A new report by the Royal Society claims that GM farm animals could be an important addition to third world farming. Animals have already been engineered to resist tropical illnesses, and scientists expect that animal disease-resistant herds could be created in the future.
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The Royal Society reports that funding in UK GM animal trials will increase, but stresses that such research should be backed by public funds and its conclusions made public.
The report also pointed out that emergency plans should be in place in case GM animals escape, and called for an immediate moratorium on rearing GM fish in the sea.
Patrick Bateson, vice-president of the Royal Society, headed the working group that produces the report. “One of the things that has emerged from the debate on GM plants is the need for the wide dissemination of knowledge, so that a lot of this work should be publicly funded,” he said.
“When new techniques become available which have real benefits for the third world, it should be possible to get them to the third world. It should not be blocked,” he added.
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By GlobalDataBateson continued: “Genes have been introduced into animals by viruses for a long time. This is a natural process, and of course humans have been genetically modifying animals in a non-technical way for thousands of years. In medical research it has been going on through genes being modified by radiation, or chemicals. What is being done now is much more targeted.”
“There are people with extreme fantasies in this area,” he said: “There will be people who want to make an issue out of this anyway, and there will certainly be people who say we are playing God. Our response to this is that we have been playing God for an awfully long time.”
