This Really Freaks Me Out

This Really Freaks Me Out

From September 6, 2007 Reuters:

LONDON (Reuters) - British regulators decided on Wednesday to permit in principle the creation of hybrid human-animal embryos for research into illnesses such as Parkinson's, Motor Neurone Disease and Alzheimer's.

The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) said it had agreed to allow a specific kind of inter-species hybrid, created by injecting human DNA into a hollowed-out animal egg cell.

The resulting "cytoplasmic hybrid" embryo, or "cybrid" would be 99.9 percent human and 0.1 percent animal.

The HFEA is believed to be the first regulator in the world to explicitly approve such human-animal embryos, a spokeswoman for the authority said.

Some countries, such as Australia, have banned them.

Two teams of British scientists have applied to the HFEA for permission to create cytoplasmic hybrid embryos using empty cow eggs to overcome a shortage of donated human eggs.

And I admit that it is primarily an emotional reaction to something that reads like really creepy science fiction--except that Stalin's Soviet Union made similar attempts at creating cross-breeds of humans and animals. I've blogged before about proposals to create rats with human brain cells, and how disturbing I find this.