A senior Israeli fertility expert dismissed Saturday a report in the German Der Spiegel weekly saying Israel is likely to be the first country in the world to produce cloned infants, reported The Jerusalem Post newspaper.
Italian professor, Severino Antinori, told the magazine that within two years he will "start cloning babies in Israel," where the controversial project is "legal."
The article stated that a group of Israeli researchers at the Abaclon company was already at work on the project, using techniques developed to create the first cloned mammal, Dolly the sheep, said the Post.
But Israeli Professor, Neri Laufer, a senior obstetrician and fertility expert at Hadassah-University Hospital in Jerusalem and, denied the report, saying that a private member's bill - presented by MK Hagai Merom and passed in the Knesset - set a five-year-moratorium on the cloning of babies for procreation, the paper said.
"Cloning is permitted in Israel only for therapeutic use," said Laufer, who is also a former head of the Israel Fertility Society.
"We must be very careful about human cloning, as Dolly and other cloned animals - coming from adult cells - are showing signs that they are aging faster than normal. Just because a technique may be technically possible does not mean that it is biologically beneficial," he said – Albawaba.com
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