Animal Health and Welfare

The effects of genetic engineering on animal health and welfare are of significant public concern (Mench, 1999). Ideas about animal welfare are shaped by cultural attitudes toward animals (Burghart and Herzog, 1989), and animal welfare has proven difficult to assess because it is so multifaceted and involves ethical judgments (Mason and Mendl, 1993; Fraser, 1999). The committee considered the following animal welfare aspects of transgenic and cloning technologies: their potential to cause pain, distress (both physical and psychologic), behavioral abnormality, physiologic abnormality, and/or health problems; and, conversely, their potential to alleviate or to reduce these problems. Both the effects of the technologies themselves and their likely ramifications were addressed.