March 12, 2007

EU may consider cloned meat, milk on market
 

 

Meat and milk from cloned animals could soon become available in the EU, depending on the outcome of a European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) scientific review.

 

EFSA reported that the European Commission had asked its advice on the implications of animal cloning on food safety, animal health and welfare and the environment.

 

According to research, cloning could supposedly provide processors with a better quality of meat and other products, such as dairy. Cloning offers the possibility of creating strains of animals with increased disease resistance and other qualities.

 

However consumer resistance is bound to pose a problem as in the case of attempts to introduce genetically-modified foods in the bloc.

 

This issue became the focus earlier this year after the UK's Food Standards Agency revealed in January that the calf of a cloned cow was being raised on a UK farm.

 

After food safety officials from the 27 member states held urgent talks on the matter, a decision was reached that milk and meat from cloned animals and their offspring should be considered in the same way as any other novel food, such as genetically-modified organisms (GMOs).

 

The Commission is asking for advice on food safety, animal health, animal welfare and environment implication of "live cloned animals, obtained through somatic cell nucleus transfer (SCNT) technique, their offspring and of the products obtained from those animals."

 

EFSA is the scientific risk assessor for novel foods proposed for introduction in the EU's food chain. The Commission made the request of opinions both from EFSA and the European Group of Ethics.

 

Animal cloning issues cut across different EFSA scientific panels, the agency said.

 

At present, cloning is not a commercial practice in Europe and there is no specific regulation on the authorisation of food products from cloned animals for human consumption in the territory.

 

EFSA's report--which is expected to come within six months--will therefore help inform any future EU measures for cloned animals and their products.

 

Cloning uses DNA technology to produce multiple, exact copies of a single gene or other segment of DNA. It refers to the creation a new mutlicellular organism, genetically identical to another.

 

Reproductive cloning is a technology used to generate an animal that has the same nuclear DNA as another currently or previously existing animal.