FDA OKs food from cloned animals

[superconnected]

WASHINGTON - The government declared Thursday that food from cloned animals is safe to eat. After more than five years of study, the Food and Drug Administration concluded that cloned livestock is "virtually indistinguishable" from conventional livestock.

FDA believes "that meat and milk from cattle, swine and goat clones is as safe to eat as the food we eat every day," said Stephen F. Sundlof, director of the FDA Center for Veterinary Medicine.

Officials said they don't think special labels are needed, although a decision on labeling is pending.

Because scientists concluded there is no difference between food from clones and food from other animals, "it would be unlikely that FDA would require labeling in those cases," Sundlof said


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061228/ap_on_sc/cloned_food

[Tempest]

1. Buy stock in organic companies

Now would be the time for organic companies to go public. They're going to make a killing.

I for one will only buy my meat and dairy products at organic stores from now on.

[warrens]

6. The offspring of a cloned animal can be completely organic

The two things have nothing to do with each other. It isn't like they're building Frankencow; they're finding genetic predispositions that produce good meat or milk, and cloning the "perfect" cow who will then give birth to "perfect" calves.

Organic only concerns what they're fed and how they're medicated.

[PaulaFarrell]

8. Untrue

Depends on the certifying body; many if not most have animal welfare standards which must be met and would NEVER certify cloned meat

[warrens]

9. Offspring are not clones nt

[PaulaFarrell]

50. What would be the point of allowing cloned animals to breed?

I don't see the point of any cloned animal as anything other than a 'gee, look what we can do' party trick. But the drivel put forward is that it will somehow create better animals for whatever purpose, including eating. But breeding naturally from cloned animals removes even this supposed benefit. In reality, cloned animals probably aren't even capable of being bred succesfsully (in a farming context) because of their much shorter lifespans and multiple health problems. But I'm sure that any certifying body that bans clones would also ban the 'offspring' of clones.

[Tempest]

10. Irrelevant

Organic stores don't currently, and have vowed to never, carry products from cloned animals or plants.

That would be extended to the offspring as well.

[lastout]

58. For the foreseeable future Protein from cloned animals would be too expensive

for the average consumer-- There are WAY too many problems to work out.
Prediction: 15 Years from now,Kobe steak will still be cheaper than cloned prime

[chefgirl]

2. Well, I can see that

Cloned is one thing. Genetically re-engineered is something completely different, though.

I would like to see these foods labeled, but why do I have the feeling that that idea will be squashed??

-chef-

[lakercub]

3. Cloned meat may or may not be safe

but the FDA is a puppet company of the food and drug companies. Thanks to previous administrations, and especially this one, the foxes are guarding the henhouses all over the government. Big business writes the laws and they get their people appointed to the FDA and other government agencies. The FDA and other government agencies are supposed to protect the public, but when the major corporations run them, these agencies simply become mouthpieces for the corporations to sell their wares.

Sad that I can't trust the FDA isn't it?

Check out "What Every American Should Know About Who's Really Running The World" by Melissa Rossi. Depressed the hell out of me.

[warrens]

15. That's the really important point

There's nothing particularly dangerous about meat from cloned animals. But the FDA is such a political organization these days, who knows what comes next?

[superconnected]

4. As someone already pointed out, the FDA isn't actually a department

that is trustworthy.

I'm glad I'm a vegetarian so this isn't an immediate issue. What I suspect is because I'm not a vegan, it will seep into other food. Anyway, we're all screwed because of franken foods. I'm too lazy to find an organic only store to drive to and pay those prices.

[The2ndWheel]

5. What pointlessness

Every living thing is possible food, but at least in the wild they can run, hide, fight back in some way.

The complete control, objectification, and categorization of life will not be stopped.

Oh well, what's the point in giving a damn. Enough will never be enough. There can't be, since there is no goal. Progress until everyone lives a life of luxury, then what? Stop progressing? No, just keep going. Because life is not linear, it's circular. Sort of like the core of the sun. It'll die out one day and take everything with it, but it had a good run too.

[BattyDem]

7. "virtually indistinguishable"

It's the word "virtually" that makes me a bit nervous. :-(

[Quantess]

49. "virtually" tastes like chicken,

Roasted tarantula, and deep fried opossum meat, that is.

I don't like the word "virtually", either!

[slackmaster]

11. Gives "Same thing we had last Thursday" a deeper meaning

In response to "What's for dinner?"

[TheWraith]

12. I don't see what the big deal is here.

So they're cloned animals. So what? Unless there's a huge amount of genetic drift in the cloning process, they aren't going to be significantly different than any other cow or whatever. This strikes me as one of those things like radiation from wireless internet gear, that people panic about without understanding why.

