryo transfers.
CHUNG: Still animals, right?
ZAVOS: Still animals.
CHUNG: OK, let's stop that for a minute
and go over to Michael.
I think the big curiosity for everyone
is, will this little girl that Kathy
hopefully will have, will she look exactly
like Kathy?
GUILLEN: Well, it's an interesting question.
Nearly so; about 99 percent so.
The reason she won't be identical-identical
is because there is a little bit of DNA left
over in the egg that is taken from the younger
woman.
CHUNG: Because Kathy doesn't have good
eggs, so they're going to take a donor
egg?
GUILLEN: Correct. Because Kathy's eggs
are old...
CHUNG: And, OK, and that donor egg's
DNA is going to be taken out and Kathy's
DNA is going to be put in.
GUILLEN: Correct. And even though you
have removed the nucleus from the donor
woman's egg, nevertheless there is a
little residual DNA we call mitochondrial
DNA that is left over in the outer portions
of the egg. So even though you've removed
the nucleus, that mitochondrial DNA remains,
and it will contribute about 1 percent
of the total DNA.
So it will be Kathy's DNA...
CHUNG: From the donor egg?
GUILLEN: Correct. So it will be Kathy's
DNA, which is 99 percent of the total,
and then 1 percent from the donor mother.
Another variation...
CHUNG: How about -- let me ask you this:
How about personality, sense of humor,
the same -- liking the same kinds of
food?
GUILLEN: That's the $64,000 question,
although it's very interesting.
I covered the story of the Texas A&M
scientists who recently cloned a cat,
which is a fairly complex animal. And
before that they cloned a bull, a brahma
bull is that he has very much the same
mannerisms as the old, original bull.
But no one can tell you. I mean, no one
can tell you how much your personality
is encoded in the genes. That's the $64,000,000
question, among other things.
CHUNG: Why are you doing this? Because
85 percent of Americans, according to
surveys, don't think it should be done.
ZAVOS: Well, obviously they don't. And
some of the research that has been done
and some of the understandings that we
have is that some of those people are
against it because of fear of the unknown.
And I think that by people knowing about
this and what the complexities may be
and the benefits will be, I think more
people will accept it.
The same ratio of opposition took place
back when the IVF business began.
CHUNG: I don't know, you said that before.
And I understand that; it's just that, I think
with IVF, wasn't there experimentation? For
this...
ZAVOS: Very little.
CHUNG: Your team -- oh, good dear. Well
your team -- has your team actually experimented
with human eggs?
ZAVOS: Well, we work with human eggs
every day.
CHUNG: Right. But you haven't done cloning
with human eggs.
ZAVOS: No. And, of course, we don't believe
in experimenting with human eggs or embryos
until we're ready to execute the real thing,
because we're simply -- we are opposed to experimenting
with human embryos for the idea of creating
human embryos and killing them.
CHUNG: Would you allow me to be devil's
advocate and say, well, then, aren't
Kathy and Bill going to end up being
guinea pigs?
ZAVOS: Well, you can say that. I think
that when a new technology is pioneered
and is developed, you can say that the
people that receive this treatment first
are, obviously, guinea pigs to a certain
degree.
But, you know, that's one way of looking
at it. I don't think that they do feel
that way. And we don't feel like that
any of those people are guinea pigs.
They're just, really, people that are
going to go first, and then -- during
the first team, we have six or seven couples.
Then as soon as we complete this team, we're
going to go onto the next team, which may be
seven to 10 couples. So somebody has got to
go first. But we feel like that the level of
confidence of accomplishing this particular
puzzle here is very good. And our team feels
very good about coming up with healthy children
born from such effort.
CHUNG: All right. You say that you're
going to check for abnormalities, right?
ZAVOS: Yes.
CHUNG: But, as I understand it, Kathy
and Bill will, after they've taken care
of what they need to do, which is provide
the DNA -- Kathy's DNA -- they'll fly
back to the United States and just wait.
And it's the surrogate who has the baby
in her.
And even though -- I mean, nobody will
necessarily know that she's got a cloned
baby in her stomach, but doesn't she
have to have this special medical care
to make sure that she doesn't have an
abnormality?
ZAVOS: Oh, absolutely. We do have the
experts -- maternal fetal medicine experts
that will monitor those pregnancies from
day one of conception until the birth
of that child.
And we intend to study the behavior of
those fetuses, the growth, the measurements,
the deficiencies, the assets -- whatever
-- and then, of course, learn from those
procedures as such.
