In cutting-edge experiments, scientists have injected human brain cells into monkey fetuses to study the effects.Critics argue that if these fetuses are allowed to develop into self-aware subjects, science will be thrown into an ethical nightmare.
An eminent committee of American scientists will call for restrictions into the research, saying the outcome of such studies cannot be predicted and may in fact produce subjects with a 'super-animal' intelligence.
The high-powered committee of animal behaviorists, lawyers, philosophers, bio-ethicists and neuro-scientists was established four years ago to examine the growing numbers of human/monkey experiments.
These procedures, known as 'human-primate chimeras', involve the combination of human and monkey cells, tissue and DNA to observe any effect and examine the possibility that such combination could actually exist.
Chimeras are mythical monsters from Greek literature, which combined various body parts from lions, goats and snakes.
This team will soon publish its conclusions in leading journal Science. In the report the committee will address such unsettling questions as whether introducing human cells into non-human primate brains could cause "significant physical or biochemical changes that make the brain more human-like" and how those changes could be detected.
The committee will also examine how detectable differences in the monkey's brains, for example emotional or behavioral changes, or if the monkeys developed 'self awareness', could be measured - and dealt with.
"What we were trying to do was anticipate - recognizing that if science were to take that path there might be some different kinds of moral challenges." said committee co-chairman Dr Ruth Faden, a professor in biomedical ethics. END
Guess What's Coming to Dinner?
The Trojan Horse of Genetically Modified Food
Coming Gene Wars | Got Spider Goat Milk? | Spider Goats
Mad Scientists! | Human Cows! | Transgenics and Transvestites
Making Genetic Monsters | Transgenic Cats | Transgenic Pigs
BIOCOLONIZATION | Playing God with Chimeras | Human Mice!
Outrage at "Frankenstein" Animal Experiments | The Thing!
Transgenic Pigs End Up as Chicken Feed
Genetic Engineering: Playing God? | The Coming Genetics Nightmare
The Center for Bioethics and Human Dignity (stem cell research, cloning, etc.)
Genetically Engineered Crops May Produce Herbicide Inside Our Intestines
Transgenic Chickens | Transgenic Sheep
Molecular Trojan Horses | Kluwer Transgenic Research
The Stanford Transgenic Research Facility
'Trojan Gene' Could Wipe Out Fish!
Disturbing Possibilities - A Human Cow!
The Biotech Harvest | The Coming Food Shortage!
Controlling the World's Food - Seeds of Deception!
Chimeras, Cloning and Freak Human-Animal Hybrids (mutants)
A Spinach Pig | Vegetable (edible) Vaccinations | Designer Babies
This will be every transgenic cat's dream, glow in the dark mice. Don't think for one moment that fluorescent humans aren't around the corner, mark my words...you'll see it, along with spider humans and every other godless monstrosity of mad scientists. Man's good intentions are often a Pandora's box. Even so, come Lord Jesus!
“And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so.” —Genesis 1:24