[Sirveri]

14. The only issue is having less genetic diversity in the food supply.

Less genetic diversity means a greater potential for harm from a potential viral outbreak. That is really the only issue I have with cloning. It's still a cow, it just happens to be genetically identical to another cow.

[susanna]

40. Exactly my thoughts. n/t

[pitohui]

48. you wonder if these people would freak if they knew their cow was a twin?

aren't calves occasionally twinned? how are these unsafe to eat? totally a non issue as far as i can tell

the genetic diversity thing is a good point, however, there is already fairly little genetic diversity for various reasons, everyone wants their semen to come from the prize winning bull :-)

[Sirveri]

52. Good point there.

At least with semen you get half the genes, not all of them, but I've got an Uncle with a dairy farm up in Washington. He's also a vet, all his cows get pregnant the virgin mary way. Hand up the butt and an eye dropper full of special sauce in the baby maker. He doesn't keep bulls on the property because they can be fairly dangerous animals, especially with kids running around. So he keeps special 'frozen' bull to make all the calves he needs. And of course those bull are considered good stock and are sold all over the place.

[Matariki]

18. The big deal might be the same big deal as 'factory farming'

It's a wretched thing to do the other living beings and it's very probable that eating animals raised in those conditions affects our health.

Who knows, maybe animals procreating (the 'old fashioned way') is actually important to the whole food chain thing? I don't think science has figured it out yet, so I'd prefer to err on the side of natural.

[tinfoilinfor2005]

13. I don't see how there would be a safety issue.

But why are they using the technology to produce an animal that will be used for food. Doesn't ordinary breeding produce enough quality beef? Are the chances of getting a poor grade of beef from breeding good stock that high? And is a cloned cow necessarily a guarantee of a high quality product (since there are variables involved in raising the cow from a cell to the full grown animal just as in the raising of any animal)? If these are stupid questions, so be it, but they just happen to come to mind.

[Miss Chybil]

16. Isn't it much harder to clone an animal than to get one the old-fashioned way?

I don't get why anybody would want to clone something to eat.

[NashVegas]

20. "It's About the Patents, Stupid"

$60,000 for a cow.

Cloning methods are patented intellectual properties.

from an earlier one of my posts on the subject:

Why would someone pay that?

Because they've been talked into believing it's more efficient than normal breeding.

Here's the claim in an LA Times article:

"Though cloning is expensive — Coleman paid $60,000 to clone First Down — producers have embraced it for the efficiencies it can bring to a farm or ranch. If a particular bull consistently sires strong offspring or a dairy cow is an unusually prolific milk producer, clones can multiply those advantages."

Knowing that the arguments that claim GM/GE agriculture products produce higher yields and reduce costs for farmers is pure bullshit, my guess is, the above argument is bullshit, too.

[Miss Chybil]

27. And so they would have to pay even more to prevent in-breeding

in the long run, right? Ridiculous idea. The whole thing is ridiculous. But, you know, economics always wins. If the arguments don't prove to be true and it ends up costing more to produce the meat, I would think the ranchers would go back to the "old-fashioned" way of reproducing animals.

[VegasWolf]

17. Just think! You can have that favorite steak over and over again! nt

[newscott]

19. I'm not so much worried about eating cloned meat as I am

worried about some disease coming out of nowhere and wiping out whole livestock populations which are genetically the same.

[Earth_First]

21. I think that the cause for concern in this amounts to this...

"Officials said they don't think special labels are needed..."

You know something? If the FDA wants to regulate the cloning of animals as safe for human consumption, that's fine, I can choose not to eat it; and don't.

However, for the unsuspecting families who may not have the free time to investigate the origin of the foods they eat, because they are off working two, three or four jobs in order to simply afford the food that they eat...it just isn't right.

This absolutely needs special packaging requirements.

And as for the comment on investing in the organic industry. Be vary wary and do research both far and wide as to whom you invest with, there are several "organic producers" who are fighting to deregulate the very definition of "organic."

Wal-Mart is shifting into the billion-dollar industry. Enough reason to take your food supply seriously enough to question everything.

[0rganism]

22. why clone the whole cow?

Let's just grow the tissues and organs necessary to provide the meat, milk, and leather. After all, what good is the cow's central nervous system to us? Or to the cow, for that matter? Heck, with the right kind of shelf system, we could do away with the useless skeletal structure, and just grow the cow meat in pre-shaped packages that look just like the perfect sirloin cut. Think of all the range space and labor costs we'd save. Hydroponic beef, mmm mmm good.

[VegasWolf]

23. Exactly, adult bovine stem cells! Petri dish steaks in under an hour! nt

[progressivebydesign]

24. Anyone else really souring on the entire food industry lately?

I've had it with buying produce and finding out it's broccoli from China, avocados from Chile, asparagus from Peru. Then you look at some frozen entrees and they're MADE IN CHINA? Folks, we're losing control of our food supply, and food safety. I read that chickens are being slaughtered here, sent to China for processing, then resold here. Now, genetically modified MEAT?? I'm tempted to move somewhere that I can truly grow my own food. I've had it with the food supply and the corporate fucks that are destroying it.

