FDA set to OK food from cloned animals
 

FDA set to OK food from cloned animals

WASHINGTON - The government has decided that food from cloned animals is safe to eat and does not require special labeling.

The Food and Drug Administration planned to brief industry groups in advance of an announcement Thursday morning. The FDA indicated it would approve cloned livestock in a scientific journal article published online earlier this month.

Consumer groups say labels are a must, because surveys have shown people to be uncomfortable with the idea of cloned livestock.

However, FDA concluded that cloned animals are "virtually indistinguishable" from conventional livestock and that no identification is needed to judge their safety for the food supply.

"Meat and milk from clones and their progeny is as safe to eat as corresponding products derived from animals produced using contemporary agricultural practices," FDA scientists Larisa Rudenko and John C. Matheson wrote in the Jan. 1 issue of Theriogenology.

Labels should only be used if the health characteristics of a food are significantly altered by how it is produced, said Barb Glenn of the Biotechnology Industry Organization.

"The bottom line is, we don't want to misinform consumers with some sort of implied message of difference," Glenn said. "There is no difference. These foods are as safe as foods from animals that are raised conventionally."

Critics of cloning say the verdict is still out on the safety of food from cloned animals.

"Consumers are going to be having a product that has potential safety issues and has a whole load of ethical issues tied to it, without any labeling," said Joseph Mendelson, legal director of the Center for Food Safety.

Carol Tucker Foreman, director of food policy at the Consumer Federation of America, said the FDA is ignoring research that shows cloning results in more deaths and deformed animals than other reproductive technologies.

The consumer federation will ask food companies and supermarkets to refuse to sell food from clones, she said.

"Meat and milk from cloned animals have no benefit for consumers, and consumers don't want them in their foods," Foreman said.

The FDA scientists wrote that by the time clones reached 6 to 18 months of age, they were virtually indistinguishable from conventionally bred animals.

Final approval of cloned animals for food is months away; the FDA will accept comments from the public after issuing a draft risk assessment on Thursday.

Those in favor of the technology say it would be used primarily for breeding and not for steak or pork tenderloin.

Cloning lets farmers and ranchers make copies of exceptional animals, such as pigs that fatten rapidly or cows that are superior milk producers.

"It's not a genetically engineered animal; no genes have been changed or moved or deleted," Glenn said. "It's simply a genetic twin that we can then use for future matings to improve the overall health and well-being of the herd."

Thus, consumers would mostly get food from their offspring and not the clones themselves, Glenn said.

Still, some clones would eventually end up in the food supply. As with conventional livestock, a cloned bull or cow that outlived its usefulness would probably wind up at a hamburger plant, and a cloned dairy cow would be milked during her breeding years.

That's unlikely to happen soon, because FDA officials have asked farmers and cloning companies since 2001 to voluntarily keep clones and their offspring out of the food supply. The informal ban would remain in place for several months while FDA accepts comments from the public.

Approval of cloned livestock has taken five years because of pressure from big food companies nervous that consumers might reject milk and meat from cloned animals.

To produce a clone, the nucleus of a donor egg is removed and replaced with the DNA of a cow, pig or other animal. A tiny electric shock coaxes the egg to grow into a copy of the original animal. Cloning companies say it's just another reproductive technology, such as artificial insemination, yet there can be differences between the two because of chance and environmental influences.

Some surveys have shown people to be uncomfortable with food from cloned animals; 64 percent said they were uncomfortable in a September poll by the Pew Initiative on Food and Biotechnology, a nonpartisan research group.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061228/...sc/cloned_food

Wow, I didn't even know it was an issue. A clone is pretty much the same thing as a twin... nothing spooky about it.

I keep losing more and more faith in the FDA.
WTF are they thinking this time?

so what if a cow has the mad cow disease and its cloned 500 times?

cloned veggies are already so so imho but animals? no thanks

Eating a cloned animal isn't the scary part...it is when you start eating clone's of clone's.

I can't wait!

By year 2100, they will be selling home food cloning kits by pfizer.

The FDA and the federal government would have us eating Soilant Green if it put more cash in their pockets. We are the laboratory rats for the rich -- don't EVER forget that. If you want to willingly ingest the latest pseudo-food, I think you're a complete crackpot, but I'm sure you'll please the rich billionaires who are always looking for cheaper ways to make food for the labour force so they can make even more more cash from us.

I eat ORGANIC everything! Reject the Man! Real food for Real People!

i personally don't have a problem with eating cloned animals. Consider all the other shit we put in/on our bodies and imho cloned cheeseburgers is the least of the things we should be worried about.

