Scientists are having enough trouble defending their integrity amid the perception of double dipping between the Federal Drug Administration and the pharmaceutical industry, and having their study results manipulated to support government policy. They’re regularly being drawn into philosophical debate over issues surrounding everything from embryonic stem cell research to evolution and global warming.
Now cloning has taken center stage with the news that South Korean researchers have successfully cloned a male Afghan hound. I guess it depends on how you define success.
At a bit more than three months, Snuppy appears to be the right size, shape and color. It also seems to have the goofy exuberance of the average Afghan puppy. Hard to decide if this is a plus or a minus. Maybe they should have taken a few personality genes from the Labrador retriever that served as its surrogate mom.
Researchers are not saying if the puppy was nursed by its mom or permitted to stay with her for the normal imprinting and rearing process. Maybe Snuppy’s developing personality traits will widen the debate over nature versus nurture. If cloning can properly be equated with nature at all.
Snuppy’s biggest fan so far is a company that plans to provide clones of deceased pets for wealthy clients devastated by their loss. Whimsically named Genetic Savings & Clone, the company’s costs and failure rates would put its services out of reach for the average pet owner. The South Koreans reportedly implanted 1,095 cloned embryos into 123 female dogs before getting one live birth. At odds of more than 1,000 to one, wouldn’t it be better to rescue an orphan from the local animal shelter?
So far, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals hasn’t weighed in on this, but the organization’s ethic states that animals are not ours to eat, wear or experiment on. Nor have we heard from all those California cities with laws designating pet adopters as guardians, not owners. Well, you can bet Seoul National University considers itself Snuppy’s owner.
Has the American Kennel Club weighed in on this? If a champion turns out to be a clone, is that cheating, like ball players taking steroids?
And aside from the failure rate, does dog life begin at conception or birth or somewhere in between, say at implantation. And what constitutes ethical treatment of discarded embryos? Please, Lord, don’t let Bill Frist pontificate about this.
Make no mistake, Snuppy is not Dolly the sheep. Expectations for Dolly were limited to, does it stand up and say Baa? I mean, sheep all look pretty much alike, covered in beige wool, as they are. They all have the same, well, sheep-like qualities: following the herd, etc. Has anyone tried herding an Afghan hound?
Like the Dallas woman who paid a bundle to have her deceased cat cloned, were her expectations for Little Nicky fulfilled? Or did she have trouble teaching L.N. to use the litter box? Did it poop in the potted plants, scratch the furniture and harass birds? And what recourse does the owner, er guardian, have with Savings & Clone if the treasured offspring has none of its identical twin’s lovable traits. What if the cat refuses to bond with its benefactor? Can she get her money back? Not bloody likely. If it stands up and meows, it’s hers.
Having raised Queensland heelers to work cattle, I learned early on that there was a huge variation in temperament among litter mates. Even the puppies that stayed with the mother for three months or more weren’t necessarily more likely to develop her personality traits. From the same litter, we had one of the sweetest, most loving dogs completely devoted to my children, and one that grew up to be the meanest dog on the planet. We sold it to a cowboy who said he wanted a really tough dog. It bit everybody in Arizona and ultimately was deemed untrainable. So much for identical twins. Or clones.
Of course, personality traits bred into working dogs can mutate through inbreeding or line breeding, producing offspring several generations removed from the ideal. And many of these perpetuate physical weakness such as dysplasia and genetic predisposition to specific types of cancer. These traits are less often found in the progeny of a wider gene pool. With clones, there is no gene pool, just the selected DNA of one individual. How can this be a good thing?
While scientists grapple with the implications, one comedian suggests Snuppy might develop a loving bond, or irrational attraction, to a petrie dish. Please, spare us the details.