November 6, 2001	Tuesday	Shaba’an 19, 1422

LONDON, Nov 5: An Italian fertility expert who wants to clone humans will not be allowed to work in Britain and could face a fine or imprisonment if he tries to conduct experiments in the country, an official said on Monday.

The Rome-based gynaecologist Dr Severino Antinori told a Scottish newspaper he wanted to work in Britain because it was the home of many of the world’s leading fertility and cloning experts.

But a spokesman for the Human Fertilization and Embryology Authority (HFEA), which regulates fertility treatment in Britain, said Antinori had not applied for a licence.

“He has not applied to us. He’d get short shrift if he did,” James Yeandel, a spokesman for the HFEA, told Reuters.

“We clearly stated following our consultation on cloning and following the birth of Dolly the sheep that we wouldn’t allow reproductive cloning in the UK,” he added.

Practising without a licence could result in a fine or a jail sentence. Human cloning is illegal in Britain under the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act of 1990. Many other countries have also banned human reproductive cloning.

Antinori and his collaborator Dr Panos Zavos told Scotland’s Sunday Herald newspaper they would ask the HFEA’s permission to practise in Britain in order to force it to explain its opposition to human cloning.

If they cannot work in Britain, they said they would perform the procedure elsewhere.

OSTRACISED: Since Antinori and Zavos told the world they intended to clone humans to help infertile couples have children, they have been ostracised by the medical community.

Many cloning experts doubt they have the expertise to clone a human, which would be a very difficult and dangerous procedure.—Reuters