THE controversial Italian fertility expert Severino Antinori, who wants to
clone human beings, is embroiled in a row with the association of the top
private fertility clinics. Last week it voted to throw him out, but Antinori
says he is still a member.
The board of APART, the International Association of Private Assisted
Reproductive Technology Clinics and Laboratories, voted to expel Antinori for
“disreputable conduct”. It also says he is guilty of “gross violation of
membership obligations” relating to a meeting he is supposed to be organising
next month.
Antinori learned of his fate in an e-mail from APART president Wilfried
Feichtinger, which has been seen by New Scientist. The e-mail accuses
Antinori of “disreputable conduct in recent months related to the topic of human
reproductive cloning, which has injured the reputation of APART among its
members and others in the scientific community”.
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In a swingeing attack on the media circuses trailing Antinori’s every move on
human cloning (see New Scientist, 17 March, p 3), Feichtinger’s e-mail
says: “You should appreciate this decision of the managing board and learn from
it that there are certain rules within the scientific community and in medical
associations that have to be respected.”
But Antinori rejects the charges against him. “It is not true that I have
been expelled,” he told New Scientist. He lists 32 backers, whom he
describes as “true APART” members, and says that they’ve voted “to expel”
Feichtinger and other prominent members Ricardo Asch and Ettore Barale.
Feichtinger says that some of Antinori’s claimed backers have not paid their
membership dues for 2001 and that others have never been members.
The second major charge, which Antinori denies, is that a symposium he
promised to organise in Monte Carlo next month for APART has collapsed in
disarray. Many speakers have pulled out, including Ian Wilmut, the creator of
Dolly the cloned sheep at the Roslin Research Institute in Scotland. “I accepted
the invite to explain why human reproductive cloning would be dangerous,” Wilmut
says. But following APART’s own withdrawal, Wilmut decided against it.
Feichtinger says that with the meeting just a month away, few paying
attendees are registered, and many speakers have yet to be confirmed, or have
withdrawn. He accuses Antinori of “gross violation of your membership
obligations in connection with having undertaken responsibility for organisation
of APART’s Third World Congress and seriously failed in the execution of that
responsibility, such that APART was forced to cancel [it].”
In a separate letter to APART members, Feichtinger says: “Dr Antinori’s
appearances and commentary over the past months have attracted much unfavourable
attention… His coverage in the media reflects badly on him and has at least the
potential, by association, to reflect badly on APART.”
Antinori remains defiant, however, claiming that the conference is on track.
“In Monte Carlo, you will have the opportunity to check that the congress will
be successful,” he told New Scientist.
