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It’s not as if most reasoning humans couldn’t have foreseen the day when science would tamper with the chain of life so drastically, but now there seems to be unmitigated technology to clone a human child.

Scientists used the the procedure to create baby mice from the skin cells of adult animals, and have found it more efficient than the revered “Dolly” technique - the process forged to create the world’s first cloned being, a sheep named Dolly.

Unlike the Dolly technique, however, the procedure is so simple and efficient that it has raised fears that it will be seized on by IVF doctors to help infertile couples who are eager to have their own biological children.

One scientist said this weekend that a maverick attempt to perform the technique on humans is now too real to ignore. “It’s unethical and unsafe, but someone may be doing it today,” said Robert Lanza, chief scientific officer of American biotechnology company Advanced Cell Technology.

“Cloning isn’t here now, but with this new technique we have the technology that can actually produce a child. If this was applied to humans it would be enormously important and troublesome,” said Dr Lanza, whose company has pioneered developments in stem cells and cell reprogramming.

“It raises the same issues as reproductive cloning and although the technology for reproductive cloning in humans doesn’t exist, with this breakthrough we now have a working technology whereby anyone, young or old, fertile or infertile, straight or gay can pass on their genes to a child by using just a few skin cells,” he said.

The technique involves the genetic reprogramming of skin cells so they revert to an embryonic-like state. Last year, when the breakthrough was used on human skin cells for the first time, it was lauded by the Catholic Church and President George Bush as a morally acceptable way of producing embryonic stem cells without having to create or destroy human embryos.

However, the same technique has already been used in another way to reproduce offspring of laboratory mice that are either full clones or genetic “chimeras” of the adult mouse whose skin cells were reprogrammed.

Comforting to know that George W. Bush backs yet another potentially cataclysmic moral and ethical can of worms. Either way, this is something that should be scaring the hell out of everyone. I’ve seen Star Wars waaaaay too many times to ignore the threat of an army of clones. Granted, the ones forged by scientists might be more calculus-savvy, and not so much Jengo Fett, but the potential is frightening.