[NashVegas]

39. I've Started Home Canning

First with tomatoes, now beginning to get into condiments/preserves.

In the marinade and bread sections of the grocery aisles, it's increasingly difficult to come across a label that doesn't include high fructose corn syrup.

[susanna]

41. No kidding.

I mentioned HFCS to a co-worker recently and she started looking. Came back a few weeks later and said, "you're right - that stuff is in EVERYTHING." Yup.

I've been gardening and preserving on an urban lot for four years. I found that I can preserve quite a bit, even with a smallish garden. I expand a little each year and hope to continue to do so.

[Countdown_3_2_1]

25. This doesn't bother me.

Clones will be a LOT more expensive than normally bred stock.

I will eat genetic ly engineered foods, and I will have NO problems with cloned meat.

Genetic engineering is good.
Irradiated food is good.
A million things out there will kill you. I will NOT live in fear.

On the other hand, a whole new industry is being created from scratch.
Organic foods is pure capitalism. Even the re thugs ought to like that.

[karlrschneider]

29. You're right. And you better get some asbestos underwear.

:D

[VegasWolf]

33. You won't know. The Big Corporations controlling Bush will not allow the meat

to be labeled as such.

[leesa]

46. Right. It's just so interesting that these animals always sicken and die early.

Wonder why? And genetic engineering of plants has just been wildly successful in destroying farmers around the world

[YankeyMCC]

26. Bad idea

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=364&topic_id=2973957&mesg_id=2973957

[karlrschneider]

28. If cloned T-bones were cheaper, I'd buy a freezer full of them.

All this breast-beating horror about cloning is just idiotic. A cow is just a fucking cow, its genes say it's a cow and the hamburger is exactly the same as what came from its donor/predecessor. Some people seem to want every single bovine to be -different- genetically...I'd be happy to have them all the same.
:eyes:

[daleo]

30. And eating cows that ate other cows turned out so well

They made all the same claims before the mad cow disease outbreak.

[philosophie_en_rose]

31. LBN in 2010: FDA Oks food from cloned people.

:puke:

[sweetheart]

32. FDA approves cloned cannabis

:-) you looked! :hi:

[brentspeak]

34. Cloning animals is reprehensible

We're playing around again with Mother Nature. Cloning cells, organs, tissue -- not as much of a problem (though there's danger there, too). But whole beings? Dr.Frankenstein.

[pitohui]

53. yes twins are a terrible thing

hey mother nature started it, we're just finishing it

a twin is an entire being, just ask one some time

you can have the same DNA as another being and be a perfectly valid, healthy being, i know it's incredible but tis true! really!

[brentspeak]

56. Uh, yeah.

[VegasWolf]

35. Cloning is for weenies! We need full blown genetic modification. For example,

why do the feed cattle need eyes or ears or a brain beyond the simple brain stem? These organs waste space on the animal. Let's just engineer some oral opening that can accept a feed tube. After all, we have a President that has no brain and is just basically an eating and shitting machine.

[Gregorian]

36. Oh man!

Your post deserves to be gold plated and put up on the mantle. I just love it!

There's something so common sense about what you said. I cannot put my finger on it, but for some reason I think we've gone too far. And it doesn't take much thinking to really get it.

But the comments about Bush just add a nice icing to the cake.


:) Beautiful.


Mmm, we're having oral opening for diner! The "other" meat.

[pinniped]

43. I think they are trying that already.

http://www.gizmag.com/go/4439/1/

Academic Paper Says Edible Meat Can be Grown in a Lab on Industrial Scale

[Generic Brad]

37. Tired of eating the same old burger?

That's because you are eating the same old burger!

[sweetheart]

38. straight off a big mac tree

The big mac tree doesn't like frost, but grows a healthy burger without any
energy inputs except burger-pickers.. . and now that the fruit grows prepackaged,
ain't stem sellz amazing.

[pinniped]

42. What, they only started studying this under the repuke administration?

After more than five years of study

[SpiralHawk]

44. "Shut up and eat your clone." - BushCo republicons

"We are going to make a fortune on this shit." - Republicon Cronies & Clonies

[fujiyama]

45. Eating cloned animals or drinking their milk

doesn't really freak me out as long as the animal itself (as well as the parent) was healthy. It's just a genetic duplicate of the parent.

But the cloning method itself has not been perfected and there have been cases where deformities have sprung up.

"These differences are presumed to account in large measure for the low success rate of cloning. Fetuses can grow unusually large, posing a risk to the surrogate mother. Many clones die during gestation or shortly after birth. Some are born with deformed heads or limbs or problems with their hearts, lungs or other organs."

