USDA Recommends That Food From Clones Stay Off the Market

[kurth]

USDA Recommends That Food From Clones Stay Off the Market
By Rick Weiss
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, January 16, 2008; A03

The U.S. Department of Agriculture yesterday asked U.S. farmers to keep their cloned animals off the market indefinitely even as Food and Drug Administration officials announced that food from cloned livestock is safe to eat.

Bruce I. Knight, the USDA's undersecretary for marketing and regulatory programs, requested an ongoing "voluntary moratorium" to buy time for "an acceptance process" that Knight said consumers in the United States and abroad will need, "given the emotional nature of this issue."

Yet even as the two agencies sought a unified message -- that food from clones is safe for people but perhaps dangerous to U.S. markets and trade relations -- evidence surfaced suggesting that Americans and others are probably already eating meat from the offspring of clones. Executives from the nation's major cattle cloning companies conceded yesterday that they have not been able to keep track of how many offspring of clones have entered the food supply, despite a years-old request by the FDA to keep them off the market pending completion of the agency's safety report.

At least one Kansas cattle producer also disclosed yesterday that he has openly sold semen from prize-winning clones to many U.S. meat producers in the past few years, and that he is certain he is not alone. "This is a fairy tale that this technology is not being used and is not already in the food chain," said Donald Coover, a Galesburg cattleman and veterinarian who has a specialty cattle semen business. "Anyone who tells you otherwise either doesn't know what they're talking about, or they're not being honest."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/15/AR2008011501555.html?nav=hcmodule

[Echo In Light]

1. I caught a bit of their press conference on CSPAN yesterday. A Canadian journalist was...

Trying to hold their feet to the fire re safety, saying it isn't enough for them just to stand there and claim it's "safe," and did so repeatedly. I thought, wow, you'd never see an ass kissing American suck-up journalist do that...

[bullimiami]

2. it seems to me that clones are much less of a danger than GMOs.

It has to be politics. Clones are just copies.

[sam sarrha]

3. and really cheap copies too... they will put everybody out of business, FOOD THE NEW OIL..!!!!

they will dump cheap food, kill off the rest of the family farms, then start food cartels.. with global change, food will soon currency for the under classes

[bullimiami]

7. i dont see why cloned crops or animals would be any cheaper

they still have to be raised the same way.

its just more of that corporate strive toward monoculture predictability.
what is truly dangerous is that the diversity will be gone which is probably going to make them a lot more susceptible to specific diseases, environmental variations or mutations.

Its very short sighted.

[Justyce]

4. Is it more cost effective to produce clones than just breeding? It seems

like cloning would be more expensive.

[trotsky]

6. That's exactly what I've been wondering this whole time.

To make a clone, you've got to have a whole lab.

To breed, you just need two animals & nature.

I must be missing something if food producers are clamoring for the ability to sell clones.

[Evoman]

8. It is WAY more expensive and inefficient.

Doesn't seem worth-while at all....

However, that aside, there is no, physical harm that can result from eating clones OR their offspring. It's just meat.

[libbygurl]

5. Clones aren't just copies. Remember Dolly the sheep? She did not have the same lifespan as the ...

...original animal, just to name one difference. The DNA in cloned animals is NOT exactly identical in every aspect to that in their natural 'siblings', thanks to some differences in certain structures like the telomeres (ends of the chromosomes that seem to have something to do with aging), etc.

I wouldn't trust the FDA's word on safety on much anymore, ever since the Bush admin. stuffed it (and other agencies) with its own anti-science people, resulting in the resignation of many longtime civil servants in government agencies.

And yes, the foreign journalists really do more of the REAL journalism than US ones!