Cloned Cat Sale Generates Ethics Debate

[Charles Brown <cbrown@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

A forward

^^^^^^^^


The so-called "ethical issue" is not whether or not
cloning should occur, and progress: it should, but
whether it should exist as capitalist capitalist commodity
production, exploitation of both the new life-form and
the 'customer'.

Lil Joe
=======


Cloned Cat Sale Generates Ethics Debate

By Paul Elias
The Associated Press
Thursday, December 23, 2004; 12:09 AM

SAN FRANCISCO -- The first cloned-to-order pet sold in
the United States is named Little Nicky, a 9-week-old
kitten delivered to a Texas woman saddened by the loss
of a cat she had owned for 17 years.

The kitten cost its owner $50,000 and was created from
DNA from her beloved cat, named Nicky, who died last
year.

"He is identical. His personality is the same," the
owner, Julie, told The Associated Press in a telephone
interview. Although she agreed to be photographed with
her cat, she asked that her last name and hometown not
be disclosed because she said she fears being targeted
by groups opposed to cloning.

Yet while Little Nicky, who was delivered two weeks
ago, frolics in his new home, the kitten's creation and
sale has reignited fierce ethical and scientific debate
over cloning technology, which is rapidly advancing.

The company that created Little Nicky, Sausalito-based
Genetic Savings and Clone, said it hopes by May to have
produced the world's first cloned dog -- a much more
lucrative market than cats.

While it is based in the San Francisco Bay area, the
company's cloning work will be done at its new lab in
Madison, Wis.

Commercial interests already are cloning prized cattle
for about $20,000 each, and scientists have cloned
mice, rabbits, goats, pigs, horses -- and even the
endangered banteng, a wild bull that is found mostly in
Indonesia.

Several research teams around the world, meanwhile, are
racing to create the first cloned monkey.

Aside from human cloning, which has been achieved only
at the microscopic embryo stage, no cloning project has
fueled more debate than the marketing plans of Genetic
Savings and Clone.

"It's morally problematic and a little reprehensible,"
said David Magnus, co-director of the Center for
Biomedical Ethics at Stanford University. "For $50,000,
she could have provided homes for a lot of strays."

Animals rights activists complain that new feline
production systems aren't needed because thousands of
stray cats are euthanized each year for want of homes.

Lou Hawthorne, Genetic Savings and Clone's chief
executive, said his company purchases thousands of
ovaries from spay clinics across the country. It
extracts the eggs, which are combined with the genetic
material from the animals to be cloned.

Critics also complain that the technology is available
only to the wealthy, that using it to create house pets
is frivolous and that customers grieving over lost pets
have unrealistic expectations of what they're buying.

In fact, the first cat cloned in 2001 had a different
coat from its genetic donor, underscoring that
environment and other biological variables make it
impossible to exactly duplicate animals.

"The thing that many people do not realize is that the
cloned cat is not the same as the original," said
Bonnie Beaver, a Texas A&M animal behaviorist who heads
the American Veterinary Medical Association, which has
no position on the issue. "It has a different
personality. It has different life experiences. They
want Fluffy, but it's not Fluffy."

Scientists also warn that cloned animals suffer from
more health problems than their traditionally bred
peers and that cloning is still a very inexact science.
It takes many gruesome failures to produce just a
single clone.

Genetic Savings and Clone said its new cloning
technique, developed by animal cloning pioneer James
Robl has improved survival rates, health and
appearance. The new technique seeks to condense and
transfer only the donor's genetic material to a
surrogate's egg instead of an entire cell nucleus.

Between 15 percent and 45 percent of cloned cats born
alive die within the first 30 days, Hawthorne said. But
he said that range is consistent with natural births,
depending on the breed of cat.

Austin, Texas-based ViaGen Inc., which has cloned
hundreds of cows, pigs and goats, also is experimenting
with the new cloning technique.

"The jury is still out, but the research shows it to be
promising," company president Sara Davis said. "The
technology is improving all the time."

Genetic Savings and Clone has been behind the creation
of at least five cats since 2001, including the first
one created.

It hopes to deliver as many as five more clones to
customers who have paid the company's $50,000 fee. By
the end of next year, it hopes to have cloned as many
as 50 cats.

The company has yet to turn a profit.

C 2004 The Associated Press

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