Ethics Related To Use Of Animals In Biotechnology 

Ethics Related To Use Of Animals In Biotechnology 

Introduction 

Biotechnology isn’t something new – selective breeding to create more useful varieties of animals and plants is a form of biotechnology that human beings have used for thousands of years.Biotechnology includes any use of science or technology to alter the characteristics of a particular breed or animal.Biotechnology can be good or bad for animals – and it may also produce an answer to the ethical problems of experimenting on animals.Transgenic animals raise a particularly difficult problem.

Animal rights

Genetic engineering and selective breeding appear to violate animal rights, because they involve manipulating animals for human ends as if the animals were nothing more than human property, rather than treating the animals as being of value in themselves.

Recent action to allow animals to be patented reinforces the idea of animals as human property, rather than beings in their own right.

Animal welfare

Biotechnology can be good for animals. Selective breeding and genetic engineering can benefit animals in many ways:

• Improving resistance to disease
• Breeding to remove characteristics that cause injury
  • eg selecting cattle without horns

But biotechnology can also be bad for animals – the good effects for the breeder can offset by painful side-effects for the animals:

• Modern pigs have been bred to grow extra fast – some breeds now grow too fast for their hearts, causing discomfort when animals are too active
• Broiler chickens are bred to grow fast – some now grow too fast for their legs

Biotechnology is the use of organisms or enzymes to get valuable products. But in some process it has some ethical issues such as manipulation of genes in recombinant DNA technology, genetically modified (GM) organisms such as transgenic animals. Ethical issues arise due to ecological harms, interference to nature, and community issues.

Ethics are system of moral principles (i.e.) rules or standards that govern the way people behave and their decisions on the right thing to do. An example is embryonic stem cell research. Researchers believe that this could have great potential for cure of incurable diseases. But some people in the society believe that it involves the use of fetus which has a potential to develop into human being.

Embryonic stem cell research

Pluripotent stem cell lines can be derived from the inner cell mass of the 5 to 7 days old blastocyst. It became objects of bioethical controversy mainly revolving around the issue of the moral status of human embryos. As a matter of religious faith and moral conviction, they believe that “Life begins at conception” and that an embryo is therefore an individual and destroying the life is unethical (Lo B and Parham L, 2009).

Gene manipulation

Usually, there are two types of gene manipulation occurs (ii) Gene repair can replace abnormal segments of DNA in defective genes in their normal chromosomal site. (iii) Gene replacement techniques permit excision of the abnormal gene from its chromosome and replacement with a normal gene. Gene therapy techniques can be broadly classified as somatic cell gene therapy and germ-line therapy. Germ-line gene therapy is far more technically difficult than somatic cell therapy and also faces lot of ethical issues comparatively. The controversies include playing with nature or God. What will happen if new genetic modifications can lead to life threatening issues? We cannot able to control the undesirable effects (Sade RM and Khushf G, 1998).

Genetically-modified organisms

Genetically-modified organisms (GMOs) are produced by recombinant technology that alters the genetic machinery of such living organisms as animals, plants or microorganisms and the resulting organisms are usually termed as ‘Genetically modified (GM)’, ‘Genetically engineered’ or ‘Transgenic’. The benefits include enhancement of animal health and productivity (milk, meat and eggs) by means of increased disease resistance and feed conversion ratio using biotechnological interventions. But the controversies include violating natural organisms’ intrinsic values, tampering with nature by mixing genes among species and other unknown effects (Bawa and Anilakumar 2013).

Regulatory authorities

FDA (Food and Drug Administration) and the food industry represented by the International Food Biotechnology Council (IFBC) monitors the use of animals in trials. The other regulatory agencies include U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and USDA (United States Department of Agriculture).  National Institute of health provides guidelines for Research Involving Recombinant DNA Molecules. There is a Recombinant DNA Molecule Program Advisor committee working under NIH.

In India, Review Committee on Genetic Manipulation (RCGM) function under of Biotechnology (DBT) monitor the safety related aspects of ongoing recombinant DNA technology and activities involving Genetically Engineered (GE) organisms/ hazardous microorganisms. It is the regulatory body for receiving and reviewing the applications to conduct confined field trials (such as event selection trials, Biosafety Research Level I trials (BRL-I), pollen flow studies or any other trial involving GE organisms) and recommend appropriate studies to be conducted for data generation for biosafety assessment as per clause 4, as per the decision of the Genetic Engineering Approval Committee (GEAC) for its authorization.  Below the table indicates the biotechnology authorities in India.

Transgenic animals

Transgenic animals are animals that have been deliberately bred for research and that contain elements of two different species – they are creatures that blur the barrier between species.

These animals are often deliberately created with genetic defects, and these defects may well cause the animal to have a bad quality of life. A mouse has been created, for example, that has been genetically modified to develop cancer.

Ethical issues of transgenic animals

Transgenic animals raise several particular moral issues (quite apart from any damage they might do to the environment):

• Are animals that combine species an unethical alteration of the natural order of the universe?
• Is it unethical to modify an animal’s genetic make-up for a specific purpose, without knowing in advance if there will be any side-effects that will cause suffering to the animal?
• Does ‘creating’ animals by genetic engineering amount to treat the animals entirely as commodities?
• Is it unethical to create ‘diseased’ animals that are very likely to suffer?
  • Suffering may last for a long time in these animals as researchers want to conduct long-term investigations into the development of diseases

Religious views of transgenic animals

Against transgenic animals:

• God laid down the structure of creation and any tampering with it is sinful.
• Manipulating DNA is manipulating ‘life itself’ – and this is tampering with something that God did not intend humanity to meddle with.

In favour of transgenic animals:

• As human beings have been given ‘dominion’ over the animals, they are entitled to tamper with them.
• Palaeontology shows that the structure of creation has changed over time as some species became extinct and new ones came into being. They say that this shows that there is nothing fixed about the structure of creation.

Transgenic animals and religious food laws

Transgenic animals pose problems for religions that restrict the foods that their believers can eat, since they may produce animals that appear to be one species, but contain some elements of a forbidden species.

Compiled  & Shared by- This paper is a compilation of group work provided by the Team, LITD (Livestock Institute of Training & Development)

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 Reference-On Request

Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) for CPCSEA

https://ccsea.gov.in/WriteReadData/userfiles/file/Compendium%20of%20CPCSEA.pdf

Guidelines on Code of Conduct for Research Scientists engaged in field of Life Sciences

ICMR-Guidelines on Code of Conduct for Research Scientists engaged in field of Life Sciences

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