Good morning, world.
And what a wonderful day it is, because today! Today it's officially safe to eat meat from cloned animals in the United States.
The European Union's Food Safety Agency made its announcement
to this effect this past Friday, with the Food and Drug Administration expected to follow suit shortly thereafter. Well, the Washington Post has obtained a copy of the FDA's report, which has not yet been officially released, and it indeed draws the conclusion that meat from cloned pigs, cows, and goats is no less safe to eat than meat from their non-cloned counterparts. That is all they are at liberty to conclude, however:
"Moral, religious and ethical concerns . . . have been raised," the
agency notes in a document accompanying the report. But the risk
assessment is "strictly a science-based evaluation," it reports,
because the agency is not authorized by law to consider those issues.
Like Bonnie over at the Ethicurean, I'm kind of horrified that these conclusions were drawn after mere months of study. The FDA research is based on an inconsistent pool of animals, and because it is so difficult to determine what will actually predict the safety of food from cloned animals, the FDA is just going with what's (only kind of) worked so far:
...agency scientists decided to use the same simple but effective standard
used by farmers since the dawn of agriculture: If a farm animal appears
in all respects to be healthy, then presume that food from that animal
is safe to eat.
Somehow, I'm not reassured... E. coli, anyone? Added bonus: as of now, when that cloned meat starts hitting the grocery shelves,
it will not be required to be labeled as such, à la the current
guidelines for genetically modified foods.
Though the few articles I've looked at this morning haven't really touched on this, the only point I can see in cloning animals for food is to give cloning companies business and boost meat production in the States, like we need it. Is that so crazy, or am I missing something? Well, count me among the folks who would rather eat meat from a known farm upstate once every couple of days than have cloned meat from who knows where for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
New York Times: Cloned Animals Safe to Eat, FDA Concludes
Washington Post: FDA Says Clones Are Safe For Food
Washington Post: Animal Cloning: A Risk Assessment (excerpts from the FDA report)
The Ethicurean: FDA approves food from cloned animals
