Do you think anyone will ever come forward claiming to be a human clone?

Question

I've always thought that somehow, somewhere a human has already been cloned, albeit illegally. How long do you think it might be before something like this ever happens? And how likely is it?

Answer 1

I am a human clone

Answer 2

Technically, if you are an identical twin, then you are a clone of your sibling.

Dolly the sheep was the first cloned mammal, and she was only produced in 1996. Since then, other mammals have been cloned (mice, cows, horses, dogs, pigs) - but no humans as yet (that we know of). So the technology to do so is certainly available.

But, even if a human was cloned immediately after Dolly, using the technology pioneered by the Roslin Institute, he/she would only be 12 at the most now.

Of course, you would need to ask yourself - why would anyone want to clone a human?

There are sound scientific and technological reasons to want to clone animals: a uniform genetic background will help in animal testing with interpreting the results; in agribusiness, cloned animals would simplify the production of GM animals.

But for humans, it would need to be a different reason. An eccentric millionaire might want a deceased spouse or child cloned; a family might want a source of stem cells or bone marrow for a sick child. But these are about the only reasons I can think of.

Bear in mind also that human cloning is illegal. So any institute performing the research would need to keep the whole thing secret; if they were discovered, they would lose their license to perform any research, and would likely be charged with a crime. Most institutions and scientists would not be willing to risk this. And if a millionaire recruited such individuals into a private, secret facility somewhere (all ver James Bond/Boys from Brazil), their absence would be noticed by the scientific and governmental communities.

Also - this kind of research is very, very expensive. It would cost a significant amount of even the most wealthy individual's money; this expenditure would also be noticed by the relevant regulatory bodies.

I think, all-in-all, it is very unlikely.

Answer 3

The first human clone, a healthy 7-pound girl named Eve, was born the 26th of December 2002, according to Clonaid, a private company linked to the Raelian religious sect.

http://www.reproductivecloning.net/clone...