Russian scientist on cloning of man

If cloning of man began, it would not cause great danger to the human gene stock, deputy director of the Institute of General Genetics and Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences Ilya Zakharov said. "In any case, cloning will not acquire mass character because it is a complex and expensive procedure. For this reason, separate successful experiments will not change the general balance of genes," the scientist stressed. Despite this, the fact that success in cloning animals "makes up 0.1 shares per cent" gives rise to scientists' doubts in cloning. As the scientist put it, "a very big percentage of a failure is possible here. Besides, there are doubts that a cloned organism will be developing and aging more quickly than its genetic donor." In this connection, Zakharov voiced the view that the question "who will take care of these results of unsuccessful experiments and bring them up?" arises in case of unsuccessful reproduction of an individual. The deputy director of the Institute of General Genetics believes that as long as world public opinion has not been formed adoption of a decision on necessity of cloning man "is impossible."