Dolly, the first cloned sheep, is dead — of a lung infection — and now the debate’s over whether her poor health was cloning related, as Dolly, Cloning’s Poster Child, Dies at Age 6 explains:
Dolly, aged 6, was put to sleep by veterinarians on Friday after they failed to cure her of a severe lung infection, her creators said.
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In contrast to her hardy cousins, put out to graze on steep hillsides in Scotland, Dolly lived indoors. She reared up on her hind legs to nuzzle visitors, looking for handouts.Some scientists believe this behavior, and not her lab-dish origins, led to Dolly’s well-documented arthritis. “There is a very real chance Dolly’s illness had nothing to do with cloning,” said Dr. Robert Lanza of Advanced Cell Technology in Massachusetts, a private firm doing cloning research.
“There is a virus … that sheep get at almost precisely Dolly’s age. This virus can cause arthritis and respiratory infections, particularly in animals raised indoors,” he said in a telephone interview.
At least the Roslin Institute team isn’t lying when they say, “It’s OK, honey; we’ll get you a new sheep just like the old one.”
More seriously, if sheep raised indoors are known to get diseases they don’t get in their natural habitat, what does that say about humans working in office buildings and living in apartments?