A Project to Clone Companion Animals Mark Greene Published online: 04 Jun 2010.

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1 This article was downloaded by: [Dr Kenneth Shapiro] On: 08 June 2015, At: 09:28 Publisher: Routledge Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: Registered office: Mortimer House, Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK Journal of Applied Animal Welfare Science Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information: A Project to Clone Companion Animals Mark Greene Published online: 04 Jun To cite this article: Mark Greene (2002) A Project to Clone Companion Animals, Journal of Applied Animal Welfare Science, 5:3, , DOI: / S JAWS0503_10 To link to this article: PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the Content ) contained in the publications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis, our agents, and our licensors make no representations or warranties whatsoever as to the accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinions and views expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors, and are not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Content should not be relied upon and should be independently verified with primary sources of information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for any losses, actions, claims, proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilities whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with, in relation to or arising out of the use of the Content.

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3 JOURNAL OF APPLIED ANIMAL WELFARE SCIENCE, 5(3), Copyright 2002, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc. Hawthorne s Rebuttal Lou Hawthorne Genetic Savings & Clone Sausalito, California Mostly I agree with Greene s (2002/this issue) thoughtful analysis of our ethical policies. Greene brands us at Genetic Savings & Clone (GSC) consequentialists one of the nicer labels we ve been asked to wear. Although we at GSC are mindful of the consequences of our actions, it is not true that we have nothing to say to critics who charge that satisfying the fancy of a few wealthy dog and cat owners does not justify cloning as a means (Greene, 2002/this issue, p. 238). One could make the same claim about all nonessential products that is, most products. Can anyone seriously argue that Porsche s new sports utility vehicle is really justified when millions are still starving? In a capitalist economy, consumer demand and the ability to fill it are all the justifications you need. At Genetic Savings and Clone, we also focus on potential harms to surrogates and clones because, unlike issues of justification and self-indulgence, the suffering of sentient beings is inarguably significant. To the extent the harms are not zero, one also must consider potential benefits which, I suppose, simply restates our consequentialist creed. Greene (2002/this issue) criticizes GSC s Code of Bioethics for lacking any method of monitoring the promised outcomes. He misses the essence of the Code, a set of public commitments made under the glaring lights of public scrutiny. As long as GSC s work is controversial, we will remain subject to scrutiny. The fulfillment of GSC s commitments will be easily verified. Bok s (2002/this issue) critique of GSC s work is more severe than Greene s (2002/this issue), right up to her blunt conclusion: People who want to clone their pets must be either mistaken about what cloning is or immoral (p. 235). There is however a third possibility closer to the truth: Bok s facts and conclusions both could be flawed. Bok s indictment boils down to the following themes: Requests for reprints should be sent to Kenneth Shapiro, Editor, Journal of Applied Animal Welfare Science, P.O. Box 1297, Washington Grove, MD kshapiro@psyeta.org

4 244 HAWTHORNE 1. Cloning is not safe for either clones or surrogates. 2. Reliable cloning via embryo assessment is virtually impossible. 3. Cloning research and development is ultimately pointless because clones will not resemble their donors in either appearance or behavior. Some of the specific harms Bok cites simply are not relevant. Bok states that, Egg donors must have their ovaries artificially stimulated with hormone treatments and their eggs surgically harvested (p. 231). Bok is confusing the methods of human in vitro fertilization with those of pet cloning. Although we at GSC have spayed some dogs in estrus to obtain mature eggs for study, we do not routinely use egg donors, much less hormonally stimulate them. We obtain most of our eggs from spay clinics, which GSC underwrites financially. Our approach not only avoids use of egg donors but also improves the pet overpopulation problem. Bok (2002/this issue) suggests that surrogate recipients of canine-cloned embryos could be at risk due to oversized embryos. However, even if a canine or feline equivalent of large-calf syndrome were to occur and there has been no evidence of this in trials to date the impact in a litter-bearing species like dog or cat, whose uteri have evolved to accommodate large numbers of embryos, would be negligible compared with cattle who normally have just one offspring. In evaluating Bok s (2002/this issue) health and survival statistics for cloned cattle, it is important to remember that there is a large variance between specific cloning trials within single species as well as across species. The umbrella of cloning encompasses a wide range of approaches, protocols, and technologies for both the embryo production and embryo transfer phases. Frankly, there also is a wide range of skill on the part of those performing cloning experiments. The dismal results of overly ambitious biology undergraduates get factored in alongside those of seasoned professionals. For instance, Advanced Cell Technology, an industry leader whose technology GSC licenses, recently reported (Cibelli, Campbell, Seidel, West, & Lanza, 2002) cattle clone health and survival rates nearly double that of the industry-wide National Academy of Sciences (2002) cloning survey quoted by Bok. Bok (2002/this issue) also grossly downplays species specificity in cloning results. She dwells at length on the low yield and poor health of mouse clones but overlooks the very different results with goats. A group based at Louisiana State University (LSU) recently reported (Behboodi, 2002) the cloning of nine goats using in vitro matured ova; all but one of the late-term fetuses survived birth and thereafter developed normally. None of the losses in this or other goat cloning trials using different methods showed abnormalities of the type Bok describes, leading the LSU authors to state the following: These results suggest that, in goats, somatic cell nuclear transfer does not appear to be associated with abnormally large offspring or with gross placental abnormalities (Behboodi, 2002, p. 395).

