Lie
02-10-2005, 08:50 PM
Cloners worthy of a Waunakee double take
00:00 am 2/10/05
Ron Seely Wisconsin State Journal
WAUNAKEE - This village is a tabloid headline waiting to be written.
"Mysterious Animal Cloners Set up Shop in Village Industrial Park."
Or, "Company Cranking Out Cat Copies in Waunakee. Elvis Next?"
It's true. Strange but true. Genetic Savings & Clone, the world's first company devoted to cloning pets, is building its laboratory in an innocuous brick building of office suites almost directly beneath the village water tower and just across the street from Waunakee Remodeling.
The office is hardly the set of a science fiction movie. It looks like an insurance office. A hand-scrawled note with the letters GSC is taped to the front door, providing instructions for deliveries. Inside, construction on walls and office cubicles is under way.
Ben Carlson, director of communications for GSC, was in Madison and Waunakee Wednesday. He said the lab will probably be in operation sometime in March. Within the next few months, Carlson said, scientists at the lab are expected to clone a dog. And the staff will continue working on five orders for cloned cats, placed last year. The company has already cloned and sold its first cat, a $50,000 feline named Little Nicky cloned from Nicky, the deceased cat of a Texas woman.
News of the cloning company has been slow in working its way up and down Main Street. But this week, as officials with GSC mounted a public relations campaign, tongues in Waunakee were beginning to wag.
Mostly, people were less concerned about cloned Elvises and two-headed cats prowling Waunakee than they were about the potential ethical dilemmas posed by a company offering to clone someone's beloved and recently deceased pet for a bundle of money - $50,000 per cat copy, to be exact.
"I think it's a little outrageous," said Kathy Ebben, the owner of Ship Shape Pet Grooming on Main Street. "You could do a lot with $50,000. That would go a long way toward helping needy children. And there are so many other animals in shelters that need homes."
Ebben's is a down-to-earth, comfortable storefront business with an old sofa in the front window where her dog, Monet, lounges with his collection of dog toys. She knows how attached people can get to their pets and admits her own is more family member than pet. She works with a cat as she speaks, gently handling the big fellow as if it were her own.
Some people become so enamored of a pet, Ebben said, that she can imagine them scraping together $50,000 even if it plunges them into financial hardship.
"Where are they getting the $50,000?" Ebben wondered. "Are they putting a second mortgage on their home? Are they putting their lives in jeopardy just to replace an animal?"
On the other hand, Fred Loy, a meat cutter at the nearby Village Market, said he's intrigued. "I think it's kind of neat," said Loy. "It's something that's bound to happen. I don't believe in cloning humans. But animals, that's OK."
No matter what people think, cloning is coming to Waunakee, which, ironically, bills itself as "the only Waunakee in the world."
And the people of Waunakee aren't the only ones with concerns. An animal rights group called the American Anti- Vivisection Society released a report Wednesday decrying the commercial cloning of pets, raising questions about everything from the science to ethics and consumer deception.
Carlson, the GSC spokesman, said Wednesday the company has kept a low profile. He's scheduled meetings this week with some Waunakee officials. Mostly, however, the company has learned to remain low-key because of what is frequently a negative reaction to cloning.
"The problem," Carlson said, "is that nine out of 10 people get their ideas about cloning from science fiction."
The company, Carlson said, is making considerable effort to give people a realistic and accurate understanding of cloning. The first sheet in a folder being provided media is headlined, "Is Cloning Right for You?"
Clients, Carlson said, are warned that they will not be receiving an animal that has the same personality as their deceased pet. It will simply look like the animal from which it was cloned.
"It's not going to recognize you," Carlson said. "It's not going to know the old tricks."
As for the ethical issues, Carlson said he's hoping time and the company's efforts to discuss those issues with clients will reassure people. After all, he added, in vitro fertilization was once considered little more than science fiction and also prompted some to raise ethical alarms.
"With IVF," Carlson said, "it was test tube babies and the sky is falling."
But the company has some work to do to convince its new neighbors. At R.B.'s Printing, just off Waunakee's Main Street, workers paused to consider the implications of a cloning lab in town.
Chris Schaefer, a customer service specialist with the print and copy shop, said she just lost a much-loved cat named Mouse. He was perfect, she said. But she wouldn't have him cloned.
Schaefer, as well as owner Ron Byrne both shook their heads at the idea. Cloning, Byrne said, doesn't make a lot of sense simply because there is no way to exactly duplicate the cat or the dog that stole your heart.
