To start with let me say that this subject is one that has me going insane on a daily basis - there are potentially huge benefits to the human race but at what cost? So if I get a bit irate please understand that I am not having a go at anybody - just thinking out loud.
The monkey you are all talking about has ceased to be an animal with a future. Any talk of adoption and life after the lab is wishful thinking I'm afraid. The companies involved in the research can not afford to let this animal go to any home, any where, ever. The genetic material within him is just too valuable - it's not going to happen, when they have finished with him the most likely outcome is life in a cage in the lab to see if mucking around with the gentic code has any side effects. Dolly, the sheep, was the first animal cloned in this country and after two or three years it was noticed that she was ageing way too fast.
Genetically modified crops are being tested in this country with "safe" areas between them and normally grown and propagated crops. In America the same system has already seen the extinction of at least one species of moth.
I do believe that this technology has the best potential to help the world but we should all be aware that this is not going to be the outcome - it is, in the end, finacially motivated. Companies that are manipulating DNA are only going to sell what they learn to the highest bidder. The spin that gene modification is going to solve world hunger? - We've been manipulating the genetic code of plants and animals for thousands of years and have the ability now to feed the world, it hasn't happened because people only sell to the companies that can pay the most and they then hoard that information until they can improve on it and sell it on.
My main concern is that is all going too fast - the only research done on genetically modified crops is done in the open air - cross pollenation can and has happened.
We are now doing the same with animals with no idea what the risks are.
Don't believe that dogs and cats aren't part of this - they are - as are pigs, cows, rats and mice.
To finish this particular post here is something to think about - if penicillan had been tested on Guinea Pigs it would of been thought to of been a poison as it kills them - something we think of as a basic medical drug and so many other anti biotics have been developed from it...........
It was a lucky guess - with this technology we are changing the very fabric of life itself and we have no idea what the consequences may be.