FDA: Clones Are Safe to Eat
That does it, folks: As was expected last week, The FDA today officially declared certain cloned livestock safe to eat. From the L.A. Times:
Initially, only a small amount of steaks, pork and dairy products derived from clones will become available in grocery stores. But over the next three to five years—after ranchers have time to clone their most prized animals and those clones are able to breed—the products will become routine on store shelves, industry executives said.
Cloned cattle, pigs, and goats are aces to eat, the agency said, but as for cloned sheep—well, there's not enough info regarding them or other species for the government to OK. So put down your knives and forks if you were waiting for cloned lamb, chickens, or—I don't know—squirrel.
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24 Comments:
I posted on my personal blog about this long ago. it didn't seem right to me then and it doesn't seem right to me now. :(
aloshas's kitchen
alosha7777 at 6:23PM on 01/15/08
great, now not only will we have to pay more for non-hormone, non-antibiotic, and natural fed meats, i'm sure we will have to pay more for non cloned. we live in a perverted world. thanks a lot, capitalism!
seyo at 6:30PM on 01/15/08
I'm all for naturally raised, hormone- and antibiotic-free meats, but seriously, why is cloning so bad? Does having a mommy AND a daddy pig make it that much better?
The innate makeup of an animal is in its DNA. If the DNA is the same, the makeup is the same. How that animal is treated during its life makes much more of a difference...
rheogs at 6:41PM on 01/15/08
rheogs, because scientists simply do not have the capacity to know if that's all there is to it. They simply don't know enough about cloning, or the makeup of food in general, to really know if it's safe. The Center for Food Safety put it most succinctly in saying, "Any safety conclusions are based more on faith than science."
The part that's the most disturbing to me is that cloned meat in the supermarkets will most likely not be labeled as such. So those of us who chose to avoid it will have a hard time unless we know the source of our meat and dairy products. They might allow products that are not cloned to be labeled as such, but maybe not! Typical FDA kneeling down to agribusiness.
Tactful_Cactus at 7:50PM on 01/15/08
@tactful
We have been messing with our food since we took down the first animal with a spear. If the "Center for Food Safety" was around when we start cooking our food over fire I am sure they would of moved to ban the practice and insist we "need to study it further." Center for Food Safety is not against cloned meat because of lack of information - they are against it period. Science is -never- going to know "all there is to it." That is the point of science in the first place. Which is to acquire knowledge through study or practice. Its a process. So far the only arguments I hear against GE Food and clone animals are not based on science but emotion (or in the case of small farmers - economics.)
Now I agree with you that "corporatism" is a vexing problem in the American society and I also agree with you about the need for vastly improved labeling. But I also believe that science has made us healthier and live longer than ever in our history. And that will continue to happen - not by burying our heads in the sand but rushing forward with new techniques and ideas.
bravian at 8:55PM on 01/15/08
First, I am no more worried about the effects of eating a cloned animal (or what is more likely here, the offspring of a cloned animal) than I am of eating an avocado that was grown from a Hass sprig grafted to a non-Hass root. I understand that there are technical differences here, but as will often be pointed out in this debate, drawing the line on the definition of "natural" is fuzzy at best. Selective breeding, artificial insemination, there are cases to be made against both of those too.
My argument on the cloning issue is that a reduction in diversity of livestock is fundamentally bad because variety is the spice of life. We value live music, and art and even hand made furniture for its uniqueness. It is one of a kind and that is a selling point. So why have I only ever drank milk from Holsteins when as a kid there used to be a popular chocolate called "Jersey Milk". Why do we only eat Leghorn chickens? Orpingtons look tasty too. Angus beef, although almost a buzzword, is a step in the right direction, but where are the rest of the breeds I want to eat?
drastic at 10:12PM on 01/15/08
I just don't know, it all sounds too "Twilight Zone" for me. I'm sure that technically there might be nothing wrong with it but I agree that this just opens the market for non-cloned beef to be advertised as such and cost three times as much.
RichardCrystal at 8:36AM on 01/16/08
Thank you drastic for taking the words right out of my mouth! It's about diversity. Look what happens to our fruit and vegetables when we focus on keeping only one line of the best. After time it begins to lose it's flavor and integrity. Thus the big push for heirlooms as an example.
If we know that simply letting a bird run around and be wild can effect the flavor of it's eggs- why not even entertain the idea that carbon copying it's DNA might also have an impact?
