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PRESS RELEASE - 11 January 2001
Genetically Modified Monkeys are a Step Too Far
Medical Research has Ethical Limits
Dr Donald Bruce, Society Religion & Technology Project, Church of Scotland
Tel. 0131-240 2250, Fax 0131-240 2239, Email: srtp@srtp.org.uk http://www.srtp.org.uk
or Church of Scotland Press Office 0131- 240 2243
Dr Bruce is Director of the Society Religion and Technology Project of the Church of Scotland, assessing ethical issues in technology for the Scotland's national church. He chaired a 5 year expert working group study in Edinburgh on the ethics of genetic engineering in animals and plants, in 1998 co-edited the book "Engineering Genesis". This study included a detailed examination of the ethics of using genetically modified animals as models of human disease.
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The announcement of a genetically modified monkey by researchers in Oregon, USA raises serious ethical problems about how far we should use higher animals in medical research. For many years mice have been bred and genetically modified, more or less routinely, as test beds for cancers and other serious human diseases. This already poses a deep ethical dilemma. To add a gene to an animal to induce cancer could never be justified if it were not for the seriousness of the human disease. If this is so for mice, how much more so for primates. Is this too far? It is hard to see what would ever justify genetically modifying monkeys to model human disease.
Most people value large mammals and primates higher than small mammals like mice and rats, because of more human-like characteristics. Primates possess much higher levels of sentience, consciousness and socialisation. The Home Office regulates UK animal research but seldom grants licenses for primate research, requiring "exceptional and specific justification". It is not enough to argue in this case that we need to use monkeys because they model human disease better. The more exactly the animals model the human disease, the more they are likely to suffer. Whatever animal is used, a fundamental gulf always exists between disease in humans and in another species. Even GM primates would still leave that gulf unbridged.
In 1995 the UK Government's Banner Committee proposed ethical guidelines for assessing novel animal technologies, which have been widely accepted. The first question is : Is this an intervention we simply should not do to this animal for any reason whatever? There is a strong case for saying genetically modifying primates fall into this case. Even if the answer is not an absolute no, Banner's second question is : Is the harm of this intervention outweighed by the good which is realistically sought? Realisitically, it is hard to see that genetically modifying a primate would be so likely to provide that one vital difference between a medical treatment and none. Unless this were the case, this use has no justification according to the Banner guidelines.
From a religious point of view, animals are God's creations and have intrinsic value in themselves, regardless of any human value we attach to them or use we may put to them. While the Bible endorses some use of animals, it also sets restraints. Although there is no hard and fast line we can draw across the range of animals, the general principle is that the "closer" they are to humans, the more this should hold us back from intervening. This was illustrated in 1996 the Nuffield Council on Bioethics report on xeotransplantation. They questioned the potential use of genetically modified primates as sources of human transplant organs, recommending that non-primates like pigs should be used instead. We should be content to use lower animals and accept any limitations this imposes.
This raises a further issue, that medical research is being used too glibly as a supposed justification for too many experiments without a due sense of proportion. In our Engineering Genesis study we expressed concern that transgenic mice models were already being used too routinely, almost becoming mere catalogue items in medical research. Against the general trend to cut back on experimental animal use, gm mice use has soared to hundereds of thousands per year. In its 1998 report on animal cloning, the Ministry of Agriculture's Farm Animal Welfare Council criticised "the attitude which condones the moulding of animals to humankind's uses, irrespective of their own nature and welfare." While there is undoubtedly a great concern to find treatments for serious human diseases, the ethical imperative for medical research should never be seen as an absolute. Other ethical factors must also be taken into account. These include our respect for higher animals and especially those closest to humans and of high degrees of sentience and consciousness. GM primates should in general be a line we should not cross over.
See our page on GM Animals and our GM Animal Information Sheet
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