But I disagree about the no labels thing. Eating clones would probably be against some ones moral/religious beliefs so imo meat from clones should definately be labeld

remember the terminator gene that was being put into GM crops so they couldn't just reproduce and reproduce without a new supply having to be bought? Wonder if they are going to try to put that into cows.

what if a cow has mad cow disease and infects 500 cows? why do you think animals arent monitored for disease?

There is an organic beef farm near here where you can buy a cow and have it cut like you want. I'm seriously thinking of buying one......my grandfather had a cattle ranch long before the steroids and stuff was used and it was better beef than I've tasted since. Of course, maybe 24 hours from field to table might have had a bit to do with it ;)

Actually I think at least at this point that would not even be a issue. For cloning they will only use the best of the best. So what ever they clone will get the shit tested out of it.

Personally the whole cloning thing doesn't bug me because your more likely to die because of the steroids and all the other shit they pump in the animals these days. As well as the preservatives they pump into everything.

Sadly, two facts:

(a) If there is a dollar, some folks will want to chase that dollar - it's an inbred sickness, usually based on sheer greed.

(b) Anything with a three character name can't be trusted - they operate on the same level as child abusers and serial killers - some of them are actually killers and complete with that track record.

Sure, overall there could be a positive side to any story - it's hard to see it here. There will be the usual expected spin oozing high standards and moral concerns - "quality controlled production" and "feeding the world" bullshit. That hoss don't run.

Agree with MaskTVMaura. You want beef? Breed cattle. Food processors (processor is the keyword) need to quit trying to be a greedy smartasses squeezing that extra dime by purveying "pseudo-food". There is enough of that crap on the market already.

I wouldn't mind eating cloned meat, but it would be nice to require labeling.

Yummm, cloneburgers!
:1orglaugh

Wait does this mean if I get a real damn good steak I can like order that same exact steak again and it be litterally the same damn steak?

C'mon. There's aboslutely nothing wrong with it.

I wish they could clone a steak or cheeseburger without the animal having to live and grow first!

Personally I think I would stay away from cloned meat. Just a bit too weird for me

have you ever tried a Buy One, Take One promo?

sounds good to me.

Let FDA eat that food ... not me.

Is it really that bad? We've been eating cloned and hybrid fruit and vegtables for years.

you guys are fucking retarded if you think cloned meat is any lesser or higher in quality. it's the exact same thing, more often than not - clone meat is BETTER because it is CORRECTLY engineered and free from disease.

think about it you dipshits, cloned meat could result in better health.

thinkx - why would they clone contaminated meat?

this is a huge deal, and its important we can go through with it... if you have a problem with cloned meat, don't eat it. but you'll DEF see me stocking up on the good cloned meat :D this is great.

there would be no difference between cloned or uncloned meat.
A cloned cow could be organic too, just depends on what they are fed.
I say go for it, if it will bring down the price of meat.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/1741559.stm

Dolly the cloned sheep has arthritis according to one of the scientists involved in her creation.

Professor Ian Wilmut, a member of the team at the Roslin Institute in Edinburgh, said the condition may have arisen because of genetic defects caused by the cloning process.

you're an idiot.

And this has to do with processed meat how? After the cloned animal is dead and it has been properly processed eating it will be no different than eating the meat from a 'bred' animal. Any mutations that would have showed up later in life are of no concern to you the consumer because the animal would have been killed and processed LONG before any mutations were to arise. In fact it should be much healthier and ultimately more humane -- once they can get to the point of cloning the animals body w/o a brain there will be no more pain inflicted upon them.

go ahead and eat your cloned meat - i don't care! :1orglaugh

Thankfully at the moment they are not requiring or recommending them to label the cloned meat as cloned meat, so what you get at the store may or may not be cloned. That way it's a bit of a ?mystery meat? to us meat eaters out there. :thumbsup

"The agency said it would be unlikely to recommend special labels for food made from clones, which are genetic twins of donor animals, but would not decide on the labeling issue until it collects comments from the public over the next 90 days."

Let's just hope they keep to that mantra and that the 'public' outcry isn't too large on a relatively retarded issue.

i think most people around here would eat sausages stuffed with genital warts and testicular tumors if they could so good luck with that! :thumbsup

Man you have some fucked up people in your area lol. Worst I've seen here is people eating bull penis.

*sigh*.... reminds me of the motherland.

just so they don't start cloning you clowns.
one of you in this world is enough.

as a kid I worked summers in my grandmothers slaughterhouse, you have no idea what you are eating.
what goes on in a slaughterhouse has got to be seen to be believed.

Who cares. Jesus, people get scared about the stupidest shit. It's usually these very same people who have absolutely zero knowledge about what they are scared of.

What if a cow with Mad Cow gets cloned 500 times... LOL use your head, they don't take a fucking axe and split the cow in two and say "There, you've been cloned".