Genetic Modification of Animals: Scientific and Ethical Issues

Abstract

The scientific method demands a willingness to correct and integrate previ­ ous knowledge, based on observable, empirical, measurable evidence and subject to laws of reasoning; yet, it has scarcely been applied to non-human animal (hereinafter referred to as animal) research. Nevertheless, animal use in science started declining in the mid 1970s, at least in the United King­ dom, resulting in a drop in the number of animals used approaching 50% be­ tween the mid-197os and mid 1980s (uK Home Office, 2016)-perhaps a tacit admission of problematic species differences that render animals poor models for humans. This trend was, however, reversed with the advent of genetically modified (GM) animals, animals whose genetic material has been deliberately altered in some way by insertion, deletion, or substitution of DNA. While the decline in use of non-GM animals continued steeply well into the new millen­ nium, overall numbers have been rising for some time, solely due to increased utilization of GM animals ( Ormandy, Schuppli and Weary, 2009 ). UK statistics for 2015 show that more than two million procedures involved the creation and breeding of GM animals, who were not subsequently used in further research (around 50% of the total); and there were 720,000 procedures on GM animals in further experiments, representing 35°/o of the total animals used in actual experiments (Hendriksen and Spielmann, 2014; UK Home Office, 2016). Trends in GM animal use for the rest of the world are difficult to determine due to different reporting requirements, but they are likely to be similar, with up to 50% of the approximately 13 million animals used annually in research in the European Union (Eu) (Taylor and Rego, 2016), and the estimated 115 million animals used globally (Taylor et al., 2008). This chapter aims to summarize and analyze this shift in the use of animals in experiments and, without being overly technical, to ask critically why GM