Cloning safeguards inadequate, warn government advisers

The cloning of pets and other genetic engineering of animals for "trivial purposes" should be outlawed, the Government's official advisers on biotechnology will say next week.

A report to be published on Tuesday by the Agriculture and Environment Biotechnology Commission will recommend that the technique could be applied to farm animals if new welfare standards are put in place.

The commission will also warn that legislation has failed to keep up with the revolution in animal genetic science and call for new regulations to protect them from harm, describing some genetic engineering as "intrinsically objectionable". Scientists on the influential committee, which produced the report, entitled Animals and Biotechnology, will also call for new curbs on the genetic modification of fish.

They will warn that salmon, genetically enlarged to many times their size, could escape from fish farms and breed with natural populations. A senior source close to the committee said: "We don't think the implications of them escaping and swimming out to sea and breeding have been properly considered."

Radical changes though genetic engineering to alter animals' instincts – such as changing pet cats to stop them from killing wild birds – should also be monitored, the report will warn. The report will also make clear that the cloning of pets who have died to replace them would be considered a "trivial" use of the technology and should be banned.