Hoza biotechnology safety lecture

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)?