JAIME HYLAND,
Madam, - The article by Fr. Kevin Doran on the undoubted ethical problems surrounding human cloning (January 2nd) contained the following assertion: "The cloned animal is the same genetic age as the one from which it was cloned. This would suggest that a cloned child would probably have a much shorter lifespan than a child born in the normal way." As any geneticist will tell you, this passage makes absolutely no scientific sense. On the most charitable interpretation it is simply unfounded speculation.
I suggest that when you next publish an article on the ethical questions surrounding human cloning, you commission someone who has at least some idea of the subject. - Yours, etc.,
JAIME HYLAND, Heinrich Mann Strasse, 13156 Berlin, Germany.