Cloned Animals’ Products in Food Supply
Posted by Kiran | Under Animals, Food Tuesday Sep 2, 2008
Gloria, the first calf born to a cloned cow, Vitoria.
The United States Food and Drug Administration said on Monday that food and milk from the offspring of clones animals may have already entered the US food supply. ut the FDA also said that it would be impossible to recognize since there is no difference between cloned and conventional products.
In January, the FDA said that alimentary products from cloned animals (like meat and milk from cloned cattle, swine, goats and their offspring was as safe to eat as products from traditional animals.
“It is theoretically possible” offspring from clones are in the food supply, said Siobhan DeLancey, an FDA spokeswoman. “I don’t know whether they are or not. I could imagine there are not very many of them.”
The Biotechnology Industry Assosiation says that cloning of animals is a safe way to create animals that produce more meat and milk and have at the same time stronger immune systems, making them less prone to disease.
Currently there are approximately 600 cloned animals in the US.
Previously, in January the FDA banned the sale of meat of milk from cloned animals, however, it did not restrict the enterance of milk and meat from the offspring of the cloned animals.
Critics are still skeptic saying that there is not enough known about the technology, and they oppose it also on ethical grounds.
“It worries me that this technology is out of control in so many ways,” said Charles Margulis, a spokesman with the Center for Environmental Health. The possibility of offspring being in the food supply “is just another element of that,” he said.
However, there is a bit of relief for them, as major food companies like Tyson Foods Inc. (the largest US meat company) and Smithfield Food Inc. have said that they would avoid using cloned animals because of safety reasons.
