Would You Eat a Cloned Animal?
Larry West observes how the White House is trying to straddle the fence on the recent FDA ruling that cloned animals are safe in the food supply ... by having USDA call for farmers not to rush to action because cloned foods might scare consumers. This concern is borne out by a 2005 Pew survey.
I'm rolling my eyes at part of the hoopla because no farmer in his or her right mind is going to pay what it costs to clone an animal ($15,000 v $2,000 for beef) ... so that it can be killed and sold for our dinner table! Farmers that invest in cloning will, more than likely, clone breeding stock. That means the cost-benefit ratio will stimulate the cloning of males. Once the old boy is past his prime, well, yeah, he'll get turned into hamburger if he is steak-on-the-hoof, so to speak.
There's another economic factor at work. One USDA study reported "that cloned pigs had weakened immune systems compared to normal pigs." Poor health means more costly and, probably, shorter-lives.
As far as the consumption of the offspring (or output, milk, for example), that's another story. I'm annoyed when the two are conflated.
Where's the politics? On the global market, if no where else.
I can't see either the EU or Japan accepting cheese from dairy herds where a cow had a cloned parental unit. I base this deduction on their response to genetically-modified foods (BST milk, to keep to my example). Even so, this scenario is several years down the road, since it takes time to clone an animal, have it grow old enough to serve as a parental unit and then have its offspring grow old enough to produce milk. That said, there are reports that we already have this type of second-degree cloning already in the food supply, due to the use of semen from cloned bulls.
The Humane Society shows that there is domestic politics at play as well:
"Despite the fact that cloned animals suffer high mortality rates and those who survive are often plagued with birth defects and diseases, the FDA did not give adequate consideration to the welfare of these animals or their surrogate mothers in its deliberations," said Wayne Pacelle, The HSUS' president and CEO. "Furthermore, no regulations exist in the United States that protect farm animals during cloning research."
These health facts add to my observations about poor cost-benefit ratios.
The FDA announced in December 2006 that it intended to "approve cloned animals for meat and milk consumption." It's now been 10 years since the first cows were cloned .... in Japan of all places. Sometimes I wonder what problems companies are trying to solve. Too little milk is not one of them. Neither is too little beef.
What will the labeling requirements be? I don't want to eat cloned meat and I don't want to drink milk or eat cheese from cloned cows. How about you?
More from Technorati: Is it safe? Eating cloned and living cloned and Why is the FDA poised to approve cloning?
Comments
Where’s the fuss?
Cloned plants (lumber and foodstock) have been around for decades and no one has said boo about this. What is so sacrosanct, so special, about livestock?
When I heard this on NPR this week I noticed that most (all but one, I believe) of the man-on-the-street comments they chose to air were negative about buying/consuming food from cloned animals.
That got me to thinking. There is probably a correlation to politics in this. Conservatives, it seems to me, would be more likely to consume food from cloned animals than support embryonic stem cell research, and liberals (from what I’ve seen and heard) would have the opposite tendency.
Seems like a solution looking for a problem. I have a couple of cows, unless you insist a some fancy stud bull it’s less than a $100 to breed a cow. I doubt the average American can tell the difference (if there is any) between a steak that was the result of a $40 straw of semen or a $2000 straw of semen, and that $2000 is to get yourself a new breeding bull not a steak. Any way why clone, it’s way cheaper to have the cow come in heat, semen goes in cow, cow delivers bull calf, calf gets turned into a steer, feed steer, kill it and eat it. No scientist required. That $15,000 steer is going to cost you about $25 a pound at the store, should be a big seller - geez what a joke.
To me, comparing cloning of plants and animals is ridiculous. Animals are much more complex in nature, so this argument carries no weight with me. Cloning of animals is in its infancy still and to approve it for public consumption is way out of line.
I agree with Craig & Debbie. What’s the problem that this is supposedly solving? Plants are far simpler systems than animals. DPB’s conservative-liberal comparison seems flawed to me, but I’m not sure what the original reasoning is. I’m pretty sure conservatives would not want either embryonic stem cell research or cloned meat products.
Well to smell a cloned flower and eat a cloned cow are two different things! I for one don’t want sci-fi for dinner thanks but HECK NO!
Maybe some are dying for their steak dinner but I’ll pass and hope for better things!
@1: When was the last time you ATE lumber?
We’re talking about a whole different animal (pun intended): The steak, or sausage on your plate; or the milk you and your (hopefully not cloned) offspring drink at breakfast…
The article states that “”that cloned pigs had weakened immune systems compared to normal pigs.” Poor health means more costly and, probably, shorter-lives.”
Uhm, yes and you know why they will be more costly? Because of the medications these future pork-steaks and saucages will have to take so that they will have meat enough on the bones. Bon Apetite!
I’m willing to bet that the “problem” being solved here is that of royalties. Once upon a time, farmers saved part of their crop to be seed for replanting the fields the following spring. Well, the big agri-companies who’ve developed and trademarked certain strains of corn/soybeans/etc actually have inspectors who look for farmers who’ve got these strains of crops growing and can’t prove that they bought seed from the company that year, and suing the pants off them. There’s one small farmer in (I believe) Nebraska whose seed stock was cross-pollinated by a neighbor’s, and has been hit with a massive lawsuit for, essentially, copyright violation, even though he can’t do anything about the wind and insects bringing in pollen to his fields.
I’m sure that cloned beef is the same way. If companies can get cloned beef going, they’ll demand some sort of royalty from producers for the privilege of using “their” cattle. So, it’s not so much a health issue as it is, management at these companies have realized that if they can get this racket going, they can squeeze even more money out of consumers and pay themselves even bigger bonuses.
Thanks, Amanda! I’m familiar with the seed example and had not thought about possibilities of royalty payments with cloned beef.
Why don’t you want to eat cloned meat, or drink milk from cloned cows? It’s the same as the meat/milk from the original cow. (That’s sort of the POINT of cloning.)
I in no way want to eat any of this meat, or other animal product. This is going too far and in the long run cannot be safe! If I am unable to buy purely organic meats yes, I will reroot and become vegan again!