November 26, 2010

UK scientists give all-clear for products from cloned cattle
 

Meat and milk from cloned cattle and their offspring are safe to eat, UK government advisers have determined.

The conclusion by the Advisory Committee on Novel Foods and Processes, an independent body that assesses whether food products are safe, increases the likelihood that authorities will approve the sale of products from cloned animals.

Andrew Wadge, chief scientist at the Food Standards Agency, said, "the committee has confirmed that meat and milk from cloned cattle and offspring shows no substantial difference to conventionally produced meat and milk and therefore are unlikely to present a food safety risk."

Previous "safe" rulings by the advisory committee often lead to the granting of a licence. The review was initiated by the FSA after it emerged in the summer that such milk and meat had been sold unwittingly in butchers' shops without a licence. The committee could not issue a safety ruling because it had no request from a producer that wants to sell such milk or meat. Therefore, the FSA had to submit a hypothetical application.

The expert panel said there was no evidence of any difference between cloned meat and conventionally-bred cattle. Members concluded that any potential differences between cloned animals and conventional animals were unlikely to exist beyond the second generation.

The committee noted that consumers might want to see effective labelling to be able to distinguish such products. It also recommended gathering further data as available evidence is relatively limited.

The panel's conclusions mirror those in 2008 of the US food and drug administration's five-year study which found that cloned meat and milk were indistinguishable from traditional meat and milk.

It is legal to sell food derived from clones in the US but no applications have been made in Europe.

Embryos from cattle cloned in the US were first imported three years ago, but no official checks have been kept on their offspring. The agency said in August it traced three bulls born in the UK with embryos from a cloned cow in the US. It warned that it would be impossible to set up a regime to trace and label food from farms with cloned animals in September.

Under European law, such foodstuff must pass a safety evaluation and get approval before being marketed. The agency's board will discuss the issue in December and is likely to make recommendations to ministers.

A spokesman said the board will consider the committee's opinion and also a recent EU Commission proposal to ban such meat and milk.

The board's discussion would influence Britain's negotiations on the issue in Europe, the spokesman said. "It is for individual member states to interpret European law; but, obviously, we differ from the commission on this, which is why we have asked for clarity from Europe," he said.