TemperedWoman at 9:46AM on 01/16/08
It's not just about flavor, it's about nutritional value.
seyo at 10:28AM on 01/16/08
I just used the website rallycongress.com to write letters to all my congresspeople. Pretty simple process, only took 3 minutes. If you have a strong opinion, i encourage you to shoot off an email.
mh330 at 11:18AM on 01/16/08
i wanna see someone do a nutritional value comparison and then also a blind taste test.
so they clone a good mommy cow and a good daddy cow, and they keep pumping out good steaks or whatever. does it bother people less if farmers got cloned mommy 2 and cloned daddy 2 to have babies. then you interbreed the kids to produce something else?
all i'm saying is, the number of combinations farmers can come up with is infinite. and at some point it bothers us more than others.
it's like mp3s. was it ok back in the 80s to make a casette mix tape for a friend? burn a cd for a neighbor? what if if you download an album illegally that you already own? what if you lost the copy that you own?
running through all the possible combinations of cloned animals or cloned + naturally bred, or cloned offspring + naturally bred or cloned offspring + cloned offspring or whatever.
i think we need more info, but also, there are those who wait for more info with skepticism, and those who wait with optimism.
foodinmouth at 11:24AM on 01/16/08
The problem is, there IS NO WAITING. This stuff is going to hit the store shelves in the next couple years. Your analogy to mix tapes is moronic. You dont EAT mix tapes. We dont yet know the long term repercussions of eating this stuff. And when I mean long term, i mean like 20 or 30 years. GMO and cloned foods are basically gambling with the most important aspect of our lives. And I find it reprehensible and irresponsible that the government would allow industry to to take these risks with our lives and the environment without any real knowledge of the implications. And as usual, poor people will be the guinea pigs for this experiment.
seyo at 11:33AM on 01/16/08
Fear of cloning is born of ignorance. Either people just "don't know" about it, or they're worried that whomever said it's safe is ignorant.
Would I eat cloned beef? Sure. I'm unlikely to pay the big bucks for it though since cloned bulls and cows for breeding are more likely than cloned stock for meat.
The "solution" if you view this as a problem is simple. Only eat beef you know isn't cloned. If there's a market for it, there will be producers raising beef that's "certified non-cloned". Just as milk ( and Ben&Jerry's ice cream) might have the "BHT free" label, producers are free to create their own requirements beyond what the FDA or USDA mandate.
The government doesn't mandate that all meat be organic, free range, pastured or fed vegetarian diets. That doesn't stop meat with any or all of those various raising methods to be used. Best to think of gov't requirements to result in something that "probably won't kill you right away", and use your own set of requirements to dictate what you eat.
The FDA saying it's safe just means that one set of fearmongers aren't dictating what someone else gets to eat. It doesn't mean those who don't want to have to eat it.
IdeaRat at 11:48AM on 01/16/08
The average person who has a tenuous at best grasp of science hears the word "clone" and thinks of bad sci-fi movies where the clone is always evil.
In reality it's so much more benign. To say "Cloned meat is evil!" is scientifically no different than saying "this cow's identical twin (born naturally) is evil!"
The comments about lack of genetic diversity are the only appropriately logical criticism to cloned meat. Any fear of nutritional or safety issues is a purely ignorant, emotional response
rheogs at 1:16PM on 01/16/08
drastic, thank you for expressing all those points. I'm deeply concerned about the same issues, and did not even mention it in my comments.
bravian, you're absolutely right: we have been messing with our food for centuries. We honed in on crops and messed with their genes in more "natural" way to produce the quickest growing, longest lasting, most easily transportable, insect resistant crops for decades... and only now are scientists beginning to recognize the essential nutrients and protective properties we accidentally bred out of those crops.
If people choose to eat cloned meat, so be it. But, IdeaRat, your solution isn't so easily viable, because if CAFOs and the FDA get their way, not only will cloned meat not be labeled as such, but producers who don't clone their meat will not be able to label theirs as "not cloned" either, so the only way the consumer will have a choice is to research farms go directly to the farm, which would be a difficult process for most consumers.
Tactful_Cactus at 1:27PM on 01/16/08
Well, This is just one more reason not to eat beef...
diamath at 3:57PM on 01/16/08
I'd love to know where this rumor came from that a farmer couldn't label their product as "not cloned". That would really surprise me. We're actually better off not having official labels that can be co-opted like "Free Range"
I'd also argue that knowing where your food comes from is not viable. It's always viable, just too much trouble for most people. The reason there aren't more small farms doing things differently is for lack of customers. The beef and pork from the factory farms is cheaper partly since they have the volume, people choose cheap over better. The more people willing to hunt down local sources for their food, the more the market will be there and the more there will be farmers to fill the need.
This is still a consumer run society. There's less small farms selling chickens, eggs, milk and such because people stopped buying from them and ran to the supermarket instead. At the time it might not have been a bad decision since then the supermarket was selling the same thing, but factory farms have changed that.
Someone above mentioned sending some email blurb to their federal representatives. There's someone who doesn't get it. When it comes to food you vote with your wallet and your shopping bag. Anyone who relies on the US government to pick their food out for them deserves the food that was picked. Only the people who choose to decide themselves what they eat will really get what they want.
IdeaRat at 4:29PM on 01/16/08
"This is still a consumer run society."
