A FEW WEEKS ago, at the height of Britain’s outbreak of foot and mouth
disease, a pet calf called Phoenix was sentenced to death to help slow the march
of the disease. How the nation’s tabloids wept. Sometime after next month’s
general election there will be a big inquiry into this epidemic. Perhaps it will
conclude that it’s time to overcome our squeamishness about genetic engineering
and create genetically modified Phoenixes with inbuilt resistance to such
diseases.
That is certainly the view of Britain’s top scientific club, the Royal
Society. Its new report on the pros and cons of genetically…
