DNA pioneer backs cloning of humans

James Watson, one of the discoverers of the secret of DNA half a century ago, is backing the right of Severino Antinori, the maverick Italian scientist, to create a human clone. He told The Independent on Sunday that he had no ethical or scientific objection to scientists trying to create clones.

Asked about Dr Antinori's claims that he is trying to clone a baby, Dr Watson said: "I'm not going to worry about him. If the first clone is born, it's not going to kill the Earth."

He considered the science of human cloning was too risky to attempt at present, but said those difficulties would probably be overcome, a view shared by Lady [Mary] Warnock, the philosopher who helped frame Britain's laws on in-vitro fertilisation.

The many scientists and religious experts who believe human cloning should be banned on medical and moral grounds are wrong, he added. People such as Dr Antinori should be allowed to experiment, test whether it could work, and prosecuted only if a deformed or sick child was born.

Dr Watson, 75, said threats such as anthrax attacks, women drinking during pregnancy, or the pneumonia bug Sars were far more worrying than cloning. That would only become dangerous if large numbers were cloned.

"I think that the decisions should be made by prospective parents," he said. "I'm scared by nuclear weapons: cloning doesn't worry me that much. Clearly, multiple clonings are the sorts of things we have to ban because they would mess up everything, and I wish it wouldn't happen."

One of Britain's leading geneticists has confirmed plans to clone the first human embryo in the UK. Dr Ian Wilmut, head of the Roslin Institute near Edinburgh, which cloned Dolly the sheep, is to ask the Human Fertility and Embryology Authority this summer for permission to create one for medical purposes. Dr Antinori is trying to clone humans for reproductive purposes.

Dr Wilmut's project is intended to help find a cure for motor neurone disease, the incurable muscle-wasting illness suffered by Professor Stephen Hawking. He will try to clone an embryo with cells from a patient with the illness, and then try to create motor neurone cells. The cloned embryo will not be implanted in the womb, but critics fear that if Dr Wilmut succeeds, he will have helped prove the first stage of human cloning can work, bolstering attempts by mavericks such as Dr Antinori.

Last week, the European Parliament underlined intense opposition to cloning by voting to ban embryonic stem cell research, risking a head-on collision with the European Commission, which wants the EU to take a lead in biomedical research.

Claims this year by the Raelian sect to have cloned at least two babies have been scotched by experts. Dr Antinori's claims that he already has women bearing cloned embryos to be born this summer also remain unproven.

But last week, a US-based geneticist who collaborated with Dr Antinori until they fell out last year claimed he had created a cloned embryo specifically for reproductive purposes. Professor Panayiotis Zavos published a photograph of a tiny, 10-cell embryo last week in the online journal Reproductive Biomedicine. Experts doubted his work was significant, since six-cell cloned embryos were created in 2001.