FDA's OK May Spark 'Clone-Free' Labels

[skilletlicker]

Reading the linked article and the subsequent posts, two names stand out above all the din, ViaGen and Cyagra...

Seriously boufa, no one here has claimed intimate knowledge of the subject. You clearly have strong feelings but I can't extrapolate the logic of the argument from all the sarcasm. Please clarify your position.

 

[boufa06]

Oh, never mind. Have a Happy New Year!

 

[Mrs. Cuillo]

I understand the reason for it, our world population is over 1 billion!!! (Time magazine, I believe, had it on the front cover of an issue in September or October) But, as others have stated, I don't think I would eat it just yet and I am not sure why.

 

[Candocook]

The point of cloned animals will be to improve the breeding stock. What is sold in the supermarket will not be the cloned animal, which at the moment costs perhaps $20,000. The clone would be used as a normal breeding animal to produce more or better animals for sale--these are not clones. This is little different from the huge breasted turkeys that have been developed by selective breeding , for example. OR milk cattle that have been bred to have long back legs to make it easier to milk them.

 

[Chief Longwind Of The North]

Andy and Candocook hit it right on the head. Cloned animals would try to produce superior animals from proven stock, just as the best stallions are used as stud animals to improve a line of horses. Cloning is simply put, an attempt to recreate exactly a target animal, be it horse, cow, rabbit, sheep, human, etc.

The real fear in cloning is the manufacture of humans by uscrupulous humans (gasp, you mean there are such people!) and then using those bodies for spare parts for the original donors of the cells. I remember talking about this with my instructor from a physiology class way back in 1974. These are not new ideas and have been bandied about for some 30 to 40 years now. They are just now seeing the light of reality. Such things are possible, right or wrong. It is up to the societies of the world to determine the proper use, or the misuse of any technology. And so far as I have seen from history, as a world society, our track record isn't so good.

Cloning has great potential for good, but it also has equally great potential for bad. Maybe the answer isn't to create a more efficeint way to feed the world's burgeoning masses, but rather to exercise a bit of discipline in our explosive growth, and proper use and replenishment of what we already have. Just a thought.

Seeeeya; Goodweed of the North

 

[Mrs. Cuillo]

But even though the actual cloned cow would not be for sale in gracery stores, would the cattle that is sold in the grocery store still have half clone in them? Therefore making it a cloned cow? I am not trying to be a jerk, I am just trying to understand.

 

[Andy M.]

But even though the actual cloned cow would not be for sale in gracery stores, would the cattle that is sold in the grocery store still have half clone in them? Therefore making it a cloned cow? I am not trying to be a jerk, I am just trying to understand.

I don't think you're trying to be a jerk.

The answer to your question is yes. But I don't understand the concern. Currently, most cows are artificially inseminated with sperm taken from top steers that are known to produce good offspring. Does that bother you?

It's not as if they are creating Frankenstein cattle. They are simply trying to produce cattle with the best qualities for market.

The reason the FDA thinks they won't require special labeling for meats from cloned animals is that there is no difference in the meat.

 

[Chief Longwind Of The North]

First we must understand what cloning is. With artificial insemination, the egg has sperm inserted by human intervention to start the growth of the new animal or person. That is, the egg of the parent is fertilized by introduced sperm cells rather than letting the little critters randomly swim to the egg. With surrogate parents, the egg and sperm of the donors are artificially fertalized and implanted in a host womb, usually because the natural mother isn't able to carry a child for one reason or another. Cloning takes this to another level. Rather than fertalizing an egg with a sperm cell, both of which contain the genetic material that organizes the mytocis of one cell into a viable animal, a cell is introduced with the gentic material from a donor and allowed to divide naturally until it produces an identicle animal as the donor. That is, the offspring will be exactly like the donor, be it cow, pig, chicken, or human. The cell will progress through all stages of development, just as the cel in a fertalized egg progresses.

Simply stated, cloning is another way of jump-starting the cell mitosis that results in a living organism.

Some of my explanation may be skewed a bit as I haven't studied cloning in 30-plus years. But essentially, it should convey the correct principle. As Andy stated, meat from a cloned animal is no different than meat from an animal brought into the world by a bull and cow getting together on a moonlit night.