Now, this is something that that the
animal cloners have never even dreamed
of doing. And this is really why it gives
us a tremendous advantage over the animal
cloners, is that in the animal business
of reproduction, we only do it right,
we cannot afford to do it wrong.
CHUNG: Michael Guillen and Panos Zavos,
thank you so much.
CHUNG: And still ahead, we'll hear from
a critic of Dr. Zavos' procedure and
methods.
Before we go to the break, we are sure
that you have questions about cloning
to have a baby. E-mail us at CONNIECHUNGTONIGHT@CNN.com,
and we'll see if we can get some of them answered.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ANNOUNCER:
Cloning is hardly the first controversial method
of reproduction. The development of IVF, in
vitro fertilization, triggered an avalanche
of criticism in the late '70s. Everyone from
scientists to the Vatican blasted John and
Leslie Browns for volunteering for the process
after years of failing to have a baby. They
were accused of playing God and risking serious
health defects, but to the Browns, it was all
worth it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOHN BROWN, LOUISE'S
FATHER: The first thing I remember is Mr. Stepner
(ph) and -- who pushed that first best calls
-- and Mr. Stepner (ph) said, "I'd like
to present you your baby." And
it was like, you know, his -- no matter how
many times, you know, I can never, never forget
that moment, that one moment. Fantastic!
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ANNOUNCER:
Louise Joy Brown's birth didn't stop the criticism,
however. There were lingering questions about
the health of test tube babies, as they were
called, once they grew up. So what the fate
of the world's first test tube baby? The answer,
when we return.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ANNOUNCER:
Whatever happened to the world's first test
tube baby? Louise Joy Brown grew up healthy
and normal, becoming a nursery school nurse,
proud of her part in history.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED
FEMALE: She was created as a guinea pig and
Louise Brown will remain a guinea pig for the
rest of her life.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ANNOUNCER:
But Brown has said she doesn't mind the attention.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LOUISE JOY
BROWN, WORLD'S FIRST TEST TUBE BABY: Apart
from the press being a pain in the neck and...
(LAUGHTER)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ANNOUNCER:
Today, hundreds of thousands of babies have
been born through IVF. Louise's younger sister,
also a test tube baby, went on to have a little
boy, proving that IVF does not cause sterility.
Recently, cloning advocates have argued that
American skittishness about reproductive technology
allowed Britain to take the lead in IVF. And
this year, one of the doctors who made Louise
Joy Brown possible, said he too endorses cloning
if it's shown to be safe.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED
FEMALE: I think that God really wants us to
do this. That is the next step. I can't imagine
any other reason why we haven't had a child
other than this is what we were meant to do.
We do realize that there a lot of people
are against it for whatever reason and hopefully,
they'll be educated and understand and be sympathetic
and change.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHUNG: You
just saw Bill and Kathy, who may make history
by making a baby through human cloning. Many
religions have weighed in against cloning,
so have many public officials. Within the scientific
community, there's a great deal of controversy
as well. Cloning pioneer, Dr. Panos Zavos,
is back with us and we're also joined by Dr.
Zev Rosenwaks, director of reproductive medicine
at the Neill Cornell Medical Center here in
New York.
Thank you for joining us. Dr. Rosenwaks,
what is your primary, overriding criticism
of human cloning?
DR. ZEV ROSENWAKS, DIRECTOR,
REPRODUCTIVE MED. NEILL CORNELL MED. CTR.:
I worry about its safety primarily and...
CHUNG: Safety, meaning?
ROSENWAKS: Safety meaning that in almost
all animal studies, almost all animals, the
miscarriage rate has been extraordinarily high,
80 to 90 percent, even in the easiest species
to perform cloning. There have been many abnormalities
reported, including various organ problems
like liver enlargement, respiratory problems,
even immune deficiencies. And some of these
-- in fact, you cannot even...
CHUNG: You mean in the offspring?
ROSENWAKS: In the offspring and some of them,
if you were able to look into the uterus or
by ultrasound, you wouldn't be able to tell
that these fetuses were abnormal.
CHUNG: Oh, so no matter how many tests you
would do, you wouldn't be able to tell?
ROSENWAKS: Yes, many of them are so subtle
that they don't even show up until after birth.
So, the efficiency, the low efficiency, and
the fact that there are so many complications
make me worry.
CHUNG: And you're saying efficiency is success
rate?
ROSENWAKS: Efficiency is important. Success
rate. And in fact, when you promise a couple
a child, they have to be ready for disappointment,
even in the best IVF programs, depending on
age of the woman, for example.
And there is one other major issue...
CHUNG: OK, go ahead.
