According to an independent evaluation, regulations enabling the production of gene-edited agricultural animals must prioritize animal welfare. Scientists can use this technology to add specific traits to DNA, such as disease resistance. The UK government is considering proposals to allow commercial gene-edited animal production in the country. According to an independent report, the government’s planned legislation for the technology should be amended. The Nuffield Council for Bioethics has issued a report warning that scrapping the current ban on commercial gene-edited animal production could lead to increased livestock suffering. The council’s assistant director, Peter Mills, who was the driving force behind the report, says the government’s proposal to dismiss the current prohibitions “effectively takes the brakes off the capacity for breeders to advance their breeding programmes”. The process of adding new DNA sequences to a living organism’s complete set of genes, removing existing ones, or changing them is known as gene editing. Randomly transferring a gene from another organism into another living species was a common practice in previous types of genetic engineering.