Another useful and interesting side issue is growing skin, which is actually a type of cloning whereby several skin cells are immersed in a nutrient bath and allowed to grow on an artificial surface. When there is enough of this "artificially" grown skin, it is used to replace the host skin that may have been lost to injury or burns. The body accepts the skin rather than rejecting it because it is identical to the skin that already grows on the person. Food for thought. Good science, bad science, it depends on who's using it and the motivation and use.

Seeeeeya; Goodweed of the North

 

[cara]

Over here in Germany we have a different view of cloning.
I don't want to eat GMO's.
Where is the benefit in cloning animals? Shorten the evolution process?
There are lots of excellent genetics in cows, there is not only insemination but also embryo- transfer. You can buy a inseminated ovum with wonderful genetics. That's expensive.

But would cloning be cheaper? No.
As Boufa said, there will be one or two companies who will patent the clones and they will charge dues to allow anyone to use their clones.
You will have to pay to get a calf from this clone, not only for the ovum or the sperm, but for the patent. And you will have to pay for the next generation.. and the next.. and the next.
That is what we have with GMO canola right now.
Monsanto has the patent and you must pay once you decided to grow their canola. Your neighbour has to pay, too, because his canola got in contact and they mixed.
Same with Soy.
You buy the "better" stuff from whoever, round-up-resistent, bad luck for you, your weeds cross with the pollen and they are resistent, too.
so whats coming next?


It's very difficult to me the write about this in english, it's even in german complicated. I hope you understand what I mean...

 

[boufa06]

Seriously boufa, no one here has claimed intimate knowledge of the subject. You clearly have strong feelings but I can't extrapolate the logic of the argument from all the sarcasm. Please clarify your position.

Sarcasm (despair more likely) apart, my position is as follows:

Tampering with genetics may have far reaching harmful effects that one could not even imagine at this point. This is not by any means a certainty but even a remote possibility is enough for me. Having said this, I would not expect genetic research would stop just to make me and others who think likewise feel safe. What I would expect however, is to be given the choice to stay away from such meat and similar products by being warned in advance through proper labelling. I do think that those who take the FDA's word to heart should be free to indulge in cloned meat to their heart's content. Therefore, my main gripe is with the FDA's thinly disguised attitude to deliberately withhold such info on the packaging so as to give the companies that have invested in animal cloning a leg up on the competition.

My sentiments do reflect a sense of foreboding as I see a concerted effort already in progress including such 'scientific breakthroughs' as GM food, cloned animals, patented animals and plants, vegetables whose seeds will not reproduce the parent plants, to mention only a few.

Since I will soon take residence in a small farm of our own, I take solace in the fact that we can grow our own veggies and rear our own animals. But how long is all this going to last? In a relatively recent newspaper article, it was mentioned that Monsanto petitioned the EU to grant them a patent on a special breed of pigs. The way the patent was worded anything with a snout and a wiggly tail would come under the Monsanto patent as their intellectual property possibly requiring us to pay licensing fees to them. Another near miss came a few months ago with the bird flu. All poultry was supposed to be kept indoors to avoid contamination. I was thinking how close this might be to having our poultry declared unsafe, having it confiscated, slaughtered, and dumped somewhere. From there it would be a simple matter to declare chickens from big commercial breeders as the only safe-for-consumption poultry.

Is my position a bit clearer now?

 

[bethzaring]

I stay away from GMO's too, but I would have no trouble eating offspring from a cloned animal. GMO products and cloned animals are completely different ball games.

Cloned animals are identical to the original natural animal.

I saw Dolly the sheep, she is stuffed and in a museum in Scotland, and I read the information offered on cloning at that museum. Of course I do not remember what it said, but the feeling I came away with was it was perfectly acceptable/safe to eat offspring from cloned animals, there is no difference in the animals. So why label it?? The argument that we do not know, nor do we demand to know, the animals produced by Artificial Insemination is a good argument. It just does not matter the animals are cloned, biologically speaking. We may know the answer in our wallet though. This science/issue is very far off in the future, and plenty of debate will continue to take place.

 

[bethzaring]

For the record, I am a MILLION times more concerned about the US Federal Governments proposed National Animal Identification System than I am about cloned animals. This National Animal Identification System would end backyard, small scale farming as we know it in the USA.

 

[sparrowgrass]

Someplace back in this thread, I think there was a comment about one cow producing a whole herd of cows. That is possible--any number of cells could be taken from one donor--but you would still need a mama cow for each embryo. It will be a long, long time before science can eliminate the uterus.

