09 August 2005

From Today's New York Times

To the Editor:

The cloning innovation achieved by a team of South Korean scientists heralded in your Aug. 5 editorial "The Duplicate Dog" should be cause for concern, not celebration.

Genetic duplicates may turn out far different than their forebears. More to the point, with millions of healthy and adoptable cats and dogs being killed each year for lack of suitable homes, it is a little frivolous to be cloning pets.

Behind the cloned pets are far grander schemes to clone animals for use in agriculture and research. Before such projects become the norm, we should all pause and think carefully about where it is all leading—for animals and for humanity.

Congress and regulatory bodies must step in and provide some ethical precepts before the brave new world of animal cloning yields a commercial industry of its own.

Wayne Pacelle
Pres. and Chief Exec., Humane Society of the United States
Washington, Aug. 8, 2005

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