For years, scientists have been secretively creating animal-human hybrids to seek cures for various diseases, which has prompted warnings of impending nightmare scenarios breaching every current bioethical standard.
-- From "Scientists warn of 'Planet of the Apes' scenario" posted at the London Telegraph 7/22/11
Exactly the same scenario is portrayed in the new movie Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes, in which scientists searching for an Alzheimer's cure create a new breed of ape with human-like intelligence.
Currently research involving great apes, such as chimpanzees, is outlawed in the UK. But it continues in many other countries including the US, and British scientists are permitted to experiment on monkeys.
Professor Thomas Baldwin, a member of the Academy of Medical Sciences working group that produced the report, said the possibility of humanised apes should be taken seriously.
"The fear is that if you start putting very large numbers of human brain cells into the brains of primates suddenly you might transform the primate into something that has some of the capacities that we regard as distinctively human.. speech, or other ways of being able to manipulate or relate to us," he told a news briefing in London.
In the US, scientists have already implanted human embryonic stem cells - which can develop into any part of the human body - into mouse embryos.
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From "150 human animal hybrids grown in UK labs: Embryos have been produced secretively for the past three years" by Daniel Martin and Simon Caldwell, UK Daily Mail 7/23/11
Figures seen by the Daily Mail show that 155 ‘admixed’ embryos, containing both human and animal genetic material, have been created since the introduction of the 2008 Human Fertilisation Embryology Act.
This legalised the creation of a variety of hybrids, including an animal egg fertilised by a human sperm; ‘cybrids’, in which a human nucleus is implanted into an animal cell; and ‘chimeras’, in which human cells are mixed with animal embryos.
Josephine Quintavalle, of pro-life group Comment on Reproductive Ethics, said: ‘I am aghast that this is going on and we didn’t know anything about it.’
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