24 
was not a final endpoint but the organism's intrinsic nature expressed in 
the here and now. Society's responsibility is to the present not to the 
future. He said we are not progressing anywhere. 
Dr. Fox contended that what is often regarded as progress is simply dealing 
with residual problems passed fran one generation to the next. He said 
humans have a tremendous responsibility to the animal kingdom, and he is 
concerned with RAC's human-centered rhetoric and rationalizations. He said 
he had to leave to wash his hands. 
Dr. Miller said he wished "to address some glaring factual errors in 
Dr. Fox's remarks in vhat I thought was otherwise a rather absurd presenta- 
tion." Dr. Miller said early field trials of bovine growth hormone in 
dairy cows suggest the cows utilize food stocks more efficiently with as 
much as a 15 percent improvement in milk output without a concomitant 
increase in food consumption, in effect, "getting something for nothing" 
through improved nitrogen utilization. 
Dr. Miller said Dr. Fox had not understood the function of zinc supplementa- 
tion in the diet of Dr. Brinster’s genetically engineered mice. Dr. Miller 
explained that the recombinant vector was constructed so that the human 
growth hormone gene is under the control of a zinc-sensitive premotor. 
Dietary zinc supplementation increases the activity of the human growth 
hormone gene, and the mice grew larger than normal. However, in the absence 
of zinc supplementation, they are of normal size and do not suffer. 
Dr. Miller said adopting Mr. Rifkin's proposal would inflict incalculable 
harm on several very important areas of scientific inquiry; e.g., the 
study of genetic susceptibility to diseases such as breast cancer. Harm 
would also be inflicted on research aimed at developing therapies for 
human genetic diseases since animal studies which are necessary prior to 
human clinical trials could not be carried out. 
Dr. Miller said Mr. Rifkin's proposal is: 
"...yet another highly contrived issue that is another manifestation of 
what 'Nature '.. .alluded to in characterizing Mr. Rifkin as someone 
whose nuisance to substance ratio is high." 
Dr. Jcklik said he questioned what he was hearing when the preposition is 
made that progress is not only elusory but possibly even undesirable, or 
vhen the implication is made that the health of this nation is no better 
today than it was 100 years ago, or when the discussion centers on what 
was in Aristotle's mind when he used certain phrases. 
Dr. Jcklik said the practical benefits of this type of research for human- 
kind is unquestionable; the evidence supporting this position is irrefutable. 
He called absurd the proposition that the prospect of benefit to untold 
humans through generations to come should be outweighed by putative discom- 
fort to a small number of laboratory animals. 
[156] 
