Cloning doctor carpeted

ROME - The doctor who is determined to be the first to clone a human being risks disciplinary action, says the Rome Medical Association.

Severino Antinori, who last week said his team was ready to start cloning within weeks, has been ordered to appear before the association on March 22.

"He must bring explanations of what experiments he has done and what his plans are," said Benito Meledandri, the association's president.

Meledandri declined to explain what details the association wanted to hear or what elements could result in sanctions, which range from a formal warning to revocation of his licence to practise medicine.

Antinori's lawyer, Giulio Simeone, said the association did not have the right to prevent the development of research.

"The council can rule against a doctor if he has broken norms and rules ... but I can't see what norms would have been broken here," Simeone said.

Antinori, who gained notoriety for helping a 62-year-old woman have a child, courted controversy again last week at a conference in Rome where he said cloning was the last frontier in helping infertile couples have children.

The plan to clone a human has come under heavy fire, with the Vatican calling it grotesque.

- REUTERS