Do the benefits of animal cloning and transgenic outweight the harms ?

Answer 1

I think the jury is still out on that one. There must be more information to make that decision. I will say that I have noticed more stories of people being fatally allergic to things, than when I was a kid, and I have to wonder if some of the transgenic crops are a factor.

Answer 2

It's just beginnings and there will be large scale cloning in the not-distant future. Trust, though, we will find many ways to turn benefits into troubles.

Answer 3

Almost this exact same question as been asked over in the Agriculture section. I just answered it there, so I'm going to cut and paste my answer here as well:


I STONGLY disagree with the idea of, and trend toward bio-engineering (cloning) livestock.

Mike already made a good posting about the cruelty of it, so I'll not go on about that.

My main concern would be how that would set America up for a massive famine, and greatly weaken our strength as a Nation.

Let's say we bio-engineer our dairy cows. Within a few years almost every dairy cow is now decendant from only three really outstanding cows. Milk production has gone up, and feed cost have gone down for the farmers...everyone is happy. Now a disease comes along, and hits the dairy cows.

Nobody catches onto it at first, as it's just a problem at a few farms, so the milk trucks keep rolling in and out of farms picking up the milk, and going onto the next farm for the next pickup....all the while unknowingly spreading the diease.

Suddenly dairy cows accross the U.S. are dropping like flies. With such a close genetic pool, and almost no genetic varriation in the cows the diease is swift and kills 100% of the cows.

It also hits the farm of a very small dairy. That farmer is an odd duck. He has 5 Jersey cows, and 20 Dexter's a heritage breed, and 10 Jersey, Dexter cross cows he milks. Three of his Jersey cows die, one lives but is so sickly, she has to be destroyed, the last Jersey does not get sick. 10 of his Dexter's get pretty sick, but all recover, 5 get only slightly ill, the other 5 Dexter's do not get sick at all. The 10 Jersey/Dexter crosses do not get ill at all.

This farmer had major genetic diversity. His cows had some natural immunity to the disease. The ones who had no immunity died. Loosing four cows to disease is a pretty major finacial loss for such a small dairy.

However the commercial dairy farmers, with their bio enginieered Holsteins have suffered 100% loss, since there was almost no genetic diversity amoung their cattle.

There is NO milk for school lunch programs. What milk their is, is suddenly rationed ONLY for baby formula, by the Government. Ice cream, yogurt, and butter become a thing of the past at grocery stores.

The price of bread SKYROCKETS for lack of butter and milk.

Pizza parlors, and many other resteranants accross the U.S. close by the thousands, since they can no longer get cheese, butter or milk. They cannot afford the imported stuff.

Wallstreet is going into a tailspin, as stocks loose major value.

Farmers who normally grew hay and grain for the millions of dairy cattle are sitting on rotting crops, with nobody buying, because their is simply too much. Prices are so low, they cannot even afford to harvest the crops, so they rot in the field.

Baskin Robbins, and Ben & Jerry's go out of business, forever, unable to take the financial hit.

Thousands of people are now unempoyed. The Governement has no more cheese, milk or butter to distibute to the poor.

There's been a sharp rise in health problems in babies, as they were suddenly switched from a cow milk based formula, to a soy milk formula.

Hershies candy company annouces the closing of 5 plants, since they have no milk to make candybars with. More uneployment, more chaos on Wallstreet.

I think I'll stop right here. I didn't even talk about the food supplies we wouldn't be able to ship to third world contries, and how this affected millions of people in other countries. Nor have I talked about the long term health effects for a generation of children as the nation tries to rebuild it's dairy herds.

I also picked dairy cows. The ramifications could be even worse, if I picked beef cattle, or pigs.

If we allow our livestock ( and crops!) to be bio-engineered and made almost all genetically the same we are setting ourselves up for a major disaster. It will not be a matter of "if" a disease will hit the livestock, but rather a matter of "WHEN" will the disease hit the livestock. There is no question that it WILL happen.

~Garnet
Homesteading/Farming over 20 years
Suport small farmers, especially those with heritage breeds!

Answer 4

Since there isn't any harm, the answer is necessarily in the affirmative. There is not the slightest difference between a clone and an identical twin.

Answer 5

Only time will tell. It could be the beginning of the end or the end of the beginning.

Answer 6

So, what are the benefits and what are the drawbacks? If you want to measure them against each other you want to have as much information as you can get.

Answer 7

boheiman garnet > lets let the disease to pass and clone the favourites again. :)