Transcript Slide 1

Locating Species Identity:
Towards a political biogeography
of transgenic animals
Gail Davies
Department of Geography
University College London
Cabinet of Natural History
3rd March 2008
Outline
• Some points of departure:
– Introducing transgenic and chimerical animals
– From bioethics to biogeography
• Locating species identity:
– The legal place of transgenic animals
– Media spaces and species morphology
– Locating natural species behaviour
• Some preliminary conclusions:
– Towards a political biogeography of transgenic animals
– Future research questions
Introducing human/animal chimeras
Category
Uses
Examples
Animal sources of cells,
tissues or organs
Using GM or non GM animals as
sources of cellular material, tissues or
organs
Xenotransplantation, tissue engineering
cultures
Pharming
Transgenic modifications used to
make animals produce human
proteins with medicinal value
Goats modified to contain a human gene that
codes for anti-thombin produce Atryn (human
anti-clotting agent) in their milk
Medical Research models
Animals models created to mimic
human disease, study human
mechanisms or test human drugs
Mice with human immune systems. Mice with
human brain cells.
Stem cell harvesting
Development and testing of stem cell
therapies
Human cells fused with hollowed out rabbit
eggs, then destroyed before 14 days after
harvesting human stem cells.
‘Researchers are now involved in creating novel interspecies, whole organisms that are unique
cellular and genetic admixtures’ Robert and Baylis (2003, p1)
Some challenges of transgenic
•
Questions of efficacy and economics
– breeding success, clinical efficacy
•
Questions of containment
– ecological risks, population risks,
zoonoses
•
Questions of public safety
– consumer choice, informed consent
•
Questions of animal welfare and rights
– reducing suffering and protecting
species identity
‘Pharmed’ goat drug not approved
BBC news 24 February 2006
Regulating species identity
• Report of WHO Consultation on xenotransplantation, Geneva,
Switzerland, 28-30 October 1997
– ‘Mechanisms and procedures should be established or strengthened to
ensure animal welfare. This should be aimed at:
• minimizing potentially adverse effects to the animals produced as sources of
cells, tissues or organs for xenotransplantation
• overseeing genetic engineering to ensure that animals do not lose their identity
as members of their species’
• More recently, the Dutch National Committee on Animal Biotechnology
(2006):
• ‘Biotechnological interventions are not only a problem because of the potential
negative effects on the health and welfare of the animals, but also because
changing the genetic material interferes with their identity’
From Bioethics to Biogeography
• “Transgenic (genetically altered)
pigs are acceptable sources
providing ‘the pig neither suffers
unduly nor ceases recognisably
to be a pig’. The last proviso
suggests the surreal prospect of
the archbishop and his authority
being called upon to decide
when a transgenic pig is still a
pig – and doing so in the setting
of laboratory research as well
as clinical application’ (Editorial,
The Lancet, 1997)
• What is a species?
• Where does this question arise
around transgenic animals?
• Who is seen as providing a
definition of species identity?
• In what ways do these
definitions suggest a right to a
species identity?
The legal spaces of transgenic animals
US denies patent for part-human hybrid
Rick Weiss, Washington Post | February 13, 2005
A New York scientist's seven-year effort to win a patent on a laboratory-conceived
creature that is part human and part animal ended in failure Friday, closing a historic and
somewhat ghoulish chapter in US intellectual property law. The US Patent and
Trademark Office rejected the claim, saying the hybrid - designed for use in medical
research but not yet created - would be too closely related to a human to be patentable.
Paradoxically, the rejection was a victory of sorts for the inventor, Stuart Newman of
New York Medical College in Valhalla, N.Y. An opponent of patents on living things, he
had no intention of making the creatures. He said his goal was to set a legal precedent
that would keep others from profiting from similar "inventions.“
"I don't think anyone knows in terms of crude percentages how to differentiate between
humans and nonhumans," said John Doll, a deputy commissioner for patents. But the
office also is not comfortable with a "we'll know it when we see it" approach, he added.
"It would be very helpful . . . to have some guidance from Congress or the courts," he
said.
Media spaces and species morphology
Interview with Ron James, managing
director, PPL Therapeutics
The Guardian Saturday January 6,
2001
James admits that "genetic
abnormalities" can occur. So how many
animals are born abnormal? "Taking all
the experiments we've done, I would
guess it would probably be about half."
Most of these victims have internal
disorders, such as kidney malfunctions.
James says: "There's been nothing
you'd regard as being a monster. We
haven't produced animals with two legs,
or three heads, or anything like that."
The five cloned pigs: Noel, Angel, Star,
Joy and Mary, PPL therapeutics 2002
Placing Alba
• The creation of Alba
• The containment of Alba
• The circulation of Alba
• The death, and ‘re-placing’
of Alba
Davies, G. (2003) A geography of monsters
Geoforum 34, 4
http://www.juliafriedman.com
Locating natural animal behaviour
• UK DEFRA’S Animal Welfare Act 2006
• The act obliges the keeper of an animal to
ensure its welfare by:
– Providing a suitable environment
– Providing adequate food and water
– Allowing it to be housed with/apart from its
own or other species
– Allowing appropriate protection from and
diagnosis and treatment of pain, injury and
disease.
– Allowing it to exhibit normal behaviour
–
(http://www.defra.gov.uk/, 2004, emphasis added)
The right to normal species behaviour
• Normative formulation
underpinning animal rights
• Animals have interests because
they are sentient, capable of
pain and pleasure
• Animal sentience is evidenced
through their reactions, seen as
encoded in their biology or
species identity.
• Such reactions are either
studied through their behaviour
in the field or in the laboratory
Animal enclosure and ethological
indeterminacy
The key question “do
cremidophorus lizard
exhibit pseudocopulatory behaviour
which is relevant to
their reproduction” has
still to be answered
(Collins and Pinch,
1993: 118).
Towards a ‘political biogeography’ of transgenic life
(a first draft)
Biotechnological Zones
Property
rights
Public
acceptability
Ethical
normalisation
Spaces of definition,
discontinuity and
continuity
Genotype/
phenotype
Morphological/
corporeal
Behavioural
Spaces of containment
and circulation
Patenting
Media /
Representational
Animal
enclosures
Cultural
Regulatory
science
Spaces of expertise and Legal
contestation
Conclusions and questions
•
Biogeography is traditionally defined as study of the patterns of species
distribution and the processes that result in such patterns.
•
The potential to situate the study of GM animals, in ways that connect and add
to our understanding of
– the circulation of biovalue (Sunder Rajan 2006),
– different political cultures and bioethical concerns (Jasanoff 2005)
– the emergence of different animal forms (Haraway 2003)?
•
The potential to reveal complex tensions and ethical debate around
– Control and enclosure as a modern spatiality of nature (Watts 2004)
– Agency and recognition of natural exuberance (Clark 2004)
– In both the increasing spatial separation and increased corporeal connections
between human and animal lives
Acknowledgements
• This presentation arises
from a research fellowship
funded by the UK
Economic and Social
Research Council on
‘Biogeography and
Transgenic Life’ (grant
number RES-063-270093). I am grateful to the
ESRC for this support.