At the moment, the cost of this seems impractical and I think more research needs to be done regarding the defects.

"That means that most food from cloning would come from the sexually produced offspring of the cloned animals. The F.D.A. said milk and meat from such offspring were safe, because any abnormalities in clones do not carry into the next generation."

I don't understand why the abnormalities couldn't carry through. If its a matter of genetics, couldn't those defects be passed on to the offspring?

Either way, I don't think it would have hurt for the FDA to have waited some time to give the go-ahead. And regardless of whether it was going to be approved, I really think the cloned-meats and dairy should be labeled as such. Transparency is vital.

[Javaman]

47. The question remains; who will do the cloning?

I have a good idea it will probably be monsanto.

First they allow the patenting of organisms, even though it's completely unconstitutional (thank you mr reagan) now they are allowing the cloning of animals, which in turn will also more than likely be patented. So in a not to distant future, all seeds and animals produced in this country for general consumption will be licensed entities.

How truly fucked up is that?

Next will be the water.

[Quantess]

51. This makes me want to become a vegetarian.

If they put cloned meat on the market, I will stop eating meat.
Not because I think it's unhealthy, or scientifically unethical...

It's just unappealing!

[pitohui]

54. don't eat fruit or nuts, they are all from cloned trees

have been for thousands of years, since these trees don't grow true from seed

scientific reality is a bitch, ain't she?

[Quantess]

55. Okay, Smartass. Plants aren't the same as farm animals.

You can say that fruits and nuts from graft propagation (cloning as you call it) have been proven to be safe for consumption, and fine for the genetic variability of the plants, because we have years of experience and data verifying it's safe.

You can't say that about animal clones. Yet.
The meat is probably perfectly safe to eat, I actually wasn't arguing against that anyway. How is this going to affect the genetic variability of these farm animals? Are they going to subject to diseases?

[Quantess]

57. More about plant cloning made easy:

(Tree propagation other than growing from seed). It's extremely easy, often much easier than growing from seed, depending on the species. I love propagating trees/shrubs!

Plants by their nature, seem to want to use any trick possible to reproduce themselves. Some species send out "suckers", sprouts that pop up from the roots, far away from the tree. This is the tree's way of dominating space and ensuring survival. These sprouts will grow readily into a separate tree, if you pull it out with a chunk of root. That is by far the easiest way to obtain a "clone", properly known in plant terms as a cultivar.

This method may not give you the cultivar you want, though, if the tree has been grafted.
With grafting, a branch from the desired cultivar, for instance, a really good apple variety, has been attached to a tree of the same species, in this case, a nothing-special apple tree. This is the industry standard for most fruit producing trees.

Some plant species are easily propagated by cuttings. Just cut off a green branch or sprout, perhaps dip it in root hormone, and put it in soil. Voila, another easy way to "clone" a plant. Often much easier and more successful than growing from seed. Lilacs are a good example. Who grows lilacs from seed?

Plants are designed for easy "cloning". Plants want to be "cloned". Anyone, even an 8 year old, can be successful at plant propagation, with some instruction.

Animals are not designed for cloning. Animals do not readily reproduce from cloning. That's the difference between plants and animals.

[jmowreader]

59. Why you would want to do this in the first place

Simmentals are cattle whose breed originated in Switzerland in the 1700s. They are noted for a strong constitution, gentle disposition, excellent bone structure and the ability to put on muscle fast. Also, the meat is of consistently high quality--I have eaten known Simmental meat, and I think it's better than the famed Black Angus, but the Angus people have the PR on their side. Plus, the animal is fucking huge--the world's record Simmental bull lived in Montana and weighed about 3200 pounds. (The average Simmental bull weighs 2800 lbs.; an Angus bull weighs about 1800.) He was used in an artificial insemination program...and, not to put too fine a point on it, but the bravest human on the face of the earth is the person responsible for collecting semen from a 3200-pound bull. Apparently his progeny were excellent.

There's one little problem with this happy scenario: the bull died of old age, and they ran out of his semen.

Assume you could have run a cloning process on this bull and come out with an animal that's as good as the bull they started with. If this were possible, you'd run off about a hundred embryos, put them in liquid nitrogen, and pull one out every ten years or so. Thaw it out, implant it in a cow, wait a few months...voila! Your breeding program continues unabated.

No one would ever clone cattle just for feed stock--one cloned bull will probably cost more than a starter home, and you can buy a vial of bull semen for $20-$200 depending on the bull in question (most are closer to $20 than $200--check http://www.bullseyegenetics.com/bullsemennew062.htm#simpf for the number of $15-$25 semen vials on there). Cloning for breeding stock's a whole 'nother question.