ROSENWAKS: Where the cell comes from, that
you get the DNA may, in fact, impact on the
success of cloning. It's been shown in animals.
The older the animal, the less the chance of
the cloning experience in terms of success.
CHUNG: OK, but you know Dr. Zavos is an embryologist.
He's not a medical doctor. But shouldn't embryologists
-- you are a medical doctor, but you're not
an embryologist, are you? Shouldn't an embryologist
really know, in the laboratory, what works
and what doesn't work?
ROSENWAKS: Well, I think -- you know, it's
interesting for me when I heard the couple
and I heard Dr. Zavos that he will do this
in an undisclosed place, in a country or place
that allows cloning.
CHUNG: So are you suggesting that secrecy
is all part of it?
ROSENWAKS: Well, I question why is it that
in the United States or in other countries
in the western world, cloning has not been
allowed. Usually, when we do human experimentation
-- I would put cloning as a human experiment
-- we seek the advice of our peers in the form
of institutional review boards. These review
boards are made up of physicians, scientists,
lay people, clergymen, ethicists and so on.
And they evaluate a particular procedure with
particular, particular attention to safety
of an individuals involved.
CHUNG: All right.
ZAVOS: I don't disagree with what Dr. Rosenwaks
is saying tonight, especially on the IRB approval
issue.
CHUNG: IRB being?
ZAVOS: IRB, the Investigational Review Board.
I have done a great deal of research on that
and it's been approved by IRB committees before,
et cetera, et cetera.
The moral of the story is that this research
is been confronted by the politicians in this
country and ethicists and so on so heavily
that there is no chance on Earth that this
technology can be developed and be applied
in America as it is today.
CHUNG: All right.
Well, what if you're going to create a Hitler
or it gets in the wrong hands and you're going
to create an Osama bin Laden?
ZAVOS: But Connie, you need to understand
here that, you know, these -- those are not
problems that we are -- that we can solve today.
I think our government and our politicians
and our House of Representatives, instead of
debating on banning this technology, ought
to come around and say, OK, let's agree on
one thing that this technology can be developed
safely and therefore, we need to stop thinking
about who developed this technology and how
can we regulate it...
CHUNG: All right.
ZAVOS: ... and apply it constructively in
order to come up...
CHUNG: OK.
ZAVOS: ... with the right results.
CHUNG: Very quickly, I gave you a long time
to talk in that previous segment, so let me
ask you, Dr. Rosenwaks. You know, Dr. Zavos
says that when the other reproductive medicine
-- the IVF and all those other methods started,
there wasn't a lot of information, research,
testing.
ROSENWAKS: Well, there was a lot of work
on in vitro fertilization in various animals.
IVF, in fact, was done and embryo transfer
was done many years before the first report
of a human baby within in vitro fertilization.
In fact, the first embryo transfer procedure
in an animal, in a rabbit, was done a 100 --
over a 100 years ago. The fact is...
CHUNG: All right.
ROSENWAKS: ... experiments were done. However,
I think...
CHUNG: Let me ask you one more thing then.
ROSENWAKS: Yes.
CHUNG: Do you see cloning as the next step
eventually, if everything is all cleared up
to your satisfaction and the satisfaction of
others in your world?
ROSENWAKS: Well, I'm not sure. I think that
there are many issues with cloning that were
not issues with IVF. With IVF, you have the
union of a sperm and an egg. Essentially, what
we do with IVF is facilitate nature. We allow
the sperm and the egg to get together.
With cloning, we create a new individual
with the nucleus of someone who is older and
an egg of another person. There are concerns
regarding how that egg will, in fact, control
that nucleus. Will it allow all of the genes
to manifest themselves or only part of them?
ZAVOS: Well, I...
CHUNG: Dr. Zavos?
ZAVOS: ... I want to go back to the argument
that Bob Edwards makes -- that's the father
of IVF...
CHUNG: Yes.
ZAVOS: ... that says that if this technology
is pursued properly and developed properly,
it can be another option for infertility couples.
And that pretty much will do it -- what we
aim to do, is develop the technology and make
it available for infertile couples such as
Bill and Kathy.
CHUNG: All right. Dr. Zavos, Dr. Rosenwaks,
thank you so much for being with us. We appreciate
it. And I hope you can come back and discuss
this further as the cloning process develops.
ZAVOS: Sure, I'd like to.
CHUNG: A quick reminder -- if you still have
questions about cloning, to have a baby, e-mail
us at CONNIECHUNGTONIGHT@CNN.com. And we'll
see if we can get some answered. We'll be right
back. |
