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- Title
Public Responses to Genetic Engineering.
- Authors
Hanson, Betsy; Nelkin, Dorothy
- Abstract
This article discusses the public responses in the U.S. to genetic engineering, as of 1989. Debate over patenting animals has been smouldering since a 1980 Supreme Court ruling allowed the patenting of a living organism, in that case a bacterium. Researchers in both academia and industry maintain that transgenic animals deserve patent protection as unique inventions which promise medical and agricultural benefits to society. But defining ownership of animals also has controversial economic, moral, and political implications. Farmers, religious leaders, environmentalists, and animal rights activists all have strongly opposed animal patents. The economic consequences of patenting transgenic animals generated speculation about the current pace of research in internationally competitive scientific fields, the status of U.S. biotechnology, and the interplay between farmers and biotechnology companies. Biotechnology and pharmaceutical firms regarded animal patents as a necessary incentive to research and development. While farmers and biotechnology firms debated the economic consequences of animal patenting, religious, environmental, and animal rights groups brought up their moral concerns. These groups attacked the issue from slightly different perspectives, but they all rejected the definition of animals as resources, or, in the language of patent law, compositions of matter.
- Subjects
UNITED States; ANIMALS; GENETIC engineering; PATENTS &; ethics; BIOETHICS; BIOTECHNOLOGY; ANIMAL genetic engineering
- Publication
Society, 1989, Vol 27, Issue 1, p76
- ISSN
0147-2011
- Publication type
Article