No, probably not, but we are probably in for a battle. The FDA is said to be about to announce the approval of using cloned animals for food. The announcement will be on Thursday, but there are several news reports about it already. Here is a link to an AP article written by Libby Quaid. (I also borrowed from that article the picture -left, by Chris Gardner- of cloned dairy cows Cyagra1 and Genesis.)
What will the battle be about? Well, Let’s get the fear-mongering (that opponents of this announcement will use to their advantage) out of the way first. If these were indeed clones in the purest sense of the word, produced in unquestionable circumstances, in an industry that did not already have several unsettling and dysfunctional features to it (see for example here) then there would be no issue. The bottom line is that we should be no more scared of clones than we should be of twins.
But it is not that simple. According to the article to which I pointed, here are claims -backed up with documentation- (I have not read the research, so am merely reporting that it exists) that the cloned animals are not produced in a manner that would be acceptable for the production of animals by other means -there are still many deaths and deformities in the process, and these birth defects are still not fully understood.
Carol Tucker Foreman, director of food policy at the Consumer Federation of America, said the FDA is ignoring research that shows cloning results in more deaths and deformed animals than other reproductive technologies.
The consumer federation will ask food companies and supermarkets to refuse to sell food from clones, she said.
“Meat and milk from cloned animals have no benefit for consumers, and consumers don’t want them in their foods,” Foreman said.
That alone might not be so terrible, you’re thinking, but the big thing (to my mind) is that the FDA are so happy with the statement that the cloned animals are identical to the usual ones that they will require that there be no labelling at all of the final products that arrive at your shopping basket. So putting the basic science of cloning aside for a moment, this might be justifiably a point of concern, since it would seem that -until the standards of production are improved- it would be nice as a customer to be able to contribute to putting commercial pressure on the producers to improve their methods and iron out the flaws, whether they be merely procedural or fundamentally scientific, or both.
Actually, I think that I phrased things too nicely in the above, using the word “nice” to be able to do so. I think that we as customers should very much have the right to do so. Just as we should have the right to know a lot more about the food we are presented with right now – its points of origin, additives used, etc. I do find myself dismayed by the state the food production and distribution industry is in when its current practices – driven almost entirely by economic concerns – are weighed against the negative impact on the nutritional needs of the populace (a huge lack of diversity in our diet), the damage to local economies, and several other concerns that you may have heard about. (See my earlier article “People of the Corn” and the books cited therein.) The small changes that are being made here and there to improve things have come in large part from members of the public being able to read labels and vote with their wallets. It seems to me that not labelling cloned animal products – right at the beginning of their appearance in the food supply when it should be relatively easier to figure out a tracking system and code of practice – is a mistake, and a misguided act of depriving the consumer of some of their rights to know where their food comes from, and take part in shaping the process.
This has nothing to do with fear of cloned animals (that’s another discussion anyway) even though this will come up again and again in this discussion and perhaps obscure things. It is about knowing and having some say in how your food is produced – in just the same way that I should be able to know if the eggs I’m cracking open to make my omellete were produced from battery hens imprisoned in cages that do not permit them to move, with their wings and legs wasting away, etc., instead of from hens that can wander around and be reasonably happy with their existence. (No, I am not going to start a silly discussion about what exactly “happy” means.)
Before we go any further, you might ask the question “what are they cloning animals for right now anyway?”. An excellent question indeed, and I’m glad you asked it. Resist the temptation to imagine rows and rows and rows of thousands of identical2 animals being produced in some “dark satanic mill” for our consumption. Why? Well, because that image is unfortunately already a reality, and has nothing to do with cloning! Here’s what they do now:
Cloning lets farmers and ranchers make copies of exceptional animals, such as pigs that fatten rapidly or cows that are superior milk producers.
“We clone an animal because we want a genetic twin of that animal,” said Barb Glenn of the Biotechnology Industry Organization.
“It’s not a genetically engineered animal; no genes have been changed or moved or deleted,” she said. “It’s simply a genetic twin that we can then use for future matings to improve the overall health and well-being of the herd.”
So given the practices right now, there’s no immediate intention to put (a large number of) these animals directly into the food chain (they’d be far too expensive) – we’d simply be eating their offspring. But as the article points out:
Still, some clones would end up in the food supply. As with conventional livestock, a cloned bull or cow that outlived its usefulness would probably wind up at a hamburger plant, and a cloned dairy cow would be milked during her breeding years.
You should be aware that the industry have not put them into the food supply up to now largely because the industry did not push the FDA on this for a while as they were:
nervous that consumers might reject milk and meat from cloned animals.
