F.D.A. Says Food From Cloned Animals Is Safe
After years of debate, the Food and Drug Administration on Tuesday declared that food from cloned animals and their progeny was safe, removing the last government hurdle before meat and milk derived from copies of prize dairy cows and superior hogs can be sold at grocery stores.
The decision comes more than four years after the agency tentatively declared that food from cloned animals was safe, only to face a backlash of criticism from consumer groups and some scientists who said the science supporting the decision was shaky.
On Tuesday, the F.D.A. declared that further studies had confirmed its earlier decision.
“Following extensive review, the risk assessment did not identify any unique risks for human food from cattle, swine or goat clones, and concluded that there is sufficient information to determine that food from cattle, swine and goat clones is as safe to eat as that from their more conventionally-bred counterparts,” the agency said in a statement.
The F.D.A. ruling was a major victory for cloning companies, which hope to use the cloned animals primarily for breeding purposes, selling copies of prize dairy cows, steers and hogs.
Consumer groups and some members of Congress have fought the decision, arguing that there was still not enough science to support such a decision.
It remains to be seen how widely the technology will be adopted. Interest from the food industry has been tepid, with some companies declaring that they will not sell milk or meat from cloned animals or their offspring.
Even if the technology is widely adopted, it is unlikely that clones themselves will wind up on grocery shelves, since they cost thousands of dollars apiece to produce. A limited amount of milk from cloned cows might be sold, but mostly it would be meat and milk from second- and third-generation offspring of clones that would enter the food supply.
Dolly is the first cloned animal.
When scientists explain the practice of cloning livestock, they describe clones as genetic twins born at different times. Cloning companies say it’s just another reproductive technology, such as artificial insemination.
Here is how cloning works:
Scientists take an immature egg, usually from a cow that went to the slaughterhouse, and remove the nucleus. They add DNA from a donor cow, often taken from the skin cell of an ear, and a tiny electric shock coaxes the egg to start dividing and grow into a copy of the original animal. The egg is then implanted into a surrogate animal for gestation and birth.
The first mammal cloned from an adult cell was Dolly the sheep in 1997.
Dolly was euthanized in 2003 at the age of 6, well short of her normal lifespan, after developing a progressive lung disease.
Posted on January 15, 2008 at 11:14 AM | Previous Entry | Next Entry | Entry List | Email Entry | Digg
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There are 6 total comments about this entry. The most recent comment was posted 5 months, 1 week ago...
This is good news. Definitely on point for those who can’t afford nutritious food in their diets.
Its not the lack of food that causes world hunger. There is more than enough food for all humans.
I don’t trust this. In Europe, they label everything that is genetically grown not only that, you can see where it came from and how it got there.
Example: T bone steak, got packed in England, was sent to Barcelona, 2 days later was shipped to Paris and got delivered to Amsterdam today.
We need to get on that here in North America but it seems little of us care. I would not eat it if I knew it was genetically grown, would you?
The FDA wouldn’t let something harmful go out to market, regardless of what the fear-mongers and conspiracy theorists say. I think this is extremely beneficial in that more people have access to better food. I think an overarching issue that should be addressed is the shitty diets Americans have. It would be great to see that European system that you speak of, Mr. Maps, but I doubt many would bat an eye to it. Bottom line is, if these genetically grown products are comparable with farm gown products, it really wouldn’t hurt. Besides, anything is better than the shitty, processed food that’s packed full of preservatives which we see too many people eating.
One in four farmboys has sex with animals…
The FDA does and will let harmful drugs and or food into the markets. Most testing is done by the industry, which then submits the results to the FDA for approval. Cloning animals will not solve world hunger, not even close. Most food that is grown in the world is used to feed animals, not people.
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End to world hunger maybes?