A False Image

Though a New York Times review called it "stupefyingly dull" and its narrator "dim-witted," scientists have other than literary objections to In His Image (Lippincott; $8.95). In the book, published as nonfiction, Author David Rorvik holds that a baby boy cloned from an eccentric aging millionaire (and thus his genetic duplicate) is alive and well. In Washington last week, before the House Subcommittee on Health and the Environment, top cloning experimenters talked candidly about the book. That was more than Rorvik did. Invited twice to testify, he failed to show up.

Lucky for Rorvik. Cancer Researcher Beatrice Mintz called Image "unquestionably a work of fiction." She characterized the book as "mildly amusing, though not in ways intended by the author," and said that it was full of "scientific boners." Charged Geneticist Clement Markert: "Rorvik is guilty of false and misleading advertising." Others noted that no mammals, let alone humans, had yet been cloned. They voiced concern that tracts like Image, passed off as present fact, might cause public reaction against cloning techniques used in cancer, aging and other important medical research.

Rorvik, whose credentials include wide-eyed articles on psychic and faith healers and a passionate advocacy of the discredited cancer drug Laetrile, has informed the House subcommittee that he will be available for testimony in the fall. So far, he has no takers.

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