British scientists are concerned about experiments that their colleagues around the world are conducting on animals. In the course of the experiments, the researchers transplant human tissues and genes to our smaller brothers, in particular monkeys. This, in turn, can lead to a dangerous humanization of animals: they will acquire a mind like ours, and even be able to speak!
In this regard, scientists are demanding the development of new ethical and legal rules governing such experiments. “We need to bring this issue to the attention of the public before something irreparable happens,” says Cambridge University geneticist Professor Martin Bobrow.
The British Academy of Medical Scientists, also concerned about this issue, reported that the number of experiments in which human tissues or genes are transplanted into animals is constantly growing. So, over the past year, over 1 million experiments have been carried out, during which human DNA was transplanted into mice and fish.
Earlier, scientists from Shanghai fused human cells and rabbit eggs, and the Americans created an animal that is 85% sheep, and 15% is already a man! Outwardly, however, it is in no way invisible: his head, body, legs and tail are the same as those of ordinary sheep with human blood.
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All of these laboratory mutants, named by scientists "chimeras" after the Greek mythical creature with a lion's head, a goat's body, and a snake's tail, are needed by researchers, they claim, to create new drugs for cancer, hepatitis, stroke, Alzheimer's and other ailments, and also in order to finally understand the role of individual genes in the development of the organism.
Scientists believe that the more human-like an animal is, the more suitable a research model it will be for testing drugs and other needs. The opportunity to grow "spare parts" for transplantation into the human body is also attractive.
The organizers of such experiments do not see them as ethical or legal problems, with which Professor Bobrow and his associates do not agree. According to the scientist, a new organization should be created in Great Britain that would control such experiments, since the creation of chimeras raises a number of questions.
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What kind of new humanoid combination is obtained in the end, for what purposes is it permissible to use it, and for what purposes it is not? And at what stage should this combination be considered human?
Moreover, individual experiments with animals should be completely banned, says Bobrow. For example, transplanting human stem cells into the brain of a primate should be banned, as this can lead to humanization of the monkey.
Such research can turn out to be deplorable for the people themselves, so they must be stopped, adds professor of philosophy Thomas Baldwin from the University of York.
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Currently, research involving monkeys such as chimpanzees is illegal in the UK. But they are still allowed in many other countries, including the United States, and British scientists are not prohibited from taking part in these experiments.
Baldwin and his colleagues have prepared a report in which they recall the script for the new American film "Rise of the Planet of the Apes." In the story, it all starts with the fact that scientists, in search of a cure for Alzheimer's disease, create a new breed of monkeys with a human type of intelligence.
“There is a fear that if you add too many human brain cells to the brains of primates, they will turn into creatures with abilities that are unique to humans, such as speech, or will be able to manipulate and communicate with us,” Baldwin warned in press conferences in London.