UNITED STATES: The Food and Drug Administration says meat and
milk products from cloned animals and their offspring are safe to eat.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has released a draft risk assessment declaring meat and milk products from cloned animals and their offspring are safe.

The FDA also said that it has not made a final decision about labeling, but that meat and milk from cloned animals are “virtually indistinguishable” from conventional livestock so there does not appear to be a health-related reason to require labeling.  The agency said it had reviewed hundreds of studies in preparing the risk assessment, which has now been peer reviewed.

The FDA says there will be a 90-day comment period on the risk assessment and that “this is the beginning of our interaction with the public.”  During the comment period and the period following it when FDA analyzes feedback, a voluntary moratorium on the sale of meat and milk from cloned animals will remain in place.

The final version of the FDA's cloning risk assessment can be seen online here.

ViaGen, a livestock cloning company based in Austin, Texas, released a statement from its president, Mark Walton, Ph.D., following the FDA announcement.

“We applaud the U.S. FDA on its rigorous analysis of all existing science related to the use of cloning as a breeding tool.  This must be one of the most exhaustive food safety analysis ever done,” said Walton.  “The risk assessment offers more than a thousand pages of details on hundreds of studies conducted over several decades and many generations of animals.  Since 2003, the FDA has added over 135,000 data points to its consideration of the safety of meat and milk from the offspring of clones. We welcome the long-awaited risk assessment.”

ViaGen has set up a website that provides more information about cloning.  It can be seen here.

Here's another interesting Web page regarding cloning at the Federation of Animal Science Societies.  Check out this link.

 

AMI RESPONDS TO CLONED MEAT DECISION

UNITED STATES:  The American Meat Institute says it agrees with
the FDA’s decision to allow cloned meat into the human food supply.

The president of the American Meat Institute (AMI), James H. Hodges, issued a statement about the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) decision to allow meat and milk products from cloned animals and their offspring into the human food supply.

Hodges said, “Consumers should be reassured that the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) risk assessment on animal cloning, like other studies that have preceded it, affirms the safety of food products derived from animal clones and their offspring.”

He went on to say, “We agree with the report's conclusion that the meat and milk from cloned animals are the same as those from conventional animals.  In our view, cloning is part of the evolution of breeding practices and technology that has significant potential to improve the quality of food products derived from animals.”

Hodge’s statement also addresses consumer concerns about eating products from cloned animals.  He said, “We believe that FDA should be cautious about allowing meat and milk from cloned animals to be introduced into the marketplace if most consumers are unwilling to accept the technology.  We urge the government not simply to affirm its safety in the policy arena, but to assist consumers in understanding what cloning is, and what it is not, so that overall consumer confidence in the food supply is maintained.”

Web posted: January 1, 2007

 

Now for Ted Slanker's Commentary . . .

The Truth of the Matter

A significant number of Americans, not all by any means, are already concerned about "what's in the food?"  Now the FDA is telling us that cloned meats are good too.

For a fact the FDA is probably right.  Cloned meats can't be any different than the meats of the natural animals that were cloned.  But the idea of it all plays into the hands of the vegetarians, animal rights advocates, environmentalists, and food scare mongers who spread unsubstantiated horror stories by the score about our nation's "dangerous" food system.  Lots of folks believe all the nonsense and that detracts from the real substantiated facts regarding what is and what is not nutritional food that is fit to eat.

Yes, the story about the most damaging aspect of the American food system (grain and grain-based foods) remains hidden by a smoke screen of concerns for hormones, antibiotics, preservatives, agricultural chemicals, irradiated meats, animal rights, religious taboos, and now cloning.

It's sure strange how folks can focus on things that are not all that harmful while totally ignoring that which are most harmful.

For much more on this please check out our Science Links Webpage and you'll see.  Also our Omega-3 Essay page is loaded with information about what is and is not the proper food for man.