January 5, 2007

 

No harm in cloned food, says FDA

 

 

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued a report last week concluding meat and milk from cloned animals were as safe to eat as from ordinary livestock.

 

The FDA's official risk assessment could clear the way within the next year for approval of food products from cloned animals and their offspring.

 

An animal clone was a genetic copy of a donor animal, similar to identical twins but born at different times. Cloning was different from genetic engineering, which involved altering, adding or deleting DNA, said the report.

 

Meat and milk from clones and their offspring were as safe as food consumed every day, pointed out Stephen Sundlof, director of the FDA's centre for veterinary medicine. The agency will now solicit public comment on the matter until April 2, and could make a decision by the end of 2007, officials said.

 

Considering the high cost involved in producing cloned animals, it is unlikely that significant amounts of meat or milk from such livestock would go directly into the food supply. Instead, agricultural companies envision cloning as a breeding tool. Breeders would clone prize specimens and then use each clone to yield offspring through conventional breeding techniques.

 

Those opposed to putting cloned animals in the food supply slammed the FDA report, arguing that there has been little time to study long-term health effects of cloning or its effects on food.

 

Citing health concerns, activists contended that some clones had weakened immune systems of animals and might require more drugs to be free of disease-causing bacteria such as E. coli. There have also been concerns about no requirement for labelling of food derived from cloned animals.

 

For the purposes of the FDA's risk analysis, the agency looked at studies that compared clones with normal animals on numerous chemical measures, including levels of proteins, amino acids, fatty acids and vitamins. The data was compiled from companies that produce cloned animals, as well as from academic and government researchers.

 

The comparisons showed that cloned animals were indistinguishable from ordinary ones, said Matthew Wheeler, a researcher in animal reproduction technology at the University of Illinois who was one of three external peer reviewers of the FDA report.

 

Wheeler agreed with critics that there should be more extensive studies on the safety of cloned food products, but said it would be impractical to wait decades until all the results are in. He agreed to a need for labels.

 

Steve Mower, director of marketing for Cyagra Inc, a Pennsylvania-based livestock cloning company said he and his co-workers decided to try the meat themselves after the company slaughtered 11 cloned cattle as part of a meat analysis study. He said he had eating cloned meat for two years and did not find any difference in it.