posted on December 28, 2006 02:40:28 PM new
If this helps feed the hungry in this World good, but an old buck like me will have to get used to eating cloned food. How do you guys and gals feel about cloning for food?
FDA OKs Food From Cloned Animals
Thursday, December 28, 2006 12:05 PM EST
The Associated Press
By LIBBY QUAID
WASHINGTON (AP) — The government declared Thursday that food from cloned animals is safe to eat. After more than five years of study, the Food and Drug Administration concluded that cloned livestock is "virtually indistinguishable" from conventional livestock.
FDA believes "that meat and milk from cattle, swine and goat clones is as safe to eat as the food we eat every day," said Stephen F. Sundlof, director of the FDA Center for Veterinary Medicine.
Officials said they don't think special labels are needed, although a decision on labeling is pending.
Because scientists concluded there is no difference between food from clones and food from other animals, "it would be unlikely that FDA would require labeling in those cases," Sundlof said.
Final approval is still months away; the agency will accept comments from the public for the next three months.
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.
However, FDA scientists said that by the time clones reached 6 to 18 months of age, they are virtually indistinguishable from conventionally bred animals.
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."
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 with such food in a September poll by the Pew Initiative on Food and Biotechnology, a nonpartisan research group.
posted on December 28, 2006 02:50:38 PM new
The sheep, pigs and poultry in the market these days are so intensively back-bred for specific characteristics that they are effectively only about a half step away from being clones themselves anyhow. There won't be any effective difference between cloned animals and the ones most people are already eating. I'm not saying it's a good thing. You won't catch me eating that stuff or feeding it to anybody I care about, but the fact that anybody who eats grocery store poultry, pork or lamb is in a dither about this just shows their own ignorance of where their food comes from presently. Besides, this is all hypthetical, as cloned beasties today cost WAY to much to produce to sell for meat. In addition, this is the biotech companies pushing this concept. I don't see meat producers jumping on it anytime soon.
I think people who eat meat ought to know where it comes from and be willing to watch it die. But then I'm old, cranky and unrealistic, and plan to stay this way.
posted on December 28, 2006 11:53:51 PM new
Have a friend who thinks it's just terrible that I allow the poor little deer to be shot on my land.....but she sure enjoys a big ol' burger !!!
If anyone is worried about eating cloned anything maybe they should start researching what they're eating now!!!!
When ya read the list of ingredients and see the word "aspartame" and ya eat it anyway...you're killing yourself. Plain old refined white sugar is a health food compared to aspartame....it's poison approved by Reagan and his criminal colleagues.
I feel 100% better and less hungry since quitting the "Diet":-Coke habit. YES, aspartame makes you HUNGRY and it's in so many sweetened "diet" foods!
posted on December 29, 2006 01:38:27 AM new
By not requiring mandatory labeling of all cloned food, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has basically killed off the export market for U.S.A. meat products. Most major markets require "truth in labeling" as foreign consumers do want the ability to distinguish between "real" and "cloned" food, just as they currently can between organic and non-organically produced, or GM and regular. There's a reason GM is banned in many markets. Expect to see the same mess with cloned - thanks to the FDA.
posted on December 29, 2006 08:46:16 AM newIf anyone is worried about eating cloned anything maybe they should start researching what they're eating now!!!!
You all are way behind in the times. You already eat cloned food. Virtually all vegetables sold today are clones. Is anyone getting sick from eating cloned food? Haven't heard of one case yet. To me, this is really a non-story.
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"Unfortunately there are levels of Stupid that just can't be cured!!" The new Demomoron motto.
posted on December 29, 2006 01:18:35 PM newVirtually all vegetables sold today are clones
Wrong. Lots of landscape plants and trees, inlcuding fruit trees are clones, but virtually all vegetables sold today are hybrid varieties, not clones. Vegetable cloning is different than animal cloning. In vegetable cloning, a new plant is grown from a cutting of a parent plant. Most vegetable crops are grown from seed, which is not cloning as it is understood in a botanical sense.
posted on December 29, 2006 08:17:56 PM new
Profe--This Long Island girl has learned so much from you regarding agriculture and livestock. To think my little basil and tomato garden in the back yard has been my idea of farming up to now.
posted on January 2, 2007 09:21:37 PM new
They become hybrids by cross pollinating related species stone. It has nothing to do with cloning. You're mistaken, or intentionally wrong for all I know. Cloned animals and hybrid plants are NOT the same thing, no matter how much you want them to be.
Are YOU a Bunghole?