UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-MADISON 
DEPARTMENT OF MEAT 
AND ANIMAL SCIENCE 
October 15, 1984 
Room 256 
Animal Sciences Building 
1675 Observatory Drive 
Madison, Wisconsin 53706 
Dr. William J. Gartland 
Executive Secretary, RAC 
National Institute of Allergy and 
Infectious Diseases 
National Institutes of Health 
Bethesda, MD 20205 
Dear Dr. Gartland: 
I wish to express opposition to the Rifkin proposals of August 21 and 23 which 
were intended to prohibit transfer of genes between unrelated mammalian 
species. I am a professor of reproductive physiology in the Department of 
Meat and Animal Science. I have taught and published in this area for 24 
years. Our research and that of my department is devoted to development of 
ways to more efficiently produce food for an increasingly starving world and 
to improvement in the quality of the food we eat. Our research presently 
concerns the introduction of genes of other species into the germ line of food 
producing species and the multiplication of the resulting zenogenous embryos. 
We believe this research will, for example, through the introduction and 
exogenous regulation of a foreign growth hormone gene provide genetic stocks 
which require 25 to 30% less food to produce a pound of meat and are capable 
of at least 15% more milk production. Engineering the genes of rumen 
microorganisms to digest cellulose and lignin will mean that cows, sheep and 
water buffalo in world land areas of human starvation can convert branches of 
trees, brush, weeds and fibrous plant residues to needed human food. 
The introduction of exogenous genes from species resistant to diseases is 
expected to allow the use of food efficient or high producing livestock in 
areas of the world where they might not normally survive. 
Many species of natural importance and of importance to man are near 
extinction. Gene transfer holds great promise for saving endangered species 
from extinction by incorporating survival traits from another species into 
their genome. The genes to be transferred are not artificial or foreign to 
the animal kingdom or the evolutionally ancestors or relatives of the 
recipient species. Indeed, the gene transfer process may only speed adaptive 
genomic changes which could occur naturally over many generations of 
selection. Research concerning gene transfer in laboratory and food producing 
species is expected to answer basic questions concerning mechanisms regulating 
gene expression. Answers to these questions are essential for the development 
of somatic cell gene therapy programs with potential for curing a large array 
of diseases in individual patients including diabetes and several forms of 
cancer . 
For all the above reasons the benefits to the human and animal population 
derived from interspecies transfer of genes are great. Indeed, the slight 
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