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Half man, half chimp - should we beware the apeman's coming?
Posted on Thursday, May 01, 2008 (CDT) by Isis
 A leading scientist has warned a new species of "humanzee," created from breeding apes with humans, could become a reality unless the government acts to stop scientists experimenting.
In an interview with The Scotsman, Dr Calum MacKellar, director of research at the Scottish Council on Human Bioethics, warned the controversial draft Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill did not prevent human sperm being inseminated into animals.
He said if a female chimpanzee was inseminated with human sperm the two species would be closely enough related that a hybrid could be born. He said scientists could possibly try to develop the new species to fill the demand for organ donors.
Leading scientists say there is no reason why the two species could not breed, although they question why anyone would want to try such a technique. Other hybrid species already created include crossed tigers and lions and sheep and goats.
Dr MacKellar
said he feared the consequences if scientists made a concerted effort
to cross humans with chimpanzees. He said: "Nobody knows what they
would get if they tried hard enough. The insemination of animals with
human sperm should be prohibited.
"The Human Fertilisation
and Embryo Bill prohibits the placement of animal sperm into a woman
The reverse is not prohibited. It's not even mentioned. This should not
be the case."
He said if the process was
not banned, scientists would be "very likely" to try it, and it would
be likely humans and chimps could successfully reproduce.
"If you put human sperm into a frog it would probably create an embryo, but it probably wouldn't go very far," he said.
"But if you do it with a non-human primate it's not beyond the realms of possibility that it could be born alive."
Dr MacKellar said the
resulting creature could raise ethical dilemmas, such as whether it
would be treated as human or animal, and what rights it would have.
"If it was never able to be
self-aware or self-conscious it would probably be considered an
animal," he said. "However, if there was a possibility of humanzees
developing a conscience, you have a far more difficult dilemma on your
hands."
He said fascination would be enough of a motive for scientists to try crossing the two species.
But he also said there was
a small chance of scientists using the method to "humanise" organs for
transplant into humans. "There's a desperate need for organs. One of
the solutions that has been looked at is using animal organs, but
because there's a very serious risk of rejection using animal organs in
humans they are already trying to humanise these organs.
"If they could create these
humanzees who are substantially human but are not considered as humans
in law , we could have a large provision of organs."
He wrote to the Department of Health to ask that the gap in the draft legislation be addressed.
The department confirmed that the bill "does not cover the artificial insemination of an animal with human sperm".
It said: "Owing to the
significant differences between human and animal genomes, they are
incompatible and the development of a foetus or progeny is impossible.
"Therefore such activity would have no rational scientific justification, as there would be no measurable outcome."
Dr MacKellar disagrees. He
said: "The chromosomal difference between a goat and a sheep is greater
than between humans and chimpanzees."
Professor Bob Millar,
director of the Medical Research Council Human Reproductive Sciences
Unit, based in Edinburgh, agreed viable offspring would be possible. He
said: "Donkeys can mate with horses and create infertile offspring;
maybe that could happen with chimpanzees."
But he said he would oppose
any such attempt. "It's unnecessary and ridiculous and no serious
scientist would consider such a thing. Ethically, it's not appropriate.
"It's also completely
impractical. Chimps would never be a source of organs for humans
because of the viruses they carry and the low numbers."
Professor Hugh McLachlan,
professor of applied philosophy at Glasgow Caledonian University's
School of Law and Applied Sciences, said although the idea was
"troublesome", he could see no ethical objections to the creation of
humanzees.
"Any species came to be what it is now because of all sorts of interaction in the past," he said.
"If it turns out in the
future there was fertilisation between a human animal and a non-human
animal, it's an idea that is troublesome, but in terms of what
particular ethical principle is breached it's not clear to me.
"I share their squeamishness and unease, but I'm not sure that unease can be expressed in terms of an ethical principle."
A Department of Health
spokeswoman said: "It's just not a problem. If you inseminate an animal
with human sperm, scientifically nothing happens. The species barriers
are too great."
Hybrids are at Cross Purposes
Even though hybrids of humans and animals have never been created, many other creatures have been crossed successfully.
Lions and tigers have been bred to create ligers, the world's largest cats.
And there are also zorses
(zebra and horse), wholphins (whale and dolphin), tigons (tiger and
lion), lepjags (leopard and jaguar) and zonkeys (zebra and donkey).
As well as these hybrid mammals, there are also hybrid birds, fish, insects and plants.
Many hybrids, such as
mules, are sterile, which prevents the movement of genes from one
species to another, keeping both species distinct. However, some can
reproduce and there are scientists who believe that grey wolves and
coyotes mated thousands of years ago to create a new species, the red
wolf.
More commonly, hybrids mate
with one of their parent species, which can influence the genetic mix
of what gets passed along to subsequent generations.
Hybrids can have desirable traits, often being fitter or larger than either parent.
Most hybrid animals have been bred in captivity, but there are examples of the process occurring in the wild.
This is far more common in
plants than animals but in April 2006 a hunter in Canada's North-west
Territories shot a polar bear whose fur had an orange tint.
Research showed that it had a grizzly bear father, and it became known as a pizzly.
In 2003, DNA analysis
confirmed that five odd-looking felines found in Maine and Minnesota
were bobcat-lynx hybrids, dubbed blynxes.
Copyright: The Scotsman
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Re: Half man, half chimp - should we beware the apeman's coming?
by Curlybird on Thursday, May 01, 2008 (CDT)
(User Info | Send a Message) | So that's where Dubya came from.
Seriously though, even though Professor Hugh McLachlan, the philosophy professor at the law school "found it troublesome," he could find no ethical objections to it. That is pitiful. He's spent too much time around lawyers.
CB |
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