Wired News Article

Ask human cloning activist Randolfe Wicker a simple question like, "How old are you?" and he'll likely give you more information than just his age.

He might share his favorite quote by science fiction writer FM-2030: "I am a 21st-century person who was accidentally launched in the 20th."

I can really relate to that (quote)," Wicker said in a recent interview when asked his age (the answer is 64).

FM-2030, who died two years ago, had his head cryogenically frozen by Alcor, the cryonic suspension company that froze Ted Williams.
Wicker, despite his admiration for the author, finds this rather gruesome.

From his headquarters at an art deco lighting store he owns in Manhattan, Wicker breathlessly relays factoids like this in stream-of-consciousness monologues to reporters.

He is a one-stop shop for the latest news and gossip, as well as for a complete and accurate history -- on cloning.

He was the first major reproductive human cloning advocate, and founded the Clone Rights United Front and the Human Cloning Foundation.

Bioethics activists bristle at the mention of his name. One has called him a terrorist. They say he's preying on the desperate and the bereaved, and scaring the public into opposing cloning technology that could eventually cure disease.

But Wicker remains unruffled and steadfast in his belief that every person has the right to his or her own biological child, and that cloning will fulfill the reproductive rights of infertile and/or gay couples.

"He's a true believer," said Mark Eibert, a trial lawyer, civil rights activist and infertility activist in San Mateo, California. "And I wouldn't call him crazy."

Wicker spends hours returning every e-mail -- no matter how many he receives. For example, one mother whose child's eyes were destroyed by a dog wrote him asking if cloning will help her child see again.

"Never volunteer for a good cause," Wicker said. "It has a way of taking over your life."

But despite his enthusiasm, Wicker has tempered his views as he's learned more about the science of human cloning. He comes out looking downright conservative compared to his pro-reproductive cloning counterparts.

A few years ago, Wicker would have jumped at the chance to clone himself and create what he calls his "later-born twin." Now, he has a few reservations.

He says a leading researcher in the field actually asked him to become the first human to be cloned, but he turned it down.

Given the available data on animal cloning, Wicker agrees with most scientists that cloning a human being is risky and experimental.

"I personally would not want to assume such a risk, (and) I do not think it would ethical for me, a middle-class American, to employ a surrogate mother in a foreign country who was desperate for money to put her health at risk to bear my later-born twin," he said.

Wicker and other reproductive-cloning advocates -- not to be confused with those who advocate therapeutic cloning, or creating cloned embryos to research treatments for disease -- are often lumped into the same categories: megalomaniacal, medically irresponsible and mad, just to mention a few.

But even Wicker won't fully endorse any of the scientists who claim to have recently facilitated clone pregnancies.

The Raelians announced recently that Clonaid, a company founded by their leader Rael, has facilitated a cloned pregnancy in South Korea.

The Raelians were started by former French journalist Claude Vorilhon, who adopted the name Rael, and now charges $100,000 for speeches. They believe life on Earth was created through cloning by aliens, and claim to have 55,000 members in 84 countries.

"Once we can clone exact replicas of ourselves, the next step will be to transfer our memory and personality into our newly cloned brains, which will allow us to truly live forever," the Raelian website says.

The Las Vegas Review-Journal recently reported that Clonaid is selling "cloning machines" for $9,000 a pop.

"This is the kind of thing that makes me sick," Wicker said.

Another human cloning cast member is Panayiotis Michael Zavos, an infertility specialist in Kentucky (he was recently let go as a professor of reproductive physiology at the University of Kentucky) and founder of SpermRus. He also claims to be ready to implant a clone.

He boasted to the Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune that he charges up to $10,000 for lectures and reportedly charges journalists steep fees for interviews, a practice Wicker finds reprehensible.

"I find it disconcerting when I see others who simply exploit this issue in a manner I view as insincere," Wicker wrote.

Zavos and Italian researcher Severino Antinori announced in January 2001 that they would spearhead an effort to clone a human. Back then they were chummy, but in April, Antinori announced independently that he had implanted the first clone. Since then, the two scientists have been estranged.

Antinori has not instilled much confidence in the scientific community or the public. He's flamboyant but can be evasive and short with the press. His resume, however, is impressive when it comes to science.

He's an accomplished reproduction researcher, and has been published extensively in scientific journals.

Of the three groups claiming to clone, the odds that one is actually telling the truth lie with Antinori, Wicker believes. But none of the claims has been confirmed.

Most mainstream scientists and ethicists are appalled by the possibility of any attempt to clone for reproduction.

"In my opinion, it is the height of irresponsible medicine and irresponsible parenting to make any attempt to use somatic cell nuclear transfer for reproductive purposes at a time when the best scientific minds believe not only that it is unsafe now, but that it may always remain unsafe due to the basic biological processes involved," said R. Alta Charo, a professor of law and medical ethics at the University of Wisconsin.

One cloning advocate believes the safety issues have been grossly exaggerated.

"If cloning were treated like any other new med treatment, it probably would be safe enough for clinical use by now," said Eibert, the San Mateo infertility activist.

Wicker might be more conservative than he once was, but there are certainly reproductive cloning advocates out there more conservative than him.

Gregory Pence, a philosophy professor at the University of Alabama at Birmingham and author of the 1997 book Who's Afraid of Human Cloning? is philosophically pro-human cloning.

He believes, however, that cloning must be proven safe first in primates. The primates should be allowed to live out their 35-to-45-year lifespan to make sure there is no flawed genetic expression later in life.

Only then should tests in humans go forward, Pence believes, because it would be a public relations disaster if the first cloned baby was born malformed or developed problems later.

Wicker doesn't have that much patience.

"I think the biggest flaw in this argument is the underlying premise that once cloning in primates had been perfected, that the cloning of human beings would be given the go-ahead," Wicker said.

Human cloning won't be accepted until the first healthy baby is born, he believes, much like the birth of Louise Brown in 1978 halted worldwide alarm that in vitro fertilization would create a Frankenstein-like creature.

He points out that IVF was possible in the early 1940s, and in 1978, researchers started an eight-year study to see if IVF would be viable. Just as that study was getting underway, Louise Brown was born.

"For 30 or more years, infertile couples were denied access to IVF," Wicker said. "I don't want to see history repeat itself and have human reproductive cloning delayed for decades as well."

He doesn't say exactly when he thinks it would be safe to try cloning humans, but some work should be done in primates, he believes. And the mother should be willing to abort if pre-natal tests show serious problems (although it's doubtful such tests could find all potential defects).

Wicker's vision is of people creating their own clones every 5 or 10 years. The clones would create a group of about a dozen people -- a brand new type of human connection.

"I think they would create a new form of family -- a new concept of family," Wicker said. "And I think that's good."