GM animals concerns/ethics

Genetically modified animals have many applications; they are most common in basic scientific research, such as gene function and organ interaction and GM animals are used to test therapeutics, GM animals appear in the pet industry were GM fish (GloFish) having a fluorescent gene to glow in the dark. (Vazquez-Salat, Salter, Smets, & Houdebine, 2012).

GM animals can are also developed to improve productivity, AquaAdvantage® salmon are able to grow faster than the wild type salmon and require 25% less feed (AquaBounty, 2016), AquaAdvantage® salmon became the first GM animal to enter the US food supply on November 19th 2015. Other uses for GM animals include Bioreactors were GM animals produce pharmaceutical proteins in their milk/egg white that can be purified and administered to patients. (Vazquez-Salat et al, 2012; Pandey et al, 2016)

As is the case with other GMOs there are a number of ethical and welfare concerns with GM animals these include the sacrifice of animals and surgical procedures (vasectomy, surgical embryo transfer) performed on others in order to produce a new generation of GM animals, (Ormandy, Dale & Griffin, 2011)

In The GM animal field animal welfare organizations are dominant over other interest groups, this has caused a low profile of the biotech industries in GM animals application, other issues with GM animals are the difference in public opinion between GM plants and GM animals, for example GM food in the US has a broad acceptance while guidelines produced by FDA on GM animals received 28,000 comments (Vazquez-Salat et al, 2012), these views may be linked to the closeness of the human-animal relationship present in western society, cultural and religious views are also factors in the concern over GM animals , i.e. muslim communities refusal to consume food which contains pig gene. (Vazquez-Salat et al, 2012)

GM animals have the potential to cause a serious health risk if they are not put through vigorous risk assessments and through safe and thorough examination. Concerns also arise with regards to the naturalness of GM animals, as the genes introduced to the animal are not the natural composite of the host (Pandey, Dwivedi, Gupta & Saluja, 2016).

GM animals also carry concerns over the integrity of species with fears of GM animals breeding with wild animals, infiltrating wild animals habitats and compromising the survival of these wild animals, animal rights activists see this as their major point of contention for GM animals. GM animals have also been prevented from introduction into the food chain because of the possibility of replication compentant viral vectors infecting nontargted species which may cause a host of novel lethal human infections. (Pandey, Dwivedi, Gupta & Saluja, 2016).

The fatality rate of the embryos used in genetic engineering is high, and the embryos that do indeed survive only carry the intended gene a small proportion of the time (1-30%), because of these low number a large number of animals are produced to obtain genetically engineered animals that have significant scientific value, the current genetic engineering techniques are also inefficient and this lead to many of the surplus animals becoming exposed to harmful procedures. (Ormandy, Dale & Griffin, 2011)

The most commonly used species In GM/GE are mice, they make up 90% of GE animals being tested and researched in labs.

Welfare concerns of GE animals
There has very little data collected on the net welfare impacts on the GM animals and on the animals used in creation of the GM animals, and the genetic engineering techniques used during creation have been described as both unpredictable and inefficient. The inefficiency can be connected to the limitations in the control of the integration site of foreign DNA which is essential in some GE techniques, this can lead to production of independent GE animals which increases the amount of animals used, causing further pain and distress to the animals. (Ormandy, Dale & Griffin, 2011)

The unexpected outcomes in animal GE can be attributed to the unpredictable interaction of the DNA introduced with the host genes, these interactions will vary with the genetic background of the animal, this happens frequently in GE mice,(Yoshiki, Moriwaki, 2006).

When the genome of an animal is interfered with by removing or inserting DNA fragments this may lead to an alteration of the animals normal genetic homeostasis which can manifest in the behavior and well being of the animals in unpredictable ways, such as lameness, reduced fertility and susceptibility to stress. (Laible, 2009)


References

AquaBounty. (2016). Sustainabilty. Retrieved 15 February, 2016, from https://aquabounty.com/sustainable/

Laible, G. (2009) Enhancing livestock through genetic engineering — Recent advances and future prospects. Comp Immunol Microb;32:123–127.

Ormandy, E. H., Dale, J., & Griffin, G. (2011). Genetic engineering of animals: Ethical issues, including welfare concerns. The Canadian Veterinary Journal,52(5), 544–550.

Pandey, R., Dwivedi, M., Gupta, S. K., Saluja, D. (2016). Genetically Modified Food Animals: An Overview. In R.P. Watson & V.R Preedy (Eds)  Genetically Modified Organisms in Food - Production, Safety, Regulation and Public Health (pp. 19-26).

Vazquez-Salat, N., Salter, B., Smets, G., Houdebine, L.M. (2012). The current state of GMO governance: Are we ready for GM animals?. Biotechnology Advances, 30, 1336- 1343.

Yoshiki, A., Moriwaki, K. (2006) Mouse phenome research: Implications of genetic background. ILAR,;47(2):94–102.