From Lincoln Journal Star Online--
Thursday Dec. 23, 2004
Cloned Cat Sale Generates Ethics Debate
By PAUL ELIAS
SAN FRANCISCO - The first cloned-to-order pet sold in the United States is named Little Nicky, a 9-week-old kitten delivered to a Texas woman saddened by the loss of a cat she had owned for 17 years.
The kitten cost its owner $50,000 and was created from DNA from her beloved cat, named Nicky, who died last year.
"He is identical. His personality is the same," the owner, Julie, told The Associated Press in a telephone interview. Although she agreed to be photographed with her cat, she asked that her last name and hometown not be disclosed because she said she fears being targeted by groups opposed to cloning.
Yet while Little Nicky, who was delivered two weeks ago, frolics in his new home, the kitten's creation and sale has reignited fierce ethical and scientific debate over cloning technology, which is rapidly advancing.
The company that created Little Nicky, Sausalito-based Genetic Savings and Clone, said it hopes by May to have produced the world's first cloned dog _ a much more lucrative market than cats.
While it is based in the San Francisco Bay area, the company's cloning work will be done at its new lab in Madison, Wis.
Commercial interests already are cloning prized cattle for about $20,000 each, and scientists have cloned mice, rabbits, goats, pigs, horses _ and even the endangered banteng, a wild bull that is found mostly in Indonesia.
Several research teams around the world, meanwhile, are racing to create the first cloned monkey.
Aside from human cloning, which has been achieved only at the microscopic embryo stage, no cloning project has fueled more debate than the marketing plans of Genetic Savings and Clone.
"It's morally problematic and a little reprehensible," said David Magnus, co-director of the Center for Biomedical Ethics at Stanford University. "For $50,000, she could have provided homes for a lot of strays."
Animals rights activists complain that new feline production systems aren't needed because thousands of stray cats are euthanized each year for want of homes.
Lou Hawthorne, Genetic Savings and Clone's chief executive, said his company purchases thousands of ovaries from spay clinics across the country. It extracts the eggs, which are combined with the genetic material from the animals to be cloned.
Critics also complain that the technology is available only to the wealthy, that using it to create house pets is frivolous and that customers grieving over lost pets have unrealistic expectations of what they're buying.
In fact, the first cat cloned in 2001 had a different coat from its genetic donor, underscoring that environment and other biological variables make it impossible to exactly duplicate animals.
"The thing that many people do not realize is that the cloned cat is not the same as the original," said Bonnie Beaver, a Texas A&M animal behaviorist who heads the American Veterinary Medical Association, which has no position on the issue. "It has a different personality. It has different life experiences. They want Fluffy, but it's not Fluffy."
Scientists also warn that cloned animals suffer from more health problems than their traditionally bred peers and that cloning is still a very inexact science. It takes many gruesome failures to produce just a single clone.
Genetic Savings and Clone said its new cloning technique, developed by animal cloning pioneer James Robl has improved survival rates, health and appearance. The new technique seeks to condense and transfer only the donor's genetic material to a surrogate's egg instead of an entire cell nucleus.
Between 15 percent and 45 percent of cloned cats born alive die within the first 30 days, Hawthorne said. But he said that range is consistent with natural births, depending on the breed of cat.
Austin, Texas-based ViaGen Inc., which has cloned hundreds of cows, pigs and goats, also is experimenting with the new cloning technique.
"The jury is still out, but the research shows it to be promising," company president Sara Davis said. "The technology is improving all the time."
Genetic Savings and Clone has been behind the creation of at least five cats since 2001, including the first one created.
It hopes to deliver as many as five more clones to customers who have paid the company's $50,000 fee. By the end of next year, it hopes to have cloned as many as 50 cats.
The company has yet to turn a profit.
