Welfare implications of cloning farm animals

Extract

The birth of Dolly, the first mammal cloned from an adult cell, at the Roslin Institute in Edinburgh in 1997, prompted worldwide debate about the ethics of this technology. Conscious of public concerns about its welfare aspects, the UK Ministry of Agriculture Fisheries and Food asked the Farm Animal Welfare Council (FAWC) to advise on the matter. In the foreword to this, the last report produced before his recent retirement from the FAWC Chairmanship, Professor Sir Colin Spedding reported the Council's view that no aspect of cloning was ‘intrinsically objectionable to the extent that it might be considered something not to be done at all’. However, the Report identifies a variety of potential welfare risks and proposes a number of safeguards.