Cloning Business has Gone to the Dogs

In February, a Korean biomedical company announced that it had received an order to clone the first pet dog, a pit bullterrier named Booger. The company, RNL Bio, was hired by a California woman to clone her dog using tissue from his ear, at a cost of $150,000. While RNL Bio is in charge of business operations, the actual cloning will be conducted by a research team from Seoul National University, the same scientists who cloned a dog named Snuffy, the first in the world, and were disciplined for falsifying data in a human embryo study.

Concerned about the animal welfare implications involved with animal cloning, the American Anti-Vivisection Society (AAVS) has denounced these plans, and will investigate the matter further. Less than two years ago, AAVS claimed victory after a multi-year effort to squash the burgeoning pet cloning industry in the U.S., when Genetic Savings & Clone, Inc. (GSC), the only company to ever sell cloned companion animals to the public, closed its doors.

Much like RNL Bio is doing now, GSC also capitalized on pet owners' grief, with false promises to deliver a cloned animal that looks and acts just as their original companion. However, such promises cannot be delivered because even cloned animals have some genetic variation. Additionally, cloning is a remarkably inefficient and harmful technology, and studies report that less than four percent of cloned embryos are carried to term. Of those who survive, most die shortly after birth or suffer severe health problems and abnormalities. AAVS estimates that hundreds of animals, including surrogate mothers who undergo multiple surgeries, were required by GSC to produce just one cat. One can assume similar occurrences with RNL Bio as it attempts to clone a dog.

At a time when GSC was garnering much media attention, AAVS formed a coalition in an effort to enact state legislation that would prevent the cloning of pet animals, such as cats and dogs, in California. With the closing of GSC, this legislative effort, which had widespread support, was considered defunct. However, now that pet cloning is seeping back into the limelight, it is prudent for animal advocates to contact their state legislators to urge them to take a stand against pet cloning in their respective states.

What You Can Do:
Please contact your state legislators and educate them about the tremendous animal suffering and unethical ramifications of pet cloning. Urge them to stand up to technology companies that prey on grieving animal guardians, who are their constituents. To find your state legislators, visit www.Congress.org, or call AAVS at 800-SAY-AAVS.

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