A Baby Monkey Named ANDi

April 2001

Scientists at the Oregon Regional Primate Center of the Oregon Health Sciences University (OSHU) in Beaverton, Oregon, USA, reported on 11 January 2001 that they had developed the first genetically engineered monkey. They claimed that the research would hasten the development of cures for a variety of human diseases.

The baby rhesus monkey was named ANDi, which is the capital letters of "inserted DNA" written backwards.

Press photographs circulated worldwide show what looks like a typical baby monkey. The gene inserted into ANDi came from a jellyfish and was described as "GFP" which stands for "green fluorescent protein." However, the monkey does not glow in the dark.

In 2000, the Oregon Primate Center had publicized its development of a "cloned monkey."

According to Primate Center scientist Gerald Schatten:
The idea is to engineer monkeys with genes known to cause disease in humans. Perhaps these monkeys could even be cloned, so that exact copies could be used to study drugs and other potential treatments without having a factor in genetic variation...We wouldn't want to make a monkey that carries a disease unless we knew there was a cure right in front of us.

Schatten and his team used a retrovirus to carry the GFP gene into 224 monkey eggs. The procedure resulted in 40 embryos and five pregnancies. Three monkeys were born alive, but only one carried the gene, as did stillborn twins.

Writing in the Boston Herald on 14 January 2001, Beverly Beckham expressed her outrage in an article headed "Creating monkeys to suffer puts humans on slippery slope."

The maturation process of human beings, according to psychologists, is divided into stages. When we're young we believe that the world revolves around us. "Why is the moon following me?" every child has asked. As we mature we realize that we are not the center of the universe. That's the theory, anyway. As we age, we eventually see the big picture and view the world not as our private playpen but as our shared responsibility.

Apparently we're a country of ethical infants because it certainly isn't responsible to create a creature to suffer. The picture of ANDi that was in all the papers should move us to action. Are we indifferent because monkeys aren't house pets...

Scientists are not engineering genetically altered primates to say, "Look what we did" and to have their creations splashed on the front pages all over the world. This is just the beginning. What won't be on the front pages are all the future animals born diseased, creatures that share 90% of our genetic make-up, born solely to suffer. This is the future and it isn't right...

In its 22 January 2001 issue, the British newspaper Telegraph quoted scientist Michael Ball, Chairman of the Fund for the Replacement of Animals in Medical Experiments:
This experiment on monkeys is obscene, ethically unjustified and scientifically unnecessary. It is time someone called the bluff of these people every time they say they have made a new step forward. The idea that they can resolve every disease under the sun and make us live for 2,000 years is ridiculous. The extremely low rate of success in scientific terms does not justify the animal suffering involved. These primate centers in America are all looking for work to justify their existence.

British philosopher Roger Scruton commented:
It is perhaps unfair to draw the comparison with Dr. Mengele of Auschwitz, but it is certainly true that the new breed of medical researchers proceeds as though any reference to moral absolutes, or to the sanctity of life, is merely a quaint survival of a discredited view of the human condition.

I have this horrible vision of a future in which there are no young people any more, except those manufactured by the bionic geriatrics who control things, those who use all the resources of the earth, including those that belong to future generations, to outstay their welcome on a planet whose resources they devote entirely to themselves.

Many Oregon residents were furious and wrote letters to the Oregonian. On 21 January 2001 Allison Pang wrote:
I see this as a publicity stunt to make OSHU money so they can create an ANDi II with giraffe genes, an ANDi III with spider genes, etc.

Sue Pesznecker wrote:
As I unfolded the Oregonian a few days ago, I was greeted by a photograph of a tiny, hours-old rhesus monkey. The infant monkey had tiny fingers, tufts of downy hair and a surprisingly human face. His name was ANDi. The accompanying story explained that...his creation paved the way for nonhuman primates to become "living research laboratories." All life is sacred. Yet for human purposes, an innocent relative in our primate family tree was created in the laboratory, his genes manipulated like puzzle pieces...ANDi is the first of his kind. It's too bad he can't be the last.

Writing on a primate bulletin board on the Internet, Katie Eckert of San Francisco stated:
Since it is not new or news to me that we are using nonhuman primates in research and for the testing of innumerable drugs and other consumer products...my most tormented thoughts...are actually back with the ultimate reasoning behind the drive to insert DNA into the genome of a monkey...and that is to try to do away with disease and suffering of humans...

What is going to come of our species when we start using gene therapy, when we start TRULY messing with the plans? Will we make perfect people? Will we remove ourselves so far from "natural" selection that only those that can afford this type of therapy will survive? Is money to become the selective force, if it hasn't already?

How long do humans really want/need to live anyway? 110? 120? 150?

HOW TO EXPRESS YOUR CONCERN US Members concerned about the use of their tax dollars to create more genetically engineered monkeys may contact their representative (House Office Building, Washington DC 20515, USA) and senators (Senate Office Building, Washington SC 20510, USA) and Dr. Ruth Kirschstein, Director, National Institutes of Health, 9000 Rockville Pike, Bethesda MD 20892, USA. Dr. Kirschstein's e-mail address is execsec1@od.nih.gov Overseas members should contact the US Embassy in the capital city of their country of origin.