FDA Decision on Cloned Meat Looms
The Meat of The Matter
By Monisha Bansal
CNS News
Staff Writer
December 21, 2007
(CNSNews.com) - The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is scheduled to make a final
decision before the end of the year on whether meat and milk from cloned animals
can enter the food supply.
The FDA released a draft risk assessment late last year indicating that cloned products
are as safe as other products on the market today, but it has not indicated the
exact date of its final ruling on the matter.
"I am expecting that we will essentially get the same ruling - the same findings
-- that they had in the draft risk assessment," Mark Walton, president of the
animal cloning firm ViaGen, told Cybercast News Service.
"The draft risk assessment was so thorough, contained essentially all of the
data that was available, and then there was new data added during the public comment
period, but the new data supported the conclusions the FDA had already made,"
Walton added.
"I would anticipate that cloned animals and the offspring of cloned animals
and the products that come from those are as safe as conventionally produced products,"
he said.
To allay consumer fears, ViaGen and another leading cloning firm, Trans Ova Genetics,
introduced a registry for cloned livestock on Wednesday, allowing companies to accurately
label products that do not contain cloned animal products."What we did was
-- in conjunction with representatives from across the entire food supply chain
-- put together a registry and database where all cloned animals that we produce
and that of today Trans Ova Genetics produces will be automatically registered in
that database, will be given a unique ID number, will be fitted with a radio frequency
ID transmitter tag of some sort that has an RFID in it, and we will educate our
customers to the fact that there are likely going to be elements of the food supply
chain that are not interested in taking cloned animals into their food processing,"
Walton said.
"We've got it set up so that there is a market incentive for them to not take
those animals to places where they aren't wanted," he said. "It gives
everybody a way of being able to segregate cloned animals in the food supply if
they choose to."
Walton explained that the registry is the only way to distinguish between cloned
and non-cloned livestock.
"Some dairy marketers have expressed an interest in restricting the milk from
cloned cattle from their supply chain, so we are encouraged that cloning companies
recognize the importance of a supply chain management system to help identify the
presence of clones," said the National Milk Producers Federation in a statement.
"We intend to continue working with the cloning technology companies, and the
livestock owners who purchase clones, to ensure that the components of the [registry]
function properly," the group added.
"There are absolutely no differences," Walton stressed. "There is
nothing to be concerned about."
"The benefits of cloning livestock are numerous," he added. "We're
going to see as a result of the use of cloning technology in livestock breeding:
healthier animals, more productive animals, better product quality, better product
consistency. We'll be able to reduce the environmental footprint of livestock agriculture.
"There are animals that are genetically more efficient at converting their
food source to the end product, whether it's meat or milk. Animals that are more
feed efficient, which creates less waste," Walton said.
But Lee Hall, legal director for Friends of Animals, disagreed. "Many clones
die as soon as they're born; many more are born with severely distorted organs,
heads or limbs," she said in a statement. "Cows have died trying to bear
grotesquely oversized calves. Multiple piglets have been born without anuses and
tails-a fatal condition."
"The FDA acknowledges that cloned animals are susceptible to birth defects
and life-threatening problems but dismisses the issue, insisting that normal federal
inspections will keep problems out of the food supply," she added.
Walton noted that these products are at least four to five years away from being
commercially available and added that "the products that will end up on grocery
shelves are not from cloned animals but from the offspring of cloned animals, and
offspring of cloned animals are not clones. So even if a consumer has a discomfort
with the concept of cloning, the animals that will actually be the meat and milk
producing animals are not clones - they are conventionally bred animals."
Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.), however, has urged the FDA not to make a final assessment
yet.
"I have strong reservations about the FDA allowing meat and milk products from
cloned animals into our food supply - and most Americans agree with me," she
said in a statement.
Mikulski introduced an amendment to the Farm Bill, which has passed the Senate that
would require the National Academy of Sciences to report to Congress on the safety
of cloned products before they can enter the food supply.
"Just because something has been created in a lab, doesn't mean we should have
to eat it," she said. "If we discover a problem with cloned food after
it is in our food supply and it's not labeled, the FDA won't be able to recall it.
"Before we allow cloned animals into our food supply, we must know more about
it," Mikulski added.
In a letter to FDA Commissioner Andrew von Eschenbach, Mikulski said: "I urge
you to withhold your approval of cloning until the studies commissioned by Congress
are completed and food safety issues are resolved with long-term, independent and
transparent testing."
Walton, however, called the amendment a "delaying tactic."
"The National Academy of Science has already reviewed the risk assessment and
the risk assessment process twice and both times has signed off," he said.
"So I don't know what she is expecting to find."
Gallup Polls report more than 60 percent of Americans think it is immoral to clone
animals, and the Pew Initiative on Food and Biotechnology found that a similar percentage
say that, despite FDA approval, they won't buy cloned milk.
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