Monday, May 23, 2005
The Village News :: Now is the time to ban pet cloning
The Village News :: Now is the time to ban pet cloning:
When the first cloned kitten, coyly named “CC” (for “carbon copy”) by its manufacturers, appeared a few years ago on the front pages of newspapers around the world, a friend of mine reacted in bewilderment. “When did we say this was okay? Who gave permission to do this?”
If you want to open a pet shop, you need a business license. If you want to open a veterinary clinic, you need a veterinary license. If you want to do medical research using cats and dogs, you need to meet federal animal care and use requirements.
But if you want to create cloned kittens, dousing cats with hormones and surgically implanting cloned embryos — over 90 percent of which die — and market them at $32,000 each to those grieving over the loss of a beloved pet… there’s nothing to stop you.
That’s the story of Genetic Savings & Clone, the Marin County–based startup bankrolled by an eccentric billionaire and run by a smooth-talking public relations agent.
And they’re not the only ones. Allerca, Inc. and ForeverPet in West Los Angeles; Yorktown Technologies in Austin, TX; and Transgenic Pets in Syracuse, NY, are all hoping to manipulate pets — and our feelings for them — for profit.
Eighty percent of Americans find the whole idea of pet cloning repugnant. With thousands of cats, dogs and other animals being destroyed in shelters every day, there’s no good reason why anyone should have to create a genetic duplicate of a living or deceased animal as a pet.
People know intuitively that manufacturing carbon-copy animals in an attempt to “re-create” a pet that has passed away devalues both the deceased pet and the living “duplicate.”
Despite what all the cute photos suggest, cloning does real, immediate harm. Cloning is an unnatural process, and most cloned animals — some scientists believe all of them — suffer from deformities or genetic disease.
The pet cloners are now trying to create an aura of respectability about their work. They’re showing their clones at cat shows, creating Web sites full of unctuous prose about the deep ethical principles they hold, and lobbying veterinarians to offer their cloning services to customers whose pets are dying.
In the four years since “CC” was put on display as a harbinger of what the pet cloners believe is a billion-dollar market, many people have been waiting for someone to say, “Enough.”
Finally, someone has. California Assemblyman Lloyd Levine has introduced AB 1428 to ban the sale of cloned and other genetically modified household pets. Those of us who don’t want to see companion animals turned into manufactured artifacts should strongly urge our legislators to support this measure. It’s long overdue.
When the first cloned kitten, coyly named “CC” (for “carbon copy”) by its manufacturers, appeared a few years ago on the front pages of newspapers around the world, a friend of mine reacted in bewilderment. “When did we say this was okay? Who gave permission to do this?”
If you want to open a pet shop, you need a business license. If you want to open a veterinary clinic, you need a veterinary license. If you want to do medical research using cats and dogs, you need to meet federal animal care and use requirements.
But if you want to create cloned kittens, dousing cats with hormones and surgically implanting cloned embryos — over 90 percent of which die — and market them at $32,000 each to those grieving over the loss of a beloved pet… there’s nothing to stop you.
That’s the story of Genetic Savings & Clone, the Marin County–based startup bankrolled by an eccentric billionaire and run by a smooth-talking public relations agent.
And they’re not the only ones. Allerca, Inc. and ForeverPet in West Los Angeles; Yorktown Technologies in Austin, TX; and Transgenic Pets in Syracuse, NY, are all hoping to manipulate pets — and our feelings for them — for profit.
Eighty percent of Americans find the whole idea of pet cloning repugnant. With thousands of cats, dogs and other animals being destroyed in shelters every day, there’s no good reason why anyone should have to create a genetic duplicate of a living or deceased animal as a pet.
People know intuitively that manufacturing carbon-copy animals in an attempt to “re-create” a pet that has passed away devalues both the deceased pet and the living “duplicate.”
Despite what all the cute photos suggest, cloning does real, immediate harm. Cloning is an unnatural process, and most cloned animals — some scientists believe all of them — suffer from deformities or genetic disease.
The pet cloners are now trying to create an aura of respectability about their work. They’re showing their clones at cat shows, creating Web sites full of unctuous prose about the deep ethical principles they hold, and lobbying veterinarians to offer their cloning services to customers whose pets are dying.
In the four years since “CC” was put on display as a harbinger of what the pet cloners believe is a billion-dollar market, many people have been waiting for someone to say, “Enough.”
Finally, someone has. California Assemblyman Lloyd Levine has introduced AB 1428 to ban the sale of cloned and other genetically modified household pets. Those of us who don’t want to see companion animals turned into manufactured artifacts should strongly urge our legislators to support this measure. It’s long overdue.
# posted by Jay Brewer @ 8:40 PM 
