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from the teenage-mutant-ninja-doggies dept.
Ishee, a member of what's called the "biohacker" movement, says he is hoping to use inexpensive new gene-editing techniques to modify the genes of Dalmatians. By repairing a single DNA letter in their genomes, Ishee believes, he can rid them of an inherited disease, hyper uricemia, almost as closely associated with the breed as their white coats and black spots.
In early January, Ishee sent the agency a sketch of his plans to fix Dalmatians expecting to be told no approval was needed. He didn't immediately hear back—and soon found out why. On January 18, the agency released a sweeping new proposal to regulate cattle, pigs, dogs, and other animals modified with gene-editing.
The federal health agency already regulates transgenic animals—those with DNA added from a different species. But what about a dog whose genome has been tweaked to repair a disease gene? Or to endow it with the gene for a trait, like fluffy fur, already found in another canine? According to the newly proposed regulations, such creations will also need federal approval before entering the marketplace.
Is it government overreach, or do such restrictions make sense?
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 02 2017, @05:49PM
Not the people that dont care about them. The technology exists. All the regulation in the world wont stop it from being used, and it only makes it harder to advance.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 02 2017, @07:52PM
Two words: plausible deniability.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Thursday February 02 2017, @08:04PM
These rules don't stop it from being done.
These rules slow down the people who are doing it from seeking patent and/or copyright protection of their creations.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 03 2017, @07:14AM
All the regulation in the world wont stop it from being used, and it only makes it harder to advance.
Not all change is an advance. And delaying the inevitable is not always pointless otherwise why do so many people do stuff to live longer?
There are fairly easy ways to fix the disease in dogs - just make it easier and cheaper to test for the problem and then those who care can stop breeding dogs with the problem. Thus I don't see such technology as so important and required that we can do away with regulations.
Sure maybe these bunch can fix the problem by changing _only_ the specific faulty genes of the dogs. But I'm pretty sure that without regulation there would be more people mucking about creating more problems than they solve.