Raelians - Clonaid : Effort to Clone Dead Boy Dropped

CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) - A West Virginia lawyer says he has withdrawn his support for a controversial French researcher who had offered to clone his dead son, the Sunday Gazette-Mail reported.

The federal Food and Drug Administration reported in June that the researcher, Brigitte Boisselier, had agreed not to attempt an experiment or research on human cloning until the effort's legality was determined. FDA spokesman Lawrence Bachorik said the agency had inspected her lab, but wouldn't say where it was located.

Mark Hunt told the newspaper that he and his wife, Tracy, became interested in cloning after the September 1999 death of their 10-month-old son, Andrew. The child died of complications after surgery to correct heart defects.
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Hunt, a Charleston lawyer and former state legislator, said he had lost confidence in Boisselier because she became ``a press hog,'' giving international interviews on behalf of the cloning project and a religious group called the Raelian Movement.

Boisselier, a former visiting assistant professor of chemistry at Hamilton College in Clinton, N.Y., is scientific director of Clonaid

, which advertises cloning services on its Web site for fees up of to $200,000.

Clonaid was founded in 1997 by a French race car driver who changed his name to Rael and started the Raelian Movement, which claims that life on Earth was created by extraterrestrial scientists. Boisselier is a bishop in the movement, according to the group's Web site.

Hunt said he and his wife realize a clone wouldn't restore their son's life, but said a duplicate child would be ``some solace.'' He said they see no ethical problems with cloning or stem cell research.

In Washington, the House voted on July 31 to ban cloning of human embryos, even for medical research. The Senate has not acted on the measure.
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