Genetic modification of animals: applications and issues

HOZA. A.S

• Safety/risk– What are the long/short-term effects?– Environmental impact

• Distributive justice– Who benefits?

• Animal welfare– Is the animal harmed?

• Spurious/religious concerns– Are we “devaluing” life? Playing God?

Biotechnology

Level of trust in scientists

Scientific omnipotence– “Trust us” approach is no longer effective– Scientists’ failure to communicate with the public– Scientists’ ties to biotech companies

Belief that some are just servants of big business

Can these scientists be trusted to make impartial decisions/statements?

– Scientists’ assessments of risk

Growth promoters

Ethical questions arising from use ofgrowth promoters

• Health risks to humans?– Is milk from rBST-supplemented cows safe for human consumption?

– Is there increased risk for developing allergies from rBST milk?

– Should rBST milk be labeled?

• Animal welfare– Are cows injected with rBST harmed?

• Reports of increased mastitis, decreased conception rates, inflammation from repeated injections, arthritis, lameness

Transgenic and Cloning

Ethical issues in livestock cloning

• Animal welfare

• Social benefits

• Impact of animal cloning on human cloning issues

• Market structure to protect individual choice

Welfare issues related to transgenicsand cloning

• Technology isn’t perfected yet– Very low success rate

– High mortality rates

• What happens to animals born without transgene?

• Suffering of transgenic animals– Case of Beltsville pigs (human GH introduced)• High mortality, arthritis, gastric ulcers, degenerative joint

disease, infection, lethargy

• Cloned animals– Shortened life spans, health problems

Risks associated with transgenics andcloning

• Risks; product safety for humans and animals (e.g allergies, zoonoses,)

Consumption of animal products fromcloned vs. transgenic animals

• A report to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in August distinguished between cloned and transgenic animals

– Cloned animals probably safe to raise and eat

• Labeling issues arise

– Transgenic ones may not be safe to consume

TRANSGENIC ETHICS

1. Animal Rights Versus Animal Welfare

2. Right to meddle in the genomes of living beings Transgenesis- a logical step beyond selective breeding,

open doors past what we previously have known to cure diseases!!?? possibly end world hunger entirely!!!??

Transgenic Art - Creating monsters!!! E.g “Alba,” the rabbit that glows under UV light!!!!???

Eduardo “transgenic art.” refers to animals and plants with a planned genome intended to express an artistic idea symbolized by the proteins they code for.

4. Animal Death Versus Human Lives Saved low success rate in creating transgenic animals.

5. Transgenic Animals and the Environmentdecrease of genetic variability within that species

Transgenic animals are not “more fit” than their “normal” cousins.

6. Transgenic OversightTransgenic experimentation should be as humane as possible.

7. Religions and Transgenic Ethics

TRANSGENIC ETHICS

Ethical issues arising from the consumptionof cloned animal products

• Milk has enormous cultural symbolic value.

This is the first primordial food that people eat, and we don't like people messing with it," said Paul Wolpe, a senior fellow at the University of Pennsylvania Center for Bioethics.

"There has not yet been a single cloned mammal that has yet been alive long enough to have lived out a natural life span for that animal.

We can't underestimate the unanswered questions about cloning."

Concerns about animal biotechnologyapplications

• Environmental impact : GE organisms escaping/ reproducing

• Probability (small) of allergic responses to new proteins

• Animal welfare problems– ⇑ birth weights, longer gestation periods, difficult births in

clones

– Poor survival rate of fetuses using some techniques

– Anatomical, physiological, behavioral abnormalities

Distributive justice

• Distribution of risks and benefits

• Equal distribution of welfare– Not just how much good is done but how that good is

distributed in society

Distributive justice• rBST

– Idea that small dairies would be even more disadvantaged than large commercial dairies

– Potential for biotech to contribute to demise of small farms

• Loss of choices in products offered

• Biomedical applications– Who pays for research?

– Who benefits? Only the wealthy who can afford new technologies?

– Widening the gap between rich and poor

Religious and Moral Concerns associatedwith Transgenics and Cloning

• Devaluing of life

• “Playing God”

• Implications for applicationof technologies to humans

• Unnatural” exchange of genetic material

Moral concerns ⇒ welfare issues

• Time factor– mistakes can occur more rapidly with GE than conventional

methods of animal selection (e.g. selective breeding)

– loss of incremental steps lose ability to evaluate results ⇒at each step e.g. traditional breeding allows time for evaluation,

correction, reversal

Moral concerns ecological issues⇒

• Ecosystem concerns

– Impact on genetic diversity• what might be the impact of limited gene pools on livestock faced with new (deadly) pathogens?

– what might be the impact of GE animals on fragile ecosystems?• habitat preservation issues for wild animals

– What if GE organisms escape and reproduce?• Loss of genetic diversity, unbalanced ecosystems

Implications for human applications

• Impact of genetic engineering of animals (especially cloning) on human cloning

• Slippery slope

Biotechnology and law:

Are we prepared for societal and legal issues?

Who “owns” the technology?

Animal biotechnology and law

• Decision-making processes are unclear with new technologies

• Legislation on animal biotechnology

– Who advises politicians, especially regarding nature of risks?

• Commissions, advisory boards comprised of practicing scientists, lawyers, sociologists concerned individuals, religious bodies…..

Animal biotechnology and law

• “Any food system practice that does not allow individuals who do not want to consume meat or milk from clones to act upon their values at a reasonable cost is ethically unacceptable and ought to be illegal.” (Thompson, 1997)

• Lack of controls to prevent GE animals from entering the food chain (e.g., cows that produce drugs in their milk)

– One reported instance of meat from GE animals used in a food product

Public education: ethics of implementing biotechnology without public understanding or consent

Responsibility to the public: education

• Is it morally responsible to implement technologies that impact the public while excluding them from decision-making?

– Need for public education to facilitate understanding & discussion of biotech

– Need for informed consent

– Foisting of technology is wrong, not technology itself (Thompson, 1997)

Conflicts of Interest

Conflicts of Interest (Hodges, 2000)

• Biotechnology companies’ investments in research and development– Usually patent techniques and are eager to market them

– May create artificial “needs”

– May pressure governments to act in their best interests

– Governments may pressure scientists to be definitive about risks

– Self serving--huge markets benefiting pharmaceuticals

– “Might doesn’t make right”; “Ends don’t justify means”

Conflicts of Interest (Hodges, 2000)

• “Politicians do not like probabilities

• “Scientists do not like ethics”

• “Consumers and users do not like risk”

• “Business does not like waiting”

Can these conflicts be resolved?– How?

Need for scientists to integrate ethicalanalysis into the scientific process

• “Allowing a contentious technology such as human cloning to become feasible through technical means alone, without legal, social and ethical reviews, is inconsistent with democratic values” (Thompson, 1999)