tHE H CLONE | INTRODUCTION

........ Introduction ........

 "We are in a fight in which we ultimately have to attack those who are involved in the struggle against us. There is no other way."

 Science Minister Matan Vilna'i, Israel, 2001

… Cloning can generate living beings; however the clone’s genetic information is full of errors. Clones can appear the same as the original, however the clone’s internal structure is full of genetic defects. Professor Ian Wilmut, of The Roslin Institute in Scotland, and father of the renowned Dolly-the sheep (born in 1996), years later acknowledged "that his cloning process had errors which generated genetic defects."  

  To clone a human being, scientists would remove the nucleus from an egg and extract its genetic material, leaving only the membrane. Then the nucleus from a cell taken from the body of the person to be duplicated would be inserted into the membrane. With just the genetic material of the person to be cloned contained within the membrane of the ovule, the cell and the process would be stimulated with electricity to activate cellular division. The embryo would then be implanted into a surrogate, which, in the event the experiment succeeded, would bring the fetus to term.  

  Currently it is not possible to perform perfect cloning. However, it’s only a question of time, money---lots of money---arduous work, political, moral and social determination, before the millions of details of creation are discovered and applied. 

  Money and the ruling political requisites of the day will dictate what the standards of the game will be. As was the case during the Prohibition of the 30s, or in today’s pharmaceutical industry, there will always be physicians, laboratories and infrastructure, based on confidential information, that will be ready to clone some bigwig or someone’s beloved for money or political power.

 Where will the line be drawn between that which is political and that which is military, or between physiological needs and sentimental ones?  Herein lies the question!

  Are we facing the prospect of eternal life?   Parts of the human body are already being replaced through perfectly elaborated transplants and implants. Artificial hearts made out of titanium, plastic and epoxy provide over 5 years of useful life extension to patients who ordinarily can’t expect to survive any more than perhaps a couple of weeks.

  The barrier to global telecommunications has already been reached and breached; the new frontiers for man’s genius are genetics and medicine. The object is to live better longer! 

  Concentration of investments as well as of vital resources essential for life will cause new interests to appear on the global geopolitical landscape.

  International organizations will have to monitor the proper use of this fantastic new field in medicine: Genetic Cloning.  Or else, we will have the cloning of geniuses and of the needy on the one hand; and the wicked, criminals, and the worthless on the other hand, equally being cloned.  We will be in an endless game: balancing both good and evil---and society as we know it, will be at risk. 

  …A great part of the historical events described in this first book are true.

  Press clippings from several newspapers and from the Internet are real and are included to tie the reader to the actual events. Cities, locations and organizations are real.

  There are several things that are fiction and a product of the narrative imagination of the author.   I invite the reader to use his/her imagination and creativity to deem what is real, somewhat real or fiction. 

  Hedi Enghelberg 

 Caracas - Venezuela  

   PS. With this translation I hope that the English Readers will discover  the story, the history, the past and the present. The future, the not so far future, I cannot tell ..., but with cloning involved, will be different one than our Parents.

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