AR-News: What's the beef?

[jim robertson]

http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/0122/p14s01-stss.html

What's the beef?

The FDA weighs whether to allow meat and milk from cloned animals to enter 
the food supply. Opponents fear the impact.

By Tim King | Contributor to The Christian Science Monitor

LONG PRAIRIE, MINN. – In the beginning, there was Dolly. Since then, one by 
one, beef and dairy cattle, pigs, and goats have joined the Scottish sheep 
in a 21st century ark of cloned farm animals.
But while cloned animals have become common in the lab, they have yet to 
make it to the dinner table. That could change if the Food and Drug 
Administration overturns a ban on the consumption of cloned livestock. In a 
few years, their meat or milk could become a regular staple on America's 
menu.


The results could be significant: higher-quality meat and dairy products, 
foods engineered to be more nutritious, and possibly lower grocery prices, 
thanks to the arrival of more productive animals. The infant farm cloning 
industry is chomping at the bit to commercialize its research.

But consumer and animal advocates worry about the impact that cloning could 
have on human health, not to mention the animals themselves. There is no 
evidence "that food from cloned animals is safe," said Carol Tucker Foreman 
of the Consumer Federation of America in a statement. "The FDA has only 
limited data on the composition of food from cloned animals, and there have 
been no feeding studies to see the impact of long-term consumption. All of 
the data come from groups who support animal cloning."

So far, the signs for the industry look positive. Last October, the FDA said 
that food products from cloned livestock were essentially the same as those 
from conventional animals. It is working on a risk-assessment plan that, for 
now, indicates there is little risk to humans who eat cloned livestock. The 
release of the final assessment has yet to be scheduled.

Only a few hundred cloned cattle currently live in the United States, mostly 
on research farms, so a repeal of the ban would have little immediate effect 
on the food supply. However, dropping the barrier would dismantle a hurdle 
that has kept the industry in the starting blocks, proponents say.

"There's no question that the voluntary ban ... is holding the development 
of this business back," says Don Coover, a rancher from Galesburg, Kan., and 
owner of SEK Genetics, a cattle-genetics company with cloning partnerships. 
He has financed several cloning projects, including six clones of the 
high-performance bull, Full Flush. Full Flush's calves are healthy 
2-year-olds and have increased in value more than five times their original 
production cost of $20,000, he says.

Cloned cattle like them could be used to breed uniform, high-quality 
offspring. "You could make animals with less fatty meat or more nutritious 
milk," says Lisa Dry, communications director of the Biotechnology Industry 
Organization in Washington. "Or they could be more resistant to diseases, 
which could make them safer for humans to eat."

Mr. Coover, who sells bull semen for artificial insemination, says there is 
a growing demand for that product from top-quality bulls. "There's quite a 
lot of interest in buying semen from the clones, but we're telling people 
that we're not going to do that," he says. "It's the obligation of the FDA 
to make a decision that is in the best interest of ... the producers and the 
broader public."

The FDA's preliminary decision, which is part of the formal risk-assessment 
process and thus not final, is based on findings from a National Academy of 
Sciences (NAS) report. Although the NAS study, commissioned by the FDA, said 
food from cloned animals was probably safe, it did express reservations.

"Limited sample size, health and production data, and rapidly changing 
cloning protocols make it difficult to draw conclusions regarding the safety 
of milk, meat, or other products from ... cloned [animals]," the NAS 
reported in August 2002.

But with cloning technology clipping along at a thoroughbred's pace, the FDA 
decided last fall to release 11 pages of its risk assessment, which 
considers cows, sheep, pigs, and goats. "Food products derived from animal 
clones and their offspring are likely to be as safe to eat as food from 
their non-clone counterparts, based on all the evidence available," FDA 
officials reported in October. "These scientific findings also showed that 
healthy adult clones are virtually indistinguishable from their conventional 
counterparts."

However, the FDA has acknowledged that it will explore animal-welfare 
issues. Research has shown that the cloning process severely affects the 
genetic makeup of animals and can cause clones to suffer. The Humane Society 
of the United States, for one, is deeply concerned about the ethical 
implications of cloning.

"Deaths and deformities in cloned animals are the norm, not the exception, 
and these studies make plain once again that these creatures are suffering 
terribly in the process," says Wayne Pacelle, senior vice president of HSUS. 
"There is no societal value to this. This is just science run amok in the 
service of the further industrialization of agriculture."

The main method of cloning involves taking the nucleus from a cell of the 
animal to be cloned and placing it in an egg that has had its nucleus 
removed. A University of Missouri study on cloned pigs, according to HSUS, 
reported that "out of 10 born, 5 died or were destroyed by researchers due 
to defects such as heart failure, lameness, and anemia."

Jorge Piedrahita and researchers at North Carolina State University's 
College of Veterinary Medicine announced last month that they had cloned two 
Duroc pigs. "Certain genes were dis-regulated or damaged," Mr. Piedrahita 
reported.

And in 2002 Rudolf Jaenisch, a researcher at MIT, reported that cloned mice 
have hundreds of abnormal genes. Some have a genetic tendency toward 
obesity.

The NAS has pointed out that ill clones would probably be more stressed as 
they reach maturity, and it suggested the animals might shed more pathogens 
in their manure. That would increase the potential of contaminated carcasses 
entering processing plants and, later, the food supply.

"While some forms of animal cloning may have inherent benefits, others are 
hard to justify," said the Consumer Federation's Ms. Foreman in a statement. 
"The FDA needs to make, or ask another government agency to make, some 
decisions about appropriate uses of cloning."




"In my humble opinion, non-cooperatin with evil is as much a duty as is 
cooperation with good."
"I hold flesh-food to be unsuited to our species."
Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948)

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