The ethical debate continues.
Currently, it is the Muslims, not surprisingly, who are putting the brakes to this unethical scientific research.
http://www.greenmedinfo.com/blog/alien- ... -new-world
A chimera is a living being composed of cells mixed together from two different organisms, either from the same or different species. ...
... Chimerism concerns encompass crossing inviolable species borders.[5] These are real concerns leading to real questions; particularly if brought to term, do we put this new creation in a zoo or allow it to live among us? Maybe our days of being human and being animal are numbered, the distinction forever blurred.
Stem-cell research was held up during the last Bush Administration due to fears it would encourage increased abortion rates. Criticism abounds, primed by that action, that the "religious right" which now includes Muslims due to the use of pigs in chimera research, will delay progress. Science unchecked against the moorings of ethics, human dignity, and sanctity is unwise particularly in the face of the sheer magnitude of unknown variables versus known benefits. ...
... France reported a jelly-fish/sheep mix ending up in the food supply.[8] There are religious, ethical, and practical concerns, such as cross-species diseases creating plagues to which humans will have no natural immunity. ...
... The team stopped short of putting human cells into monkeys and great apes due to ethical concerns. Wolfgang Enard of Ludwig-Maximilians University Munich in Germany, who has shown that mice are better at learning if they have the human Foxp2 gene, which has been linked with human language development noted, "If you make animals more human-like, where do you stop?"