Genetic modification ofanimals: applications and issues
• 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
• 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
Level of trust in scientists
Growth promotants
Ethical questions arising from use ofgrowth promotants
• 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
Transgenics 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
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 ofimplementing 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)
Discussion
• Is animal biotechnology going too far too fast?
• Is it realistic to expect scientists to ponder implications of research rather than trying to initiate discoveries?
• Should we put constraints on scientists?
• Are scientists responsible for how their findings are used?
• What is your response to Thompson’s statement(slide 28)?