University of Wisconsin-Madison 
Biological Safety Ccsnrnittee 
Office of Biological Safety 
1552 University Avenue 
Madison, Wisconsin 53706 
Tel. (608) 263-2037 
October 20, 1984 
Dr. William Gartland, Director 
Office of Recombinant DNA Activities 
Bldg. 31, Rm. 3B10 
National Institutes of Health 
Bethesda, MD 20205 
Dear Dr. Gartland: 
We, faculty members of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, want to 
express our opposition to the Rifkin proposals to prohibit genetic transfer 
between unrelated animal species. 
As members of this University’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, 
Schools of Medicine - both human and veterinary, as well as the Institutional 
Biological Safety Committee, it is our collective opinion that such research, 
when carefully considered and conducted for valid purposes, poses no undue 
hazard for the ecology and contradicts no generally accepted moral or 
philosophical values. 
On the contrary, to perform such research is consistent with the ethical 
basis for any biomedical experimentation - to advance knowledge with the hope 
that this greater understanding can benefit mankind as well as other animal 
species in our ecology. 
It has long been an accepted ethical premise that experiments not possible 
in human systems should be performed in animal substitutes. In contemporary 
genetic research it is vital that interspecies manipulations be made in order 
to understand the development and expression of a gene function under 
conditions unacceptable in a human system. 
As scientists, we believe that we have a moral responsibility to improve 
human welfare. Since the beginning of agriculture over 10,000 years ago, man 
has been actively involved in genetic manipulation of plants and animals. 
Genetic manipulation has been a natural process from selection of mutants that 
occur naturally, to induction of mutations, and now introduction of specific 
traits between species. There is nothing unnatural or immoral about genetic 
change - it has been going on since life began. We now have technical 
knowledge to accomplish change much more efficiently. This knowledge has a 
direct benefit for mankind when applied to problems of inherent genetic 
defects, developmental deficiencies, and the enhancement of human response to 
disease. Moreover, utilizing information derived from interspecies genetic 
transfer raises the potential for decreasing human misery by increasing the 
world’s food supply in the face of rising populations and declining 
resources. This application of genetic technology will be especially 
important to Third World nations. 
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