Clones.

The article "Food from Cloned Animals Receives Preliminary Approval" (March/April 2007, p. 8), gave me a great shock, since in Japan this kind of opinion perhaps has gone out of the discussion about food and the food market, though I am not sure. As one of the animal scientists who participated in research on genetic engineering by using chicken and cattle at the university in this country, I would like to say something about this news item, though five years have passed since my retirement from the college.

The technique for cloning is not so easy, and you may only be able to get a few successful results from animal cloning. In my students' case, 1 out of 600 to 700 treated chicken eggs (equal to chance mutation) was successful. Though I am not sure about recent advanced techniques for animal cloning, especially for cattle, pigs, or some other farm animals, even now it may take a lot of time to produce cloned animals with highly sophisticated methods.

In my laboratory at the university, we also found various interesting things about the genetically engineered chickens, such as short lifetimes, no breeding ability, and deformed legs that prevented normal walking, despite the fact that some of the exogenous genes were completely introduced into the host embryos.

As a result, I think, if something like mutation had occurred in the process of genetic engineering, these genes could be transferred into the next generation, but further generations might have some different characteristics owing to slightly changed altered genes which occurred in the process of genetic transmission.

In addition, the genetically modified birds also had a few different unknown characteristics in the body, but these features were completely excluded gradually during their living time, though the lifespan was not so long compared with normal birds. This also means that the extra or foreign genes may not be stored in the living cells for long, due probably to the reason that inherent genetic materials couldn't be replaced with ease by any other strange genes or foreign genes.

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These kinds of genetically engineered animals and plants should not be in the market, since nobody can say these are good and safe food materials at the present moment. As you know very well, we can survive without any kind of genetically modified foods all over the world.

In conclusion, as my own opinion, I would like to say the best way to obtain the animals carrying some characteristics of food is to make new breeds with the desired features by employing regular breeding systems. There is no royal road to getting much better animals and plants in succession on the Earth.

NOBORU FUJIHARA, PH.D.

Principal, Clark Memorial International High School

Professor Emeritus, Kyushu University, Japan

Worldwatch Institute promotes itself as "Independent research for an environmentally sustainable and socially just society." In the March/April issue of its magazine, there was a lengthy article titled "Our Biopolitical Future: Four Scenarios" (p. 10), written by Richard Hayes, executive director of the Center for Genetics and Society. In the article, four scenarios concerning genetic technologies were presented, ranging from the benign to a "Techno-Eugenic Arms Race," where genetic technologies are used by individuals, corporations, and countries in the struggle for superiority and dominance. Yet on the back cover of the magazine there is a picture of a transgenic fluorescent-green pig created by Taiwanese scientists by injecting the embryo with a jellyfish protein. The caption stated, "Soon, perhaps, romantic dinners will no longer require candlelight." Given the unsustainability of animal agriculture, the ethics of animal research, and the possible dire predictions of science run amok with genetic engineering, I was shocked and extremely disappointed by WWI's almost whimsical portrayal of such a technology that could drastically reshape our world in a negative way.

PEGGY YODER

Philomath, Oregon, U.S.A.