Ethical and Societal Considerations †Free Samples to Students

Question: Discuss about the Ethical and Societal Considerations. Answer: Introduction: Genetically modified animals are indeed of very high importance in the present modern world. They are found to be possessing plasma which are essential and may save the life of many individuals. In the genetically modified cows, their bovine antibodies are turned off and replaced with human versions of those genes and therefore the antibodies that they produce when injected with virus are exact replica of human antibodies. Therefore, they do not evoke any negative responses when injected in human as vaccines. They are readily usable and had helped making medicines and vaccines much cheaper (Proudfoot et al. 2015). A genetically modified goats are estimated to produce 8 million doses of vaccines which has tremendous potential and this has been confirmed by Mark Westhusian who is the professor of GMOs could be the future of infection prevention and control. Besides, production of polyclonal antibodies, they are also helpful in production of monoclonal antibodies which have a very costl y production procedure. The cows are estimated to produce high levels of human antibodies for about 30 to 60 liters of plasma per month in comparison to 4 liters per person. Although I prefer the use of genetically modified animals in the future, the controversy with the use of GMO might not allow the easy establishment of the trend of using them for vaccines. Many animal lovers are of the opinion that altering an entire organism by switching off their natural genes and introducing human genes are a crime as that destroys the natural balance and interferes with the natural way of production of animals. They believe that humans are enjoying the supremacy of their power over the less intellectual animals (Aerts and Tavernier 2016). Hence, it is really a matter of controversy which does not bring a proper conclusion and will be always a matter of debate. However, if I am given the cope to decide, I would definitely recommend and support their use as it would help in providing vaccines at a much cheaper rate which will in turn help to protect different classes of people irrespective of their social status from harmful infections. References: Proudfoot, C., Carlson, D.F., Huddart, R., Long, C.R., Pryor, J.H., King, T.J., Lillico, S.G., Mileham, A.J., McLaren, D.G., Whitelaw, C.B.A. and Fahrenkrug, S.C., 2015. Genome edited sheep and cattle.Transgenic research,24(1), pp.147-153. Aerts, S. and De Tavernier, J., 2016. Killing animals as a matter of collateral damage. InThe end of animal life: a start for ethical debate: Ethical and societal considerations on killing animals(p. 29). Wageningen Academic Publishers.