Meat and Milk from Cloned Cows
The FDA has decided that milk and meat from cloned cows presents "no unique risks to consumers".
"Our evaluation is that the food from cloned animals is as safe as the food we eat every day" (via Washington Post)
A load of bull?
Most people are not particularly comfortable with the idea.
Surveys show that more than 60 percent of the U.S. population is uncomfortable with the idea of animal cloning for food and milk.The subject of cloning always prompts debate - and so it should. Cloning cannot be compared to, for example, the breeding and selection of plants that has occurred over many hundreds of years. Cloning is a whole new science - and the newness is half the problem. We are very impatient when it comes to testing the long-term effects of our food experiments.
When I read about food science "solving world hunger" I nearly fall off my chair laughing. Despite the best intentions of well-meaning scientists - food technology has always been about corporate profits - not feeding the poor.
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Reply"Despite the best intentions of well-meaning scientists - food technology has always been about corporate profits - not feeding the poor."
Very true, there is already enough food to go around, but it's all about the money, really.
The thought of eating a cloned animal, or drinking its' milk gives me the creeps.
ReplyDid anyone ever see Multiplicity, with Michael Keaton? Well that dealt with cloning of humans in a funny manner. He cloned himself, then another of himself, then the clones decided to make a clone, needless to say...that one..wasn't quite right, you have to see the movie to know what I am referring to (hilarious!)
Anyway... Who's to say that the meat and milk is from an original clone or is it from a copy of a clone. Or in other terms, a copy of a copy is never as good as the original. ewwwwww, NO THANKS!
ReplyThe food from "normal" animals is not even safe. Add to that something like cloning and we may have a problem on our hands. However, I do believe that cloning is a viable technology; we just need to spend more time working out "the bugs".
ReplyMmmm, yummy cloned meat with added hormones and anti-biotics.
Vegetarian anyone?
ReplyIfitandhealthy, I'm curious, why do you say the food from normal animals isn't safe?
ReplyCaramelle-oh,
The food from "normal" animals is safe, except rare cases when food-safety protocols fail to stop contaminated products from appearing at your local supermarket.
At the same time, from nutritional point of view, the food from "normal" animals is not safe, because, although these animals are not cloned, they are mostly grown on grains, soy and hormones.
Many experts claim that there is little proof the supposed toxins and hormones actually get passed on to us. Personally, I think it’s debatable. So, I try to buy grass-fed, free-range meat.
ReplyI am not sure I want cloned meat. Dolly didn't live long. There are still some bugs. It's also cheaper to breed than clone so cloned food will not help the poor unless they are selling it to the rich and the profits go to the poor.
ReplyWhat could possibly be wrong with meat from cloned animals? It's just protein and fat. Let's say the cloning goes wrong and produces a defective cow. So what? It wouldn't affect the meat.
If your airplane crashed in the Andes and you had to decide to eat one of your fellow passengers, would you choose a Nobel prize winner over someone with Down's Syndrome? When it comes to eating them, they are the same.
ReplyThanks, Ifitandhealthy, I understand now what you mean. I live on a farm, and all our animals only eat grass, so to me, that is what is normal. I don't think I'd be keen to eat secondhand hormones and antibiotics and god only knows what else.
ReplyThe FDA has decided that milk and meat from cloned cows presents "no unique risks to consumers".
--
I wonder which non-unique risks are presented....
Replyiportion wrote "Dolly didn't live long."
That was the first thought that popped into my head, too. Something is amiss when clones don't live nearly as long as their non-cloned counterparts.
Mark, did you ever hear the phrase, "You are what you eat"? I'd have a slice of the Nobel Prize winner, if anyone at all. :)
Replyweblarg.com: I think they mean that the risks from cloned meat are the same as from non-cloned meat, e.g., spoilage, E. coli, BSE, etc.
But seriously, what specifically, if anything, are opponents claiming might hypothetically happen, based on grounded, scientific reasoning, albeit speculative? Again, protein is protein, and genetic material from clones can't enter your cells intact from your digestive tract any more than it could from non-clones.
