Meat + Poultry - May 2007 - 94

is one of the most exhaustive food-safety
studies ever conducted, reviewing virtually
all available data on cloning in food animals,
including published work and raw data
from researchers. Independent scientists reviewed the draft, and the report was published in the peer-reviewed scientific journal
Theriogenology.
"We hope for a final risk assessment
from FDA later this year," Glenn says, "and
anticipate that the agency then will lift the
current voluntary moratorium on producing
food from clones or their offspring."
Glenn believes FDA will not require labeling of food products from clones or their
offspring because its policy is to require labels only if food products are nutritionally
different from others. Voluntary labeling is
allowed, she adds, so companies will have
the option to use "clone-free" or "natural

Verifying safety
Since 2001, the livestock industry has honored a voluntary moratorium on the sale of
meat or milk from cloned animals. That
could change soon though.
The FDA recently released its Draft Risk
Assessment on cloning in food animals. The
document analyzes more than 100 scientific
studies on cloning, evaluating safety data
and several generations of livestock. The
agency reviewed more than 135,000 data
points, comparing meat from the offspring
of clones with meat from their conventionally bred counterparts. The FDA concluded:
"The current weight of evidence suggests
that there are no biological reasons to indicate that consumption of edible products
from the clones of cattle, pigs, sheep or
goats poses a greater risk than consumption
of those products from their non-clone
counterparts."
Barb Glenn, PhD, is director of animal
biotechnology for the Biotechnology Industry Organization. The FDA review, she says,

These are clones of Kung
Fu, the mother of many
famous rodeo bulls.

PHOTO COURTESY OF WWW.CLONESAFETY.ORG

They sell Choice beef, so calves that will not
marble well in this production system lose
significant value. Using clones in the breeding program, she says, could improve the
consistency of carcass characteristics among
the calves.
"We won't be selling any clones for beef
production," she says. Even the offspring of
clones will be too valuable as breeding stock.
The next generation of calves, products of
two generations of conventional breeding,
could be the first to enter the beef-production chain. Faivre-Davis believes the Food and
Drug Administration soon will lift a voluntary
moratorium on the sale of food from cloned
animals or their offspring. More on that later.
The price tag for producing a cloned animal currently is about $15,000 for the first
calf and $4,000 for the first pig, with the
price declining for additional copies of the
original donor animal. With high-quality
registered bulls averaging over $5,000 and
some top registered females valued in the
same range, the price of cloning might not
need to come down far to become cost-effective for more producers.

MAY 2007 FOOD SYSTEMS ınsıder FSI

http://WWW.CLONESAFETY.ORG

Meat + Poultry - May 2007

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