December 20, 2007

 

FDA all set to approve cloned meat and milk while Congress attempts to delay decision

 

 

The long-time argument over meat and milk from cloned animals is coming to an end as the government is all set to give a go that would allow products to be sold to consumers for the first time.

 

Meanwhile, critics in Congress, including Senator Barbara A. Mikulski of Maryland, are attempting to delay the action expected from the Food and Drug Administration, which could decide as early as this week to permit sales. These opponents are rushing to gain approval by Congress this week of a provision that would encourage the FDA to delay action until further studies are completed.

 

Mikulski has led congressional efforts to delay FDA action, placing provisions in farm and spending legislation that would require more study of the issue.

 

Congress is debating legislation that would urge the government to delay a decision on sales of food that comes from clones.

 

Meanwhile, biotechnology companies plan to unveil a campaign that would enable consumers to learn whether the meat and milk they are buying comes from cloned animals, once the government allows those products to hit store shelves.

 

Widespread fears for the safety of food from cloned animals have kept the FDA from lifting a voluntary 2001 moratorium on sales. Studies show that three out of five Americans are uncomfortable with the cloned products, even though many scientists say that there's no added risk and that it would take years for food from cloned animals to make it to the marketplace.

 

Grocers and food companies fear that FDA approval would frighten customers and depress milk and meat sales. That has left biotechnology companies in a regulatory limbo, awaiting the opportunity to tap into what they see as a lucrative market.

 

The tracking system is designed to enable supermarkets to tell customers whether the gallon of milk or cut of steak they are buying came directly from a clone.

 

But critics say the industry effort wouldn't go far enough. For one thing, they point out, food makers would not be required to participate. Perhaps more important, the program would not cover sales of meat and milk made from the offspring of clones, which are far more likely to be sources of the food because the clones themselves are too valuable to be used for anything but breeding.

 

Critics called the tracking system a desperate effort to provide cover for the FDA to make an unpopular decision.

 

Under the industry's voluntary tracking plan, every part of the food chain, from a rancher's breeding livestock to supermarkets, would have to participate in order for consumers to know what they were buying.

 

The cloning companies - ViaGen in Austin, Texas, and Trans Ova Genetics in Sioux City, Iowa - would give each cloned animal an identification number and an ear tag that would emit that number via radio frequencies. Clone owners would pledge to properly identify, sell and dispose of the animals so that food processors and sellers would know from what livestock they were getting meat and milk.

 

Grocers could then confidently say whether they were selling pork chops from clones.

 

Some industry groups, such as the National Milk Producers Federation, representing 45,000 dairy farmers across the country, described the program as an encouraging step toward easing consumers' minds. But other food industry groups, in a measure of the issue's sensitivity, refrained from endorsing the plan.

 

Of the tens of millions of cattle, pigs, goats and sheep in America, fewer than 600 are clones. It would take several years for a significant number of products derived from clones to go on sale, according to cloning companies.

 

Still, consumer reaction is a serious concern despite FDA's conclusion that milk and meat from cloned livestock is safe to consume.

 

Critics say the system is inadequate and that the industry is trying to provide cover for an unpopular decision allowing sales of food from clones and their offspring.