5 REBUTTAL 245 LSU s success with goat cloning suggests that with the right technique, similar or better efficiencies also may be possible in pet cloning. Embryo assessment technology in which GSC is investing several million dollars this year transforms the possibility of such efficiencies to a high likelihood. Bok (2002/this issue) denies the potential of genomic embryo assessment for various reasons: The number of genes is enormous; researchers do not understand the purpose of many of these genes, plus many are inactive prior to implantation and therefore, it is unclear how one could test their expression at that stage (p. 233). Although Bok is correct that the number of genes is high about 50,000 it is not necessary to understand the purpose of each gene to perform highly reliable embryo assessment using a custom gene array. The GSC strategy is to base the gene array on the gene expression of naturally conceived canine embryos at a specific developmental point. We then pull a cell from a cloned canine embryo at the exact same developmental point. If the gene expression is very close, that cloned embryo has a high probability of being viable. Fortunately, embryo assessment does not have to work perfectly to be perfectly ethical: It just has to escalate cloning health and survival rates over natural background levels for a given species. This bar is not as high as it sounds. In wild dogs, approximately 20% of the offspring die within the first 2 weeks of birth. With domesticated breeds, it is 10%. Although GSC will strive for continual improvement, from an ethical perspective, 80% to 90% canine embryo viability is fully defensible and, I believe, is also fully attainable (B. Durrant, personal communication, April 24, 2002). Almost all clones will suffer and die, Bok (2002/this issue, p. 233) writes in her most dramatic claim, although the same National Academy of Sciences (2002) report that Bok invokes against animal cloning states that it is clear that many healthy, apparently normal, clones have been born and have survived to fertile adulthood (p. 40). Like all living things, animals born through cloning will, of course, eventually die. Until the embryo assessment protocols are perfected, a few may die prematurely. However, each of the health problems seen in clones also occur (at lower rates) in natural reproduction including human reproduction and thus research into preventing such problems in clones may carry broader benefits. The best way to prevent cloning abnormalities long term is not through embryo assessment alone but through new, more reliable means of creating clones in the first place. GSC is currently researching several promising techniques with a double motivation: to succeed ethically by creating only healthy clones and to avoid the commercial costs of creating, screening, and carrying unviable embryos. Bok s (2002/this issue) final concern, that clones will not resemble their genetic donors enough to justify cloning them, is the easiest to refute. The vast majority of healthy clones the only kind GSC intends to produce resemble their donors to a striking degree, like a later-born identical twin. Photographs bear out physical similarities, whereas the tendencies of, say, pit bulls versus golden retrievers pro-

6 246 HAWTHORNE vide an obvious example of the influence of genes on behavior. There are, of course, differences between clones and their donors, as there are between twins. However, there is no doubt in my mind that the similarities will be sufficient to satisfy GSC s many prospective customers. REFERENCES Behboodi, E. (2002). Pregnancy profile and health status of goats derived by somatic cell nuclear transfer. Theriogenology, 57, 395. Bok, H. (2002). Cloning nonhuman animals is wrong. Journal of Applied Animal Welfare Science, 5, Cibelli, J. B., Campbell, K. H., Seidel, G. E., West, M. D., & Lanza, R. P. (2002). The health profile of cloned animals. Nature Biotechnology, 20, Greene, M. (2002). New dog: Old tricks. Journal of Applied Animal Welfare Science, 5, National Academy of Sciences Committee on Science, Engineering, and Public Policy. (2002). Scientific and medical aspects of human reproductive cloning. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.