Will you eat meat from cloned animals?

By Terri Coles

TORONTO (Reuters) - The U.S. food regulator this week sanctioned cloned foods, and while the movement of meat and milk derived from cloned animals and their offspring into supermarkets is expected to be slow, the reaction to the news has been swift.

After years of evaluation, the Food and Drug Administration said it had determined that meat and milk from cow, goat and pig clones and their offspring are safe for human consumption. The FDA began its analysis of the safety issues in 2001, when it asked researchers and food producers to keep cloned animals and their descendants out of the food supply. Despite the latest FDA decision, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has asked cloning companies to indefinitely continue their voluntary moratorium on transitioning these animals from research to food to allow time for consumer acceptance.

"We understand there are currently only about 600 animal clones in the U.S., and most of them are breeding animals, so few clones will ever arrive in the marketplace," Bruce Knight, USDA under-secretary for marketing and regulatory programs, said in a statement. "Further, USDA has encouraged technology providers to maintain their voluntary moratorium on sending milk and meat from animal clones into the food supply during this transition time."

The USDA's statement hints at the strong feelings many consumers have about cloning. "I'm extremely appalled by this," said Bonnie Powell, a writer for the food blog Ethicurian. "I do think we're conducting a vast experiment in public health -- with no control group."

In its announcement, the FDA said moral and ethical questions about clones in the food supply are outside its purview. The agency is required by law to stick to safety issues, and the FDA said its analysis determined that cloned animals and their offspring were as safe to eat as conventionally bred animals. The European Union has also said it believes cloned animals and their offspring are safe to eat and are expected to make a similar decision soon.

The FDA has adequately answered questions about the safety of consuming these animal products, The Center for Science in the Public Interest  said. "While the safety of any food cannot be proven with absolute certainty," Gregory Jaffe, CSPI's biotechnology director, said in a statement, "consumers should have confidence that meat and milk from cloned animals and their offspring will be safe."

"I'm actually shocked and horrified it took (the FDA) so long to make the statement," said Ronald Bailey, author and science correspondent for Reason Magazine. All the scientific evidence over several years of study has pointed towards these animals as safe to eat, he said.

Opponents, however, argue there isn't enough long-term data to prove cloned animals are safe for human consumption, and that the clones endure inhumane hardships during their lives due to the health problems, failed pregnancies and high death rates seen in cloned animals. These unscientific consumer concerns are as important as the safety data when it comes to deciding whether or not introducing cloned animals into the food chain is acceptable, said Marion Nestle, a professor at New York University's Department of Nutrition, Food Studies, and Public Health and the author of "What To Eat".

"Just because it's safe doesn't mean it's acceptable," she said, adding that while the producer benefit from this technology is clear, the consumer benefit is less obvious.

Even if food from clones does make it to supermarket shelves, will you know? That's a question that gives Nestle pause because the FDA says cloned livestock and normal livestock are indistinguishable, meaning companies don't have to label those products.

Given their strong feelings, consumers should be given the choice to avoid meat and milk from clones if it's important to them, Nestle said. Not labeling could even backfire on companies: "If they don't label it, everybody's going to want to know what they're hiding," she said

Reason Magazine's Bailey disagrees, saying labels imply that something is nutritionally or scientifically different about food products derived from clones when data examined by the United States and the European Union has shown there isn't.

"Labeling is used as a stalking horse for frightening people," he said. "The people who oppose biotechnology and cloning do it for other reasons, and they know for a fact that people treat FDA labels as warning labels. What they want to do is scare consumers."

Nestle and Bailey expect food manufacturers will begin to label foods as not derived from clones. Companies that want to advertise that their foods are not produced from cloned livestock and their offspring can apply to the FDA on a case-by-case basis for permission. Tyson Foods and Smithfield Foods said on Tuesday that they have no plans to introduce clones and their offspring into their food systems, and the Organic Trade Association released a statement clarifying that foods labeled organic cannot be made using cloned animals.

In a pluralistic society like ours, Bailey argued, consumers should be allowed to eat and avoid whichever foods they please, as long as the science shows they're safe. "What we should allow is food tolerance."

For those who are not convinced that cloned animals and their offspring meet that criteria, the fight is not over. The Ethicurian's Powell encourages consumers who opposed cloning to write to food producers and politicians. "The FDA got over 30,000 letters from consumers, as well as industry groups," she said. "It doesn't have to be over."

We want to know what you think -- do you agree with the FDA? Should meat and milk from clones and their offspring be labeled as such? Email at HealthMatters@reuters.com with your comments.