PITTSBURGH, July 4 (Reuters) - The lead scientist of a UFO cult that believes life on Earth was genetically engineered by visitors from outer space says she may go to court to protect her human cloning project from U.S. government scrutiny.
Brigitte Boisselier, a French biochemist who belongs to the international Raelian Movement, told Reuters on Tuesday that her company Clonaid still plans to produce a cloned child within the next year despite a recent crackdown by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
"I do not want to infringe on the law. But we may have to go to federal court to challenge the jurisdiction of FDA agents, or any ruling that would hurt us from cloning a human being," said Boisselier, who is Clonaid's science director.
Rael, the leader of the Swiss-based Raelian Movement, founded Clonaid in the Bahamas with a group of investors in 1997, the same year that Scottish scientists announced the cloning of the sheep Dolly.
The Raelians, who are atheists, view cloning as the means for humankind to achieve eternal life and said at the time of Clonaid's launch that the service would offer infertile or homosexual couples the chance to have children.
Boisselier said Clonaid has two labs, one near Syracuse, New York, and another at an undisclosed site outside the United States.
The potential for human cloning, which aims to reproduce human beings by inserting their DNA into unfertilized eggs, has been widely condemned on moral grounds and banned in some parts of the globe.
CONCERNS RAISED BY RESEARCHERS AND ETHICISTS
Some researchers and ethicists also have raised concerns because of a high rate of failures and deformities among the animal clones that have followed in Dolly's wake.
"I have had death threats, but I continue to pursue my goal of making science work for the improvement of mankind," said Boisselier, who maintains that her private company has a philosophical link but no economic ties with the Raelians.
"We are doing nothing wrong. We are trying to help mankind. And we are not going to be stopped, even if I have to take a bullet," she added.
In the United States, the FDA has said that human cloning experiments need its approval, which the agency will not give for the time being because of safety concerns. Members of Congress, concerned that FDA authority does not go far enough, have introduced legislation to ban human cloning for reproduction.
FDA officials inspected Clonaid's Syracuse lab after Boisselier testified about the company's activities before a congressional panel in March. An FDA spokesman said she has agreed in writing not to conduct human cloning experiments or pursue research involving human eggs in the United States.
But Boisselier, who is now traveling the country and speaking to journalists in hopes of drumming up public support for cloning, said she will not be deterred.
"I have five scientists working around the clock," she said. "(Human cloning) may happen here in the United States, or at our other lab. It all depends on how we and our work are accepted in this country, and how we progress with our plan to have a child cloned within the next year or so."
Billed as the world's largest UFO-related nonprofit group with 55,000 members in 84 countries, the Raelian Movement claims that ancient extraterrestrial scientists, whom the Bible refers to as Elohim, created all life on Earth through genetic engineering, including human beings whom they made in their own image.
Group founder Rael was formerly known as French journalist Claude Vorilhon before he reported being contacted by the Elohim in 1973.
"I know that usually people laugh at that. But, to me, this scientific creation theory is probably the most rational one -- not believing in any almighty God, not believing in evolution without explaining the links," Boisselier said.
"We do not plan to create an army of clones but rather we want to help families who have lost children or want desperately to have a child," she added. "I want to use science for the creation of life, not death. I want to make babies, not bombs."
Recent press reports have said that Clonaid's financial backers include a couple whose baby died at 10 months and who hope their child can be reproduced through human cloning.
"I know there have been ethical issues raised about cloning. But within 10 years, cloning will be available to everyone," she said.
08:20 07-04-01
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