Somehow, this brings to mind the beginning of a Stephen King movie.
First scene - Bill is over at a friend's on vacation, sniffling because of the friend's cat, reading the paper. Bill's eyes suddenly widen with excitement. Camera closes in on article he's reading on a firm that is selling cats who are genetically engineered to be hypo-allergenic by silencing the gene that creates the irritant that affects most people allergic to our feline friends.
Second scene - Bill turning over his money to the cat sellers and receiving his new bundle of joy. As Bill walks down the street, camera focuses on eyes of Kitty, which suddenly glow brilliant green.
Third scene - Kitty has cornered poor Bill after attacking in short order, the milkman, mailman and cute-little-kid-next-door.
By the way, just to be clear, the above is meant to be parody and I'm sure the kitties engineered by Allerca, Inc. won't actually turn out to be monsters. But it will be interesting to see if silencing the gene for the irritant (the glycoprotein Fel d 1) has any other effects on the cat (for instance, is it a signal to other animals?). I mean, the glycoprotein is produced by the cat for some reason - just for a shiny coat? It would be great if Allerca would publish some of the studies that show that the silencing of the gene won't harm the cat. I'm all for pushing the boundaries of research, but appreciate a little assurance that it doesn't make the animal more temperamental or aggressive (or nearly comatose in its docileness).
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