Thursday November 14, 2002

ONE-QUARTER OF CLONED ANIMALS DIE WITHIN THREE MONTHS

New Zealand Laboratory Records

WELLINGTON, November 14, 2002 (LifeSiteNews.com) - New Zealand's government-owned AgResearch, a laboratory that conducts cloning experiments with livestock, is reporting that one-quarter of the beasts die within three months.

The death rate of cloned calves between birth and weaning has been 24%, according to news reports, compared with about 5% in normal calves. Of the 24%, about 2% were put down because of chronic sickness and the rest died "unaided" -- 5% after weaning compared with about 3% among calves born normally.

Dr. David Wells, the institute's director of cloning, says, "Errors in the pattern of gene expression" had resulted in some deformities that made the animals "not viable at birth." The "vast majority" of cloned calves, he claims, were delivered naturally from surrogate mothers. Some are aborted, while mothers have also had to be slaughtered when their cloned foetuses grew too large for birth ("large offspring syndrome") and where a caesarian was not viable.

For local coverage see:
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/storydisplay.cfm?storyID=3004259&thesection=news&thesubsection=general

URL: http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2002/nov/02111407.html

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