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Since the issue is of ethics or morality and, since in a free society 
national morality is based upon a consensus of accepted behavior, it is 
important to point out the long established and accepted practice of 
altering the genetic make-up of livestock animals to meet the needs of 
humans. Selective breeding, practiced since before recorded history, 
involves selecting animals for mating based upon useful phenotypic traits. 
By selecting from random changes in the genome, man has been able to 
''design" species to serve his needs. Modern farm animals are vastly 
different from their wild progenitors. The genetic sequences and, 
therefore, the physical characteristics of these animals have been changed 
to produce animals which will produce farm products efficiently. One of the 
best examples of such specific genetic alteration is the dairy cow. The 
wild ccw is estimated to have produced less than one pound of milk per day 
while a modern dairy cow can produce in excess of 160 pounds per day. This 
agricultural achievement is the result of hundreds of years of selection for 
milk production. Although dairy farmers were selecting progeny on the basis 
of milk produced, in reality, they were also unknowingly selecting for 
changes in the genetic code for milk producing functions of the cow, genetic 
changes which resulted from mutation or recombination of the bovine genome. 
Selection, in this case, was not selecting for a rare animal which produced 
more than 100 lbs. of milk each day, since no such animal ever existed until 
recently, but skewing the natural changes in the genome towards increased 
milk production. With present day technologies for the analysis of the 
genome, not its transfer, it is now possible to directly select for a given 
genetic sequence. Therefore, in principal, it is now possible, using 
classical breeding and progeny selection to select for a cow with a growth 
hormone gene sequence which is identical to the human growth hormone gene. 
This suggested possibility is based upon the fact that the magnitude of the 
changes in the sequences coding for bovine milk production resulting from 
progeny selection are greater than the difference in sequence homology 
between bovine and human growth hormone genes. It is therefore probably 
possible, given enough time, to produce the same result (i.e. hunan growth 
hormone genes into livestock species), using classical selective breeding 
methods, which would be achieved by the gene transfer experiments Rifkin is 
opposed to. Therefore, unless Rifkin is "morally" opposed to selective 
breeding in agriculture, he is not so much concerned about the result as he 
is the method. How does the method of gene transfer differ from selective 
breeding? It is newer and it is much faster. Just as the ability of early 
biologists to change the color patterns of the King's cattle or the Abbott's 
flowers was viewed as witchcraft by earlier societies, so Rifkin views gene 
transfer to be "immoral". He is opposed to the method solely because it is 
new and it is different. 
The sort of emotional response to mammalian gene transfer represented 
by Rifkin's proposal to the RAC, if treated in the same manner as real 
concerns about biohazards by the RAC or the media, could initiate and 
support the resurgence of a "monkey trial" mentality opposing important 
basic biological, medical, and agricultural research. I would urge the RAC 
to deal only with any perceived biohazards which gene transfer might 
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