The FDA’s action flies in the face of widespread scientific concern about the risks of food from clones, and ignores the animal cruelty and troubling ethical concerns that the cloning process brings. What’s worse, the FDA indicates that it will not require labeling on cloned food, so consumers will have no way to avoid these experimental foods. The FDA is accepting public comments on its decision until April 2.

Cloning first succeeded in producing a live birth with the famed sheep clone Dolly in 1997, and has since been used with many other animal species, including dairy cows and beef cattle, poultry, hogs and other livestock. But after the hype, few followed the story of Dolly’s untimely demise. Just six years old when she was euthanized (sheep of Dolly’s breed generally live to 11 or 12), Dolly suffered from premature arthritis and lung disease usually seen in much older animals.

Sadly, Dolly was hardly unique among cloned animals. Incidents of unusual health problems, chronic illnesses and sudden unexpected deaths plague the cloning industry. Ian Wilmut, the lead scientist responsible for creating Dolly, has warned that even small imbalances in a clone’s hormone, protein or fat levels could compromise the safety of its milk or meat, saying, “If companies start marketing this food and there are problems it will bring the whole technology into disrepute.”

Despite this track record of failure and concern about safety, some livestock breeders are using cloning in the hope that the technology will enable them to generate identical copies of prized animals with favorable characteristics. For example, cows that produce high quantities of milk have been cloned in hopes of producing dependable lines of high-yielding milk cows. Since as early as 2001, cloned cows have been producing milk on American dairy farms. The only barrier to this cloned milk entering the food supply is a voluntary agreement between industry and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which has requested that food products from clones be kept off the market until the agency’s “guidelines” are developed.

While the biotechnology industry has proclaimed the safety of their cloned food products, few food safety studies have been conducted. In fact, scientists have yet to conduct any large-scale, comprehensive, long-term food safety study of cloned animals. A 2004 National Academy of Sciences study noted that protocols for assessing food safety issues in cloning are complex and undeveloped, and stated that “a national system” to identify and track food from animal clones “must be implemented” before cloned foods are marketed. Moreover, the Academy observed that small sample sizes, limited health and production data and rapidly changing cloning protocols make it difficult to draw conclusions regarding the safety of milk, meat or other products from cloned animals.

Source: emagazine.com