In fact, reading that part of the article gives one the impression that the industry urged for the FDA to slow down on the issue for this reason, but I’m not sure. However, it is interesting to note that this is not really that new a story. I found news reports about this pending approval dated late October 2003 (see e.g. Reuters (via Wired) and the BBC). Interestingly, the issue came up again in 2005, with questions asked about why it is taking so long. A different Reuters/Wired article was written in 2005, directly discussing the industry’s nervousness. Here’s an October 2005 Washington Post article, promising the announcement “soon”. It is interesting to note the mention (that you can find in several other places) that there’s almost certainly cloned animal products in the food supply here and there anyway -and you should be aware that the industry moratorium on introducing it into the food supply was entirely voluntary, by the way. The article is pretty good on discussing a little about the science behind the cloning too, and more about the industry’s motivations in using the technique.
So anyway, this first was going to be announced “soon” in 2003, and now, as late as the last few days of 2006, the announcement is finally to come (expected Thursday), accompanying a paper with the FDA’s scientific findings. I have to say that this delay does not fill me with confidence. Did they delay in order to gather more data? To understand the large number of (poorly understood at least as late as 2003) birth defects associated with cloned animals? I hope that the delay is addressed somewhat in the announcement. Is there a backstory here that needs to be brought into the open? This is what some of us will -understandably- be wondering, if they don’t come clean.
This is definitely one to watch.
-cvj
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1Is that right? Cyagra happens to be the name of one of the industry companies that is hoping to benefit from wider use of cloning in the industry. I wonder if there was an error in the article’s captioning.
2Of course, even if they were clones of each other, they would not be identical animals in appearance. Recall that development is all-important in producing the final organism from the DNA. See the remarks I made at the end of the cloned cat post last week, prompted in part by a commenter’s remarks about calico coats. I can’t help but wonder: Is the well-known black and white patchwork coat of the familiar farmyard cow also a result of a battle between X-chromosomes? I’m guessing so since it is again a characteristic of the females only, as far as I know. You don’t get often bulls that look like that, I think.
I’ve recently learned that domestic turkey can’t breed except by artificial insemination. That’s because through breeding over the years, they have such a large breast that they can’t do the mount. Pretty silly. One could say that these turkeys are very successful under domestication by humans. But when humans go the way of the dinosaur, so do the turkeys.
At least we still have wild turkeys.
Gobble gobble.
When the current uncontrolled Climate Change experiment is over, it will be us and the turkeys. The whole of the Earth will be unrecognizable. What bothers me is that the Biosphere II experiment failed. That is, it turned out to be unsustainable. And that was a controlled experiment. What we like to do with important controlled experiments like Biosphere II is de-fund them. We can get to Mars without it.
Jerry Crowther:- Thanks, but I think you’re missing the point I was making.
-cvj
Whether or not the meat or its byproducts are from cloned animals makes no difference to me. How do you think cattle are reproduced now? Artificial insemination. Last time I bought a filet mignon, there was no ‘warning label’ about the evils of non natural procreation. Cloning is no different. IMHO, it’s preferred. The cattle farmer can pick and choose his very best cattle, and reproduce it indefinitely, and I can have the same tasty cut every time.
“Some companies are already planning ways in which to optimise their opposition to using modified foods. A spokesman for Ben & Jerry’s said it planned to make clear that its products would not include produce from cloned animals. ”
from:
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/1229-01.htm
Want to trust the government to make sound choices and good decisions about the scientific merits of cloning and labelling of food products? Look no further than this horrific story: “Grand Canyon National Park is not permitted to give an official estimate of the geologic age of its principal feature, due to pressure from Bush administration appointees. Despite promising a prompt review of its approval for a book claiming the Grand Canyon was created by Noah’s flood rather than by geologic forces, more than three years later no review has ever been done and the book remains on sale at the park.â€
Presumably the industry does not want to deal with the cost of information, unless there is a benefit. If there is consumer demand for non-cloned, “happy” animal meat, or a premium chargeable for such then the industry will provide it.
Giving up the eating of most meat and fish, as well as any non-organic dairy (and organic must be California certified as the rest of the nation’s efforts are factually flawed), i don’t really care that much about the genetic manipulation of cows and what not. However, last summer Harpers ran a piece by Nathanael Johnson called the Swine of the Times: the making of the modern pig in which some very startling and depressing changes are occuring in our food sources. Among his findings:
I can only imagine, as we lose more and more of the diversity of our domesticated animal species, that the future of meat proteins begins to look more and more like Soylent Green.
Yes, the resulting problem with bananas is severe, since they are very prone to diseases that can wipe out huge crops due to lack of diversity.
But cloned plants is not the issue.
-cvj
Plants grown from cuttings produce cloned food!
I think for most part, bananas are cloned.
Lack of genetic diversity in cultivars is a problem.
E.g.,
http://www.scienceagogo.com/news/no_bananas.shtml