Creating Human-Animal Hybrids Is Bad for People – and Worse for Animals

You may have heard the disturbing news today that scientists in California are trying to grow human organs inside pigs.

They do this by injecting human stem cells into pig embryos to produce hybrid human-pig embryos, or chimeras. If this sounds wrong, that’s because it is. Experiments like these cause immense suffering to animals.

To create animals containing human genetic material, animal mothers undergo invasive procedures to harvest their eggs and implant embryos. These animals have exactly the same capacity to feel pain and to suffer as any other animal, including humans. And for every supposed “success” celebrated by experimenters, many, many other animals will have died along the way in experiments that didn’t work out.

To understand more about human development and human diseases, the world’s most forward-thinking scientists are developing and using methods that supersede the crude use of animals and are actually relevant to human health. These modern methods include sophisticated tests using human cells and tissues and innovative biotechnology such as organs-on-a-chip which replicate human physiology, diseases and drug responses more accurately than experiments on animals do.

With more investment and use of humane, cutting-edge technology, we’ll have much better science than the monstrous “frankenscience” of creating human-animal hybrids.