Not true. This is a corporate run society, with enormous government welfare subsidies for corporations in every industry, especially industrial farming.
seyo at 4:43PM on 01/16/08
Idea rat, regarding your question about the labeling "rumor", here it is straight from the horse's mouth (FDA.gov):
The agency is not requiring labeling or any other additional measures for food from cattle, swine, and goat clones, or their offspring because food derived from these sources is no different from food derived from conventionally bred animals. Should a producer express a desire for voluntary labeling (e.g., "this product is clone-free"), it will be considered on a case-by-case basis to ensure compliance with statutory requirements that labeling be truthful and not misleading."
That is left open for far too much interpretation by the FDA, who always make their decisions in favor of Big Food.
I agree with everything you say about voting with your pocketbook. I, currently, get my meat and dairy from a total of five sources, each of which I have researched. But to think that it's viable that the general consumer has the time, inclination or resources to do the same is naive. I feel very lucky to be blessed with the resources I have to make these choices. Not everyone can (or knows how to) vote with their pockets.
...in the mean time, have you ever looked at the regulations that the FDA has imposed in regard to packaging, processing and selling meat? It is incredibly difficult for a small farm to even make it possible to sell meat and dairy directly to the consumer. Without a local co-op that labels its meat by producer, a lot of consumers will just be SOL.
Tactful_Cactus at 5:28PM on 01/16/08
Rheog, regarding your comment "To say "Cloned meat is evil!" is scientifically no different than saying "this cow's identical twin (born naturally) is evil!"". I say not true!
If you read the LA Times article linked above that started this whole comments thread, you'd note this quote:
"Clones are more likely to die in utero or shortly after birth and to have birth defects. They also pose a risk to their surrogates because they tend to be larger than their naturally conceived counterparts."
I don't believe that the same is true of identical cow twins.
The problem with all this is that the two LOOK the same and scientifically seem the same, but clearly aren't, yet science has no idea what causes the differences. In the same way, we have no idea what the effects will be on the human body or what they will be 20 years down the road.
mh330 at 7:58PM on 01/16/08
I don't consider it an onerous requirement that if you put "clone free" on your package that it must be truthful. I'm sure the clone-o-phobes wouldn't want that label to be put on cloned beef, so like with every other label now, there is a requirement that it be true.
So it's just a plain false statement that farmers will not be able to label their meat as not being the product of a clone.
IdeaRat at 11:46AM on 01/18/08
It still seems that no one is really looking at the serious potential for financial catastrophe intrinsic in uniformity.
I know that there is no difference between a cloned animal and its parent--I have a very biology-heavy background--but I also know that the more uniform a herd is, the more vulnerable it is to being wiped out in one stroke by something to which every single herd-member has inadequate resistance.
If cloning becomes the prevailing trend of the future, one unfortunate pathogen could drive meat prices sky-high for any given family of livestock. In order to prevent this, or prevent a recurrence, antibiotics would need to be very heavily employed, since genetic engineering (to enhance resistance) is a no guarantee against the effects of pathogens that have not yet made their presence felt. Heavy antibiotic use in farming has already been linked to the proliferation of antibiotic resistant bacteria, and this affects the human population at every socio-economic level; if you have antibiotic resistant pneumonia or the like, you're in trouble, regardless of how good your health-care provider, insurance or financial resources are.
I admit that for me, the 'Frankenbeast' question is, in and of itself, a non-issue (although my subjective aesthetic preference is for traditional small-farm methods, and I can also understand the 'slippery slope' feeling cloning evokes). I can see that being able to share top-notch genetic material might be a boon under certain circumstances.
However, scepticism suggests that traits considered 'desirable' will be rapid growth and larger size, which aren't exactly analogous with optimal flavour or texture, or, for that matter, disease resistance.
It just seems that the more far-reaching potential aspects of cloning haven't been exhaustively considered.
mongoose at 12:02PM on 01/18/08
What I want to know is if the cloned animals can still screw or does the farmer have to "do it" to them?
srhcb at 12:14PM on 01/18/08
I'm in grad school now, and the subject of cloned animals came up in a lecture. Here's what I got: Cloned mammals are different from plants, b/c they undergo genomic imprinting during gametogenesis. This is a step in development when some genes from the mother/father are turned off in the embryo. Without it you get certain defects (in humans you can get Prader-Wili or Angelman's Syndrome b/c of this). So cloned animals don't go through gametogenesis, meaning their DNA is the same but regulation of how they develop is not normal. You end up with animals that are not identical to the cloned parent. Most of the cloned eggs die, those that live have extreme obesity, breathing difficulties, depressed metabolism, and birth defects. I think purposely creating animals that you know are going to be really screwed up is just wrong. I also don't understand how this can be profitable if most of them will die when implanted. I definately won't be eating it.
Kiana at 1:52PM on 01/23/08