And that means, Byrne concluded, that his shop remains the only place in town where you can get a perfect copy of anything.
http://www.madison.com/wsj/home/local/index.php?ntid=27966&ntpid=3
00:00 am 2/10/05
Ron Seely Wisconsin State Journal
WAUNAKEE - This village is a tabloid headline waiting to be written.
"Mysterious Animal Cloners Set up Shop in Village Industrial Park."
Or, "Company Cranking Out Cat Copies in Waunakee. Elvis Next?"
It's true. Strange but true. Genetic Savings & Clone, the world's first company devoted to cloning pets, is building its laboratory in an innocuous brick building of office suites almost directly beneath the village water tower and just across the street from Waunakee Remodeling.
The office is hardly the set of a science fiction movie. It looks like an insurance office. A hand-scrawled note with the letters GSC is taped to the front door, providing instructions for deliveries. Inside, construction on walls and office cubicles is under way.
Ben Carlson, director of communications for GSC, was in Madison and Waunakee Wednesday. He said the lab will probably be in operation sometime in March. Within the next few months, Carlson said, scientists at the lab are expected to clone a dog. And the staff will continue working on five orders for cloned cats, placed last year. The company has already cloned and sold its first cat, a $50,000 feline named Little Nicky cloned from Nicky, the deceased cat of a Texas woman.
News of the cloning company has been slow in working its way up and down Main Street. But this week, as officials with GSC mounted a public relations campaign, tongues in Waunakee were beginning to wag.
Mostly, people were less concerned about cloned Elvises and two-headed cats prowling Waunakee than they were about the potential ethical dilemmas posed by a company offering to clone someone's beloved and recently deceased pet for a bundle of money - $50,000 per cat copy, to be exact.
"I think it's a little outrageous," said Kathy Ebben, the owner of Ship Shape Pet Grooming on Main Street. "You could do a lot with $50,000. That would go a long way toward helping needy children. And there are so many other animals in shelters that need homes."
Ebben's is a down-to-earth, comfortable storefront business with an old sofa in the front window where her dog, Monet, lounges with his collection of dog toys. She knows how attached people can get to their pets and admits her own is more family member than pet. She works with a cat as she speaks, gently handling the big fellow as if it were her own.
Some people become so enamored of a pet, Ebben said, that she can imagine them scraping together $50,000 even if it plunges them into financial hardship.
"Where are they getting the $50,000?" Ebben wondered. "Are they putting a second mortgage on their home? Are they putting their lives in jeopardy just to replace an animal?"
On the other hand, Fred Loy, a meat cutter at the nearby Village Market, said he's intrigued. "I think it's kind of neat," said Loy. "It's something that's bound to happen. I don't believe in cloning humans. But animals, that's OK."
No matter what people think, cloning is coming to Waunakee, which, ironically, bills itself as "the only Waunakee in the world."
And the people of Waunakee aren't the only ones with concerns. An animal rights group called the American Anti- Vivisection Society released a report Wednesday decrying the commercial cloning of pets, raising questions about everything from the science to ethics and consumer deception.
Carlson, the GSC spokesman, said Wednesday the company has kept a low profile. He's scheduled meetings this week with some Waunakee officials. Mostly, however, the company has learned to remain low-key because of what is frequently a negative reaction to cloning.
"The problem," Carlson said, "is that nine out of 10 people get their ideas about cloning from science fiction."
The company, Carlson said, is making considerable effort to give people a realistic and accurate understanding of cloning. The first sheet in a folder being provided media is headlined, "Is Cloning Right for You?"
Clients, Carlson said, are warned that they will not be receiving an animal that has the same personality as their deceased pet. It will simply look like the animal from which it was cloned.
"It's not going to recognize you," Carlson said. "It's not going to know the old tricks."
As for the ethical issues, Carlson said he's hoping time and the company's efforts to discuss those issues with clients will reassure people. After all, he added, in vitro fertilization was once considered little more than science fiction and also prompted some to raise ethical alarms.
"With IVF," Carlson said, "it was test tube babies and the sky is falling."
But the company has some work to do to convince its new neighbors. At R.B.'s Printing, just off Waunakee's Main Street, workers paused to consider the implications of a cloning lab in town.
Chris Schaefer, a customer service specialist with the print and copy shop, said she just lost a much-loved cat named Mouse. He was perfect, she said. But she wouldn't have him cloned.
Schaefer, as well as owner Ron Byrne both shook their heads at the idea. Cloning, Byrne said, doesn't make a lot of sense simply because there is no way to exactly duplicate the cat or the dog that stole your heart.
And that means, Byrne concluded, that his shop remains the only place in town where you can get a perfect copy of anything.
http://www.madison.com/wsj/home/local/index.php?ntid=27966&ntpid=3