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The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is planning to lift its moratorium on chimeric embryo research:
The National Institutes of Health is proposing a new policy to permit scientists to get federal money to make embryos, known as chimeras, under certain carefully monitored conditions. The NIH imposed a moratorium on funding these experiments in September because they could raise ethical concerns.
[...] [Scientists] hope to use the embryos to create animal models of human diseases, which could lead to new ways to prevent and treat illnesses. Researchers also hope to produce sheep, pigs and cows with human hearts, kidneys, livers, pancreases and possibly other organs that could be used for transplants.
To address the ethical concerns, the NIH's new policy imposes several restrictions. The policy prohibits the introduction of any human cells into embryos of nonhuman primates, such as monkeys and chimps, at their early stages of development. Previously, the NIH wouldn't allow such experiments that involved human stem cells but it didn't address the use of other types of human cells that scientists have created. In addition, the old rules didn't bar adding the cells very early in embryonic development. The extra protections are being added because these animals are so closely related to humans. But the policy would lift the moratorium on funding experiments involving other species. Because of the ethical concerns, though, at least some of the experiments would go through an extra layer of review by a new, special committee of government officials.
You can submit a response to the proposal here up until the end of the day on September 4.
Related: NIH Won't Fund Human Germline Modification
U.S. Congress Moves to Block Human Embryo Editing
China's Bold Push into Genetically Customized Animals
Human-Animal Chimeras are Gestating on U.S. Research Farms
(Score: 2) by Arik on Friday August 05 2016, @01:48AM
Absolutely irrelevant.
"a) a rat doesn't have the capacity for suffering or intellect that a lemur does"
And your evidence for this assertion?
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday August 05 2016, @04:54AM
"b) we already accept orders of magnitude more deaths among rats than we do among lemurs."
Absolutely irrelevant.
This is starting to sound like your opinion on this subject is irrelevant. Recall you were allegedly concerned about whether or not it was more moral permissible to do "X" to a rat than a lemur. Well, one obvious measure is how morally permissible do we view what happens to these animals anyway. And the obvious note is that a lot of bad things happen to either animal which doesn't rise in our view to becoming morally impermissible - but a lot more of those bad things happen to rats.
"a) a rat doesn't have the capacity for suffering or intellect that a lemur does"
And your evidence for this assertion?
The known greater intellectual capacity of the lemur.