Office of Recombinant DNA Activities 
page 2 
Witness the dif £ erences between dogs and jackals, pigs and 
wild boars, cows and wild cattle, etc. Would Mr. Rifkin 
stop all selective breeding experiments? Introduction of 
foreign genetic material represents a quantitative but not 
qualitative change from the selective breeding experiments. 
Animals with desired characteristics may be made more 
quickly and economically than by conventional breeding, but 
ultimately the same ends would be reached. 
2. What are the benefits? In practical terms, it may be 
possible to generate larger and more efficient animals that 
will increase the supply and decrease the price of meat and 
dairy products. If, for example, larger pigs can be 
generated, then fewer would have to be raised to provide the 
same amount of meat, which may result in increased economy 
and certainly will result in a fewer number of pigs which 
will have to be raised and sacrificed. Thus, in addition to 
increases in efficiency, these experiments probably will 
reduce animal suffering. 
Other commercial benefits would be the large scale 
production of medically important products in animals. For 
example, if large animals could be made to produce large 
amounts of insulin or interferon, the resulting product 
would be appropriately glycosylated and otherwise modified 
and probably would be considerably more effective than the 
corresponding product made in bacteria. These 
characteristics would make the product cheaper and more 
effective, and therefore available to a greater number of 
people, with a decreased risk of side effects. 
To my mind, the commercial benefits pale beside the 
benefits to be gained from the increased understanding of 
gene regulation and function which has and will continue to 
be generated by this technology. Many human diseases result 
at least in part from alterations in gene structure or 
function. Recent evidence demonstrates unequivocally that 
many types of cancer result from a limited number of genetic 
changes, and heart disease as well has a genetic component. 
Currently, the best system available to characterize 
tissue-specif ic gene regulation and the effects of genetic 
changes on the phenotype of animals is to return genes into 
mammalian species, in particular the laboratory mouse. 
Legislation against this technology would eliminate one of 
the major routes by which we are slowly gaining an 
understanding of gene expression in mammalian organisms and 
would needlessly retard our understanding and ultimately 
control of many human diseases. 
In summation, the potential benefits from this 
technology are so great both in basic science and in 
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