Well, if you need more incentive to consider why it's important to know where your food comes from - consider this:
FDA Is Set To Approve Milk, Meat From Clones
Three years after the Food and Drug Administration first hinted that it might permit the sale of milk and meat from cloned animals, prompting public reactions that ranged from curiosity to disgust, the agency is poised to endorse marketing of the mass-produced animals for public consumption.
The decision, expected by the end of this year, is based largely on new data indicating that milk and meat from cloned livestock and their offspring pose no unique risks to consumers."Our evaluation is that the food from cloned animals is as safe as the food we eat every day," said Stephen F. Sundlof, the FDA's chief of veterinary medicine, who has overseen the long-stalled risk assessment.
Farmers and companies that have been growing cloned barnyard animals from single cells in anticipation of a lucrative market say cloning will bring consumers a level of consistency and quality impossible to attain with conventional breeding, making perfectly marbled beef and reliably lean and tasty pork the norm on grocery shelves.
Continue reading article at the Washington Post...
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Oh, that is just so wrong! Now that is just going to actually make me have to get to know my farmer friend.
ReplyDeleteI need a dairy farmer, a meat farmer, a vegetable farmer. Oh yeah, and they all need moral values. Hmmmm....great, just something else to add to the mix.
Regina,
ReplyDeletewhat is your point?
I usually agree with your analysis.
But here I do not see an objective assessment. You seem to just assume that cloning is bad. Where is your evidence.
I think a greater concern should be the safety of the food supply in general.
I guess you could say I'm skeptical about the safety of the potential problems consuming cloned meat and milk may pose in human health - if you go to PubMed.com and search for meat, cloned and feeding, you find one study on rats over a period of 14-weeks....Fourteen-week feeding test of meat and milk derived from cloned cattle in the rat (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?CMD=search&DB=pubmed)
ReplyDeleteNothing on human trials, nothing on feeding trials over generation of animals eating cloned meat/milk, and nothing on feeding trials of generations of animals eating cloned meat/milk over generations of clone samples....almost every study I can find with search terms - meat and clone - point to this one study.
Do you know of any other studies done? I can find studies on nutrient profiles and analysis - but those don't tell us the effect of consuming these meats/milk over long periods of time. Am I missing something?
Regina,
ReplyDeleteWhy would you think that long term studies are needed for cloned animals? The bio chemistry is not altered in clones. I do not see any expectation that there should be a probem. If the original is safe to eat, the clone should be no different.
Theoretically.
ReplyDeleteBut what if that theory is wrong?
What if, over generations of clones, inter-breeding of clones, and fiddling with the DNA in an effort to improve it even more - something goes terribly wrong?
What if we don't realize something is wrong for a generation or two of our children consuming such foods?
In this case, I'd personally rather see "precautionary principle" applied here - a proceed with caution in the regulations, if you will - something simple and easy even - a label perhaps?
And now, here's possibly more. According to ABC news, there is currently NO law prohibiting the sale of cloned meat or milk, so there's a chance it's already out there. This ruling would require that the food at least be labeled as being from cloned animals.
ReplyDeleteDo you know if there's any truth to this?