The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued its long-awaited “final risk assessment” and the agency spokesman said that "meat and milk from cattle, swine and goat clones are as safe as food we eat every day." With the release of the safety report, the FDA lifted regulatory barriers that would keep cloned food out of the mouths and off the tables of U.S. consumers.
At the same time—in fact, at the same press conference—officials from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) asked U.S. farmers for a “voluntary moratorium,” urging them to keep cloned animals off the market indefinitely. The agency said consumers in the United States and abroad would need time to accept the idea of food from cloned animals "given the emotional nature of this issue."
The seemingly mixed message isn’t quite as divisive as it sounds. Both agencies agree that food from cloned animals is safe for consumers, but government officials are concerned about the effect of cloning on U.S. markets and trade relations.
And then there are the other issues. Critics of cloning have raised moral, religious and ethical questions about the practice, but the FDA report only addresses the science of eating food from cloned animals while the USDA is focused on the economics.
Ironically, the whole question may be moot, because there is strong evidence that U.S. consumers are already eating food derived from cloned animals and their offspring.
Executives at the major cattle cloning companies confessed that clone offspring have entered the food supply already—and they have no idea how many—despite the previous FDA ban on food from cloned animals. And U.S. meat producers have been buying semen from prize-winning cloned cattle.
"This is a fairy tale that this technology is not being used and is not already in the food chain," said Donald Coover, a Kansas cattle breeder and veterinarian, in an interview with the Washington Post. "Anyone who tells you otherwise either doesn't know what they're talking about, or they're not being honest."
Media coverage:
- FDA Says Clones Are Safe For Food – Washington Post
- USDA Recommends That Food From Clones Stay Off the Market – Washington Post
- What’s for Dinner? Genetically Modified Foods
- Would You Eat a Cloned Animal?-- Kathy Gill, US Politics and Current Events
- FDA Gives Final Okay to Food From Cloned Animals – Robert Longley, US Government Info
- How Does Eating Locally Grown Food Help the Environment?
- Can Organic Farming End World Hunger?
Comments
“Food companies are highly sensitive to the implications of cloned foods. Several of them, including retail chain Whole Foods Market (WFMI), milk producer Dean Foods (DF), and ice-cream maker Ben & Jerry’s, have said they won’t accept food products from cloned animals.”*
*By Pallavi Gogoi
Business Week Online
January 15, 2008
http://www.wholefoodsmarket.com
NO, NO, NO!!! I do not want to eat cloned meat nor do I want the FDA pushing it down my throat with no choice in the matter!! I don’t trust the FDA one little bit because they allow the drug companies to do their own testing before a drug is put on the market plus they are spread so thin these days due to budget cuts that they are doing a terrible job. So when they tell me that cloned meat is safe I would have to say – “I DO NOT BELIEVE YOU!!!!!”
I think that gov’t. inspetion standards
have been so lowerd by Republicans, and the Bush admin.(specifically), to wear down the public, to empower gov, (more).
Thank God, WE have the RIGHT to depose
bad gov’t.!!!!
I do not want to eat cloned meat or drink cloned milk and there is no way, on the face of this earth, does anybody in their right mind trust the FDA or the idiot in Washinton that is behind this whole mess. I will go vegan first before anything is forced on me I don’t want.
I do not want to eat cloned foods. I do NOT trust the FDA at this point. Companies that do not use cloned food will make a fortune if they are allowed to label their products. Consumers will vote with their purchases.
Why I ate my brother??
help us all. There is no reason to trust the FDA or USDA on any criteria. These are government agengies with lobbyists as supporters.
Would you go hunting with Cheyney. Maybe the perfect plcae for cloned animals is “Hunting Parks” designed to be used by politicians.
Is there anyway that I could link to this post?
How would you know whether you’re eating it or not? They’ve told so many lies in the past it’s hard for me to believe they’d come clean on this money maker!! You have to ask who stands to profit most from this action. Certainly not the consumers.
This is the same FDA that approves the drugs that cause death in this country! They put their seal of approval on those drugs only to recall them later after many deaths have been reported. I can’t wait to see what happens when cloned food starts causing a problem. Thanks but no thanks to cloned food! We’ll be keeping Bessie off our dinner plates now on!