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This is just wrong. I love my cats like children, but if something happened to one of them, I wouldn't have them cloned... there are so many homeless kitties out there... I don't understand how it can be justified spending all that money for this kind of research... we can't find a cure for cancer or AIDS, but we can clone kitties.... the only valuable use I can see for this technology would be preventing the extinction of endangered species. Other than that, the only ethical use I can see for cloning is creating organs for transplant purposes.
posted by decemberx 1:21 PM[edit]
Buy Blue Current Campaign Man, I wish we had a Costco.... I'd get rid of my Sam's Club membership and go there instead....
posted by decemberx 12:46 PM[edit]
AlterNet: Thinking Inside the Box "During the decade of Reagan and Thatcher, musicians found a way to rise above by going underground. A new box set gathers them together." I saw this box set at Best Buy, and I want it very much -- all the stuff I used to listen to in college.....
posted by decemberx 12:14 PM[edit]
AlterNet: Down and Out in Discount America The evils of Wal-Mart... I fit their demographic -- making less than $25,000 a year, no bank account (because of Nick's check forgery)... yea.
posted by decemberx 10:30 AM[edit]
Michie was here this weekend, we exchanged x-mas prezzies -- she gave me an absolutely beautiful velvet burnout scarf from a place called Cocoon House -- it's a color called "Scandinavian Blue," a gorgeous peacock greeny blue... met Chuck & Gudrun & some friends of theirs at the Oven... I miss my Indian food partners. Ma & Jen aren't really into it, and Jen doesn't like Thai either... at least Nick is willing to go there with me.
A Very Scary Solstice Hee hee hee
posted by decemberx 3:03 PM[edit]
Strange Monster rocks! I ordered a Bone Kitty Pirate Tee, a Bone Kitty key chain (for my sister), 2 Bone Kitty Patches (one for me, one for my sis -- we have new little backpack purses that need embellishment)-- last Thursday (12/16). I mailed them a money order that night, and I already got the order yesterday! From California! I'm wondering if they shipped before they got my payment, since I've ordered from them before. And they send me free stuff -- stickers & a Miss Kitty keychain this time...
posted by decemberx 1:05 PM[edit]
All kinds of interesting news... J.K. Rowling has announced that Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince will be out July 16.... Tim Burton's Charlie & the Chocolate Factory is in post-production...
According to AnneRice.Com , The Witching Hour is being made into a 12-hour miniseries for NBC! Actually, it will span all three of the Mayfair Witch books, including Lasher and Taltos. I actually like the first book more than the Vampire Chronicles... and my other favorite of hers, The Mummy, is also being worked on for either tv or a film... I always hoped she'd write a sequel....
posted by decemberx 11:50 AM[edit]
Tom Lehrer Song Lyrics Dr. Demento used to play stuff by this guy... I used to listen to the show Saturdays mornings running my courier route... I don't think any stations around here carry it anymore... back in jr. high, it was on on Sunday night, 10-12... so I had to be sneaky about listening, because I wasn't supposed to be up that late on a school night. A guy I work with was talking about some show he'd seen about "near-miss" nuclear attacks -- it made me think of "We Will All Go Together When We Go" and "So Long, Mom", so I had to look up the lyrics....
posted by decemberx 10:53 AM[edit]
NBC.com > Medium This looks interesting, in a Millennium-esque vein... I wish they wouldn't put it on opposite CSI: Miami, though, because it probably won't make it...
posted by decemberx 10:31 AM[edit]
Alliance of Security Analysis Professionals I have been spending almost all my time at home on the computer trying to clean it up, after my cousin got it going again after the xp service pack 2 fiasco... my analogy is that it's like going over a woolly mammoth with a flea comb... I have run most of the best free checkers, all come up clean, but there is still something triggering fake pop-ups (even when I'm not online) claiming my system is infected (duh!) and if I click the button, it'll make it all better. Now I know it's bullsh*t, but a lot of people don't know and would click on it... I want to find out where it's coming from, so I can spend my time on the web doing stuff I want to do, instead of have to. I hope there is a special little corner of hell for the f*cks that come up with this stuff, they are truly pathetic individuals... to have the skills, yet waste them being destructive....
posted by decemberx 1:10 PM[edit]
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