British Scientists Plan Human Chimeras

[9th Engineer]

I saw this on How Stuff Works a few days ago and did a little digging. The basic gist is that the scientists are looking for a way around the shortage of human eggs available for research use by using bovine eggs instead. Almost all of the bovine DNA is removed during the cloning process, so the resulting embryos are usefull for the same studies that human stem cells are currently used in, but are much more easily obtainable.
What do you guys think? I don't think it's a cover up for research into developing viable organisms, if they wanted to do that they'd use other species first so we won't be seeing human animal hybrids walking the streets. That said, this has a serious yuck factor associated with it. Viable embrio or not the creature is still a merging of humans with another species for its short life span.
Problem is, there's almost no legal barrier to stop them. Fetuses don't fall under the law, so they can truthfully argue that no rights are being violated. The results of this have good potential to help people, so they can call up precidents where potential benifets were used to push questionable practices through. All in all I think they'll get their permit.
A little googling turns up quite a few other cases as well, some involving rabits, pigs and mice as well as cows.


http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2...s.html?ref=rss