October 20, 2006
FDA Isn’t Cloning Around with Meat and Milk
First it was, “Hello Dolly” and soon it may be “Hello Elsie,” and “Porky” as well.
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced on Tuesday it is moving closer to approving the sale of meat and milk from cloned farm animals in grocery stores.
As could be expected, there are many unhappy about the eventuality of products from cloned animals hitting supermarket shelves.
Jaydee Hanson, program director for the Center for Food Safety, told ABC News, “We are not convinced that this is safe food. We haven’t seen the facts that would convince us.”
Dr. Stephen Sundlof, chief of FDA veterinary medicine, disagreed. “Meat and milk from cattle clones and their offspring are as safe as that from conventionally bred animals,” he said.
A poll recently conducted by the Pew Initiative on Food and Biotechnology found that 60 percent of Americans say they are uncomfortable with the idea of consuming meat and milk from cloned animals. Most of the Pew survey respondents cited safety as their primary concern, followed by religious and ethical issues.
Some are advocating that if the FDA goes ahead with its approval, that items from cloned animals should be labeled as such. That may be nearly impossible to do since cloned animals will be processed along with non-clones in a large number of plants.
“It’s very possible that these products will end up on grocery-store shelves without any specific labels identifying them as having come from cloned animals,” said Michael Fernandez, executive director of the Pew Initiative on Food and Biotechnology.
Discussion Questions: Will there be widespread acceptance by consumers of meat and milk from cloned animals? Should special labeling be required to identify
products derived from cloned livestock?
Discussion Questions
Poll
BrainTrust
Recent Discussions
More Discussions
How Can Retailers Crack the Gen Z ‘Riddle’?
Gen Z is becoming an increasingly important consumer demographic, but an elusive one to map. How…Does Bath & Body Works’ Scented Holiday Campaign Pass the Sniff Test?
Bath & Body Works is kicking off a new campaign with scent being at the fore…Which Tech Will Solve In-Store Inventory Woes?
Three major tech lineups are looking to solve retail inventory problems. Which is most suited?
Given the impressive growth around enriched, organic, non-artificial growth hormone milk, I can’t imagine this going over in the dairy aisle. Ditto for meat. This is contra-trend.
I guess what I’m confused about is, since when has there been a shortage of dairy cows? Why do we even need food from cloned animals? Why would anyone want to sell it? Cloned animals, by nature of their birth, have got to be more expensive than the regular kind, and I certainly don’t see how “cloned” is going to command premium pricing…
People have been eating and enjoying virtually the same [products in the] genetic situation with regard to meat and poultry for years. Cloned products duplicate a genetic pattern. Selective breeding effectively does almost the same thing but may be less efficient in time. We now have chickens and turkeys whose breasts are so heavy that they can’t stand for prolonged periods. Dairy herds that require ear tags to tell one animal from another.
Folks, this horse has been out of the barn for awhile. If cloning delivers product to the consumer that provides benefits (lower fat, lower cost, lower bad cholesterol) then consumers will accept the product with little kick back. We will, of course, have to listen to the whining of at least seven special interest groups (wild genes, free genes, blue genes, et al) predicting the end of the world.
What I’m wondering is – how will the prices compare to traditional products? Will a gallon of “cloned” milk be cheaper than regular milk? Are there efficiencies that cloned herds provide that can be passed on to the consumer? This could impact the equation as well.
I agree with Bernice…specially attractive wording should not be devised to try and convince people that it’s OK. Consumer confidence should come after LONG-TERM STUDIES and hard facts, not after speculation and brief experimentation.
Yes, Ryan, labeling it will kill the market. No, Ryan, specially attractive wording should not be devised to try and convince people that it’s OK. This should not become another of the government and industry’s cop-outs – if we tell them, they’ll get frightened off and not buy it so we’d better keep them in the dark. NO, NO, NO a million times NO.
This is a typical example of ignorance run amok. It is creating fear and the wrong kinds of questions. Rather than questioning why cloned food shouldn’t be sold, we should instead be examining the real question…”Why not?” These foods have to pass rigorous standards inspections and then some, because of the public’s poor perceptions and ignorance of cloning. Just because something is a duplicate, doesn’t mean that it is bad. In fact, because we can better control the unknowns of traditional breeding, cloned products would probably be safer. Again, fear is disorienting the public and limiting the perception on the true advantages that cloning will provide.
I’m stretching my college biology knowledge to the limit here, but by definition cloned animals are the same as the animal from which the DNA was sourced. The difficulty in cloning is in triggering the division of cells as they would in natural reproduction, and in keeping them on track to produce all the proper organs and stuff. If the animal develops normally, I can’t see how the muscle tissue would be different than any other animals. The benefits include better tasting, more consistent quality food products. The biological downsides are an even further erosion of biodiversity. A disease that adapts to the monogenetic culture of a cloned animal farm will wipe out the whole group in short order.
Of course, I’m not a biologist, so I’d like to hear both sides of the argument. I think the ethical issues are much more relevant than the biological ones, however, and I think it would be a very long PR battle to convince the public to buy these products at this stage.
The great marketing opportunity: advertise which products are NOT from clones. Just like which products have no pesticides and which products have no artificial ingredients. Clone foods are a profit gift to the nonclone producers and retailers.
Special labeling will kill any potential cloned animal market. The right move is to try to understand why people think this food isn’t safe. “Cloned cattle” sounds about as appealing as “irradiated beef”; “bioenhanced wheat”‘ or genetically modified rice. We have to figure out a way to get the language a tad more user friendly.
Would there be any significant cost savings to customers that are end users, or is this just another corporate money grab for the beef industry?? As a chef, I would prefer to pay more for organically raised products and have people get used to eating “less” of it…how’s that for a concept, America?
Aside from the issues related to decreased genetic diversity (even considering current “scientific” breeding programs) there is always the issue of unintended consequences several generations down the chain should there be some subtle mutation or failure to reproduce an “exact” copy.
Just because something can be done, it does not mean it should be done. I am beginning to look for “heritage” seeds to grow vegetables. All of the hybridization that has occurred there has given many fruits and vegetables about as much taste as saw dust or a gourd.
Soon maybe we’ll have a lovely looking steak that tastes like your newspaper. No thank you. I’ll pass. Label it as what it is and I will vote with my wallet.