I don't see how cloned animals would be in any way harmful to eat. There might be other harmful effects--maybe limiting the gene pool could cause health problems down the line, for example.

I guess if a farmer had a sure shot at reproducing fast growing, feed efficient calves at a reasonable price, they would do it. That is why they have gone with artificial insemination--AI allows a farmer to get good genetic material without the expense of buying and maintaining that outstanding bull.

However, like someone else said, we probably won't be eating cloned animals any time soon, any more than we eat those high priced bulls. Breeding stock might be cloned, and you might eat a steer born from a cloned bull and a
cloned cow.

Since the cloned animal and the donor animal are genetically identical, how is it different if you eat the offspring of the original animal or the offspring of the clone of the original animal? DNA should be the same, no?

Human cloning is a whole 'nother subject.

 

[licia]

I think several things involved here are a bit scary and I do think we should be told the origin of the food presented for sale.

 

[auntdot]

Agree with all of those who point out that it is still going to take one mama to give birth to one baby, even though it may share little genetically with the mom who gave birth to her.

I can thiink of a few reasons why overall production could go up, but not enormously.

But just think about being able to go to the butcher and being able to find nothing but prime beef because that is all they are breeding.

Or great poultry, or piggies, or lambs with flavor to perfection.

OK, the conditions under which the clones are raised will probably make a difference, but you can't make a great porkchop out of a sows ear. (Sorry about the metaphor.) But a genetically great tasting animal clone is probably going to taste one heck of a lot better than one with so-so meat tasting genes, if both are raised under similar circumstances.

Anyway, I am with the folks who will eat cloned meat without worry.

Just my opinion.

 

[boufa06]

Cloned animals are identical to the original natural animal.

bethzaring, is this really so? How sure are you? Let me guess. You are very sure about it because it's scientifically true.

However, a scientific truth is merely an assumption that has not been proven false by any known evidence as yet. It is common place in science that subsequent evidence does surface that pokes holes in the original 'scientific truth.' Science shrugs off such things and promptly replaces the format 'scientific truth' with a new one that is consistent with all known evidence up to that time.

This is why I am more than a bit skeptical as to whether the cloned animal is really an exact copy of the donor. As far as I can tell, the cloned animal is the result of tampering with genetics, a process we can hardly claim that we have mastered. It is quite likely that future evidence might prove that things are not that simple as producing xeroxed copies of animals and the effects of present day genetic technology may be disastrous indeed. Therefore, I would rather stay away from this and hope that I would be granted the freedom to choose what I eat.

 

[Andy M.]

...However, a scientific truth is merely an assumption that has not been proven false by any known evidence as yet...

This statement boggles my mind! It sounds like you are suggesting all scientific truths will eventually be proven wrong.

 

[boufa06]

This statement boggles my mind! It sounds like you are suggesting all scientific truths will eventually be proven wrong.

Andy, not necessarily so. It is more like it that what we consider today as scientifically true in areas of science that mankind has dealt with for a long time, is not what was considered true at earlier stages of scientific development.

Now genetic research is a relatively new area of science. Shouldn't we expect that there might be some changes in what we accept as true today? That is to say, is it reasonable to assume that we got everything right about genetics right from the start?

 

[skilletlicker]

Sarcasm (despair more likely) apart, my position is as follows:

...

Is my position a bit clearer now?

Yes, very much so, and I thank you for the explanation. Your post and some of the others have made me aware of issues that I didn't even know existed.

Bethzaring's comment on the National Animal Identification System also gave me something to worry about that I'd never heard of. I can very easily imagine how the NAIS combined with the patented animals that boufa and cara are talking about could, in bethzaring's words "end backyard, small scale farming as we know it in the USA."

I thought this whole cloning issue posed no risk until, as sparrowgrass says, "science can eliminate the uterus." You all have convinced me I was wrong.

 

[suzyQ3]

This statement boggles my mind! It sounds like you are suggesting all scientific truths will eventually be proven wrong.

Well, Andy M., when I was younger I used to think that gravity was an unassailable fact. But now I can tell you definitely that I have proved that scientific truth to be wrong.

Seriously, though, I agree with you. Sure, there are no absolute guarantees, and sure we should opt for healthy skepticism, but I'll take science any day over superstition, fear, and paranoia -- its main enemies.