Cloning: A Brief Discussion History and Methods in Science Hum 300 "Cloning represents a very clear, powerful, and immediate example in which we are in danger of turning procreation into manufacture" said Leon Kass. Cloning is very controversial topic in the world today.
Some say cloning is playing God and some say cloning is correcting our mistakes. Whatever you may think scientist all over the world are studying the affects of cloning. Some of the most divisive talks of cloning are over the cloning of endangered species and cloning animals for consumption.This paper will review the each these topics in further detail. Animal cloning is a fairly recent scientific advancement that's been on the radar since about 1996. Genetic engineers have developed a method that can be used to prevent the extinction of endangered species.
Although it sounds complicated, the procedure is quite easy to understand. First the scientists obtain cells of one of the few remaining animals of the desired endanger species. Tissue samples from each of the animal are stored in vials, which are submerged and frozen in liquid nitrogen.The cell nuclei containing DNA are inserted into unfertilized eggs that have been extracted from a member of the species to be cloned.
The eggs are then fused with the cells containing the DNA. Each egg-cell fusion eventually develops into an embryo. The resulting embryos are implanted in another animal from the desired endangered species, who acts as the surrogate mother. The surrogate mother then births the desired genetically identical replicas of the animal from which the DNA-containing cells were obtained.
While animal cloning may have a role in the preservation of endangered species, it cannot conquer extinction on its own. It's important to think about what caused the deterioration of a species in the first place, we have to consider the root of this devastating problem. Animal cloning is a band-aid solution to mass extinction issue. It is human impact and the destruction of natural habitats that cause mass extinction. Therefore, the only true, sustainable solution to the problem is to fix our behavior.
Not only is animal cloning expensive and inefficient, but it leads to complacency about environmental conservation.The last thing we need to get comfortable with old habits; the last thing we need is for us to adopt an attitude of invincibility, where we begin to buy into the notion that we can cheat nature that we can play God. Cloned animals have sparked and even more heated debate related to the consumption of meat and milk from cloned animals. The technique of cloning is stated to provide consumers with several benefits including reduced cholesterol in meat and milk, plus higher levels of good fatty acids and antioxidants.Then battle began in January, when food safety authorities in the US and Europe released reports that effectively opened the door to the sale of meat and mild from cloned animals and their offspring.
The controversy over meat and mild from cloned animals can be traced back to birth of Dolly the sheep in 1996. Livestock breeders immediately saw the possibilities: unlimited copies of their prize animals. Imagine a bull that consistently sires offspring with top-quality meat or milk. That bull has a limited reproductive lifetime and there's no guarantee that any of its offspring will inherit its qualities.But clone the bull and you have the exact copy with the same reproductive capabilities.
For now, clones will be used as breeding animals to produce high-quality offspring for meat or milk. Still, meat from clones is likely to find its way into the food supply eventually when the clones come to the end of their reproductive lives, while milk from clones could be produced as soon as the animal reach sexual maturity. Cloning animals has some advantages such as reduced cholesterol in meat and milk, plus higher levels of good fatty acids and antioxidants.Other advantages of cloning is it would allow relatively easy reproduction of cattle genetically engineered to lack the protein that makes them susceptible to made cow disease.
Cloning would also so make it possible to replicate animals engineered to resist illnesses or with a smaller ecological footprint, such as the Enviropig, whose waste contains less phosphorus- a problematic pollutant from pig farming. One of the main problems among cloned cows and sheep is "large offspring syndrome", a potentially fatal condition characterized by malformed limbs, liver, brain, urinary and genital tracts, and dysfunctional immune system.Then problem is thought to be caused by complication is resetting the genetic instructions during the cloning process. Large offspring syndrome is also a problem for surrogate mothers.
Cows and ewes carrying cloned offspring are known to have significantly more late miscarriages and difficult births due to large offspring. The position of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is that meat and milk from cloned pigs, cattle and goats and their offspring are safe to eat and do not need to be labeled.The FDA has not reached a conclusion for sheep, citing the lack of evidence. The Department of Agriculture has given the go-ahead for the offspring of clones to enter the food chain but is asking farmers not to sell food derived from clones until it has developed a regulatory scheme. What does the consumer feel about this? Consumers certainly seem in favor of labeling milk or meat from cloned animal's offspring. According to a 2007 poll carried out by the Consumers Union, 89 per cent of Americans want milk and meat from cloned animals labeled.
Another poll by the International Food Information Council found that the majority of US consumers were unlikely to buy food derived from cloned animals. Labeling, however, doesn't address the most heartfelt criticism of cloned meat and milk- the greater incidence of serious health problems afflicting cloned animals and their surrogate mothers. Although a majority of individuals disapprove the idea of cloning, I firmly believe that, not only animal cloning but human cloning will be widely practiced in the near future, but it will also benefit the health and well-being of all humanity.Just visualize for a second that you are one of the human clones that will exist within this decade, and imagine putting up with all the arguments that many opinion leaders are currently struggling to make illegal: that cloning is a threat to human dignity and nobility, that it's a slippery slope, that it's playing God, that everyone has an entitlement to a unique and exclusive genome (except identical twins? ) or to an unknown genome, and so on and so on, etcetera, etcetera. Now how would this possibly make you feel?Perhaps, and maybe in all probability, you would feel much the same way as a black man would suffering from racial abuse, or even a woman being a victim of sexual harassment. Fortunately, however, by the time a human clone arrives at an age where he or she can be aware of what is being interpreted, each and every one these arguments we hear today will be forgotten.
References Oosthoek, Sharon (2008). I'll have the cloneburger and fries. New Scientist; 4/26/08, Vol. 198 Issue 2653, p40-43, 4p Viveiros, Candice (2009, February 18). Cloning of endanger species is only a band-aid solution.
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