Here is a comment I made on the "Really Crazy" thread:
Originally posted by fidojoe
Thats kinda cool, but cruel at the same time, I wonder how it affects the animal
It would not affect the animal (well, from a pain standpoint if that is what you are reffering to). Genetic transfers or transgenic animals are altered at the embryonic level, typically when the embryo is in the one cell stage up to the 8 cell stage.
This is not cloning, just a little genetic alteration. In fact, this is done daily in many of our domesticated species. FWIW, there is great hesitation to utilize transgenic livestock for our foodstuffs, and for good reason. THe liklihood of it hurting us is slim but any chance is really not worth taking, although we all have probably eaten transgenic crops.
I don't see this as a slippery slope by any means. Almost all of the scientific community knows that human cloning is unethical and that presently, human genetic alteration (say for inherited diseases) is unethical because the proper research has not been put into such, and perhaps never will. Of course, there are a few @#$@!#$ in the world that go and do embryo research (typically in China) that has never been validated and ends up killing fetuses in the first trimester.
Here is an article presenting some good in the area of transgenics (just one of many examples). Not edible at this point for reasons mentioned above but it certainly shows the potential benefits.
In fact, go
here for days and days of biotechnology reading.
EDIT: I didn't mention that I do have HUGE problem with this transgenic fish going into the wild (for obvious reasons).
