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The Torii Pharmaceutical Company of Tokyo wants to patent (EP 781 506) rats
and mice which suffer from diabetes. Such animals are needed to test drugs and
other cures. In 1988 Torii found a few spontaneously diabetic rats. The company
then mated male and female siblings, and the incidence of diabetes in male rats
bred this way is now 90 per cent and rising. In three months, the rats run the
gamut of human diabetes, progressing through blindness and kidney failure before
dying.