The only thing I can think of would be non-medical dangers, such as having less diversity in the cattle gene pool, making them susceptible to catastrophic extermination by some disease (like the French wine grapes at the turn of the last century). But it seems to me that most anti-cloners are vegans anyway, so why would they care about that? :-)
ReplyAs iportion noted,
Compare the costs of having Mr. Bull and Mrs. Cow get to know one another, to having a laboratory set up to tease genes out of one cell into another. Compare the chances of successful reproduction between old-fashioned sex (pretty high) and cloning (extremely low). There's no way cloning animals is even CLOSE to profitable unless the meat is sold as a curiosity item to rich silly people, so you can be confident that cloned meat won't be a staple in grocery stores for a looooong time -- if ever.Of course, it makes for a fun scientific and ethical debate!
ReplyWell, I actually don't eat meat, but the idea of cloning would deter me if I did. It's not so much the process of cloning as is it the idea of ours not having perfected the process yet.
All moral complications aside, our technology has not evolved beyond having 'glitched' clones. Whatever things are wrong with them that we can't see could affect our bodies.
And Mark, not all proteins are created equal (the same goes for fat). There's many different types of proteins in a single piece of meat and those little glitches we don't see may very well exist on a molecular level, affecting the type or quality of the macro/micro-nutrients. There are mutations which could- theoretically- spread. Even with Dolly, the reasons behind her death could have been premature cellular degeneration; think of meat spoiling in your stomach before it can even digest. Even if it doesn't affect our health, it can't be nearly as "nutritious".
Contrary to popular belief, we haven't learned all there is to know about our own bodies let alone something like cloning. Without knowing all the facts we can't be sure how that cloned meat affects us internally- the results could be detrimental... however, for all we know it could be better than the original. The problem is that we just don't know for sure.
Besides... I don't trust the government, or the FDA.
ReplyYan,
I appreciate that you give concrete reasons for opposing cloned meat--few people do that. They just react to their paranoid fears.
However, I don't aggree with your objections. Macro/micronutrients can be tested for, rather easily. A Nutrition Facts label level test costs only a few hundred dollars, which tests all the macronutrients and several of the micronutrients. Testing beyond that is of course possible.
So if the meat has an abnormal nutrient profile, it can easily be detected. I suspect this in fact has already been done, which is why the FDA has begun the approval process.
If toxins are suspected, they can also be tested for. If they are there, they would be detected.
The FDA is completely public and open, and the documentation for everything is online. Public comment is requested and they get a lot of it. And it's not ussally from the "public," but rather from many companies on the one side and public advocacy groups on the other. Any *reasonable* objection will be there in the public comments, and all the evidence will be there to see.
I haven't looked at the clone materials, but I have read other FDA dockets, such as the whole trans fat docket, and they are very detailed. Anyone who doesn't trust the FDA should read this stuff: they go a long way in protecting the public's interest.
ReplyWhat's so bad about eating meat and drinking milk from cloned cattle? Yes, it's weird because we have never tried it but we always have to be open to new things like vaccines. Ofcourse it is not necesary to start consuming from cloned animals. Plus you never know maybe they will make cattle that is less susceptible to diseases, that's always something welcoming.
ReplyFDA. Yeah, they approved VIOXX. And a host of other drugs deemed safe, now pulled off the shelves because, well, they harmed or killed people. I really believe what the FDA says is safe. Can I sell you some swamp land??
ReplyIf cloned meat and milk is so safe, why not make it obligatory that people involved in the industry (ie directors, managers, scientists, and shareholders in the cloning companies)eat and drink only meat and milk produced by their enterprises. Since it is so safe, this could also be extended to their families as they should share in all the benefits along with them. I would also insist that members of the FDA and their families also are obliged to eat only this wonderful development in food. After a period of say 5 years, we the general public could APPLY to be allowed to eat their products and share in the tremendous benefits of God knows what they might be enjoying or possibly suffering by that time. Do you think they would be able to handle the rush of applications?
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