East Tennessean

Issue date: 1/17/08 Section: ViewPoint

Media Credit: Photo Credit: sxc.hu In the future, consumers may not be able to differentiate between meat and milk from cloned animals and natural animals.

On Tuesday, the FDA released a report asserting that meat and milk from cloned animals are safe for consumption.
Specifically, products from cattle, swine, and goat clones, the FDA is saying, are safe and traditional. I found the FDA's use of the term "traditional" quite bothersome, so I read the official statement on the FDA Web site.
I did not know that the term "traditional" could also mean chemically identical, but if you think of it this way, the FDA's statement is truly profound. They are essentially saying that meat from a cloned sheep is chemically identical to meat from the original sheep.
This led me to wonder what this report was all about. Most of you will recall that someone cloned a sheep back in 1997, which died in 2003. The FDA consequently informed those cloning animals since then to not eat them, but let the government know if any of them happen to live.
So over about five or six years, the FDA managed to find about 100 animals, not all of one breed or species mind you, that managed to survive the cloning process. The FDA tested the chemical makeup of these various animals, and found them alike to the chemical makeup of animals that people eat.
Thus, the FDA concludes that this meat is safe for consumption. Again, I found this troubling. I would be fairly easily convinced if the FDA offered some results from a long-term study of this meat and its effects on humans. This was not the case.
It is a clear jump in logic to assume that because these animal products are chemically similar to the beef or milk in the corner grocery, that they are safe for consumption.
This led me to think, is it not the duty of the FDA to protect the people of America from dangerous foods? Does that not lead one to believe that they should err on the side of caution?
The FDA is being somewhat cautious in one respect. There will not be any cloned meat hitting the grocers in the immediate future.
However, this is most likely due to the public's response to this FDA report, not to any reservations that the FDA may have about the safety or traditionalism of these animal products.
The FDA study does not appear to have a great deal of scientific integrity. The fact that these products are not being distributed immediately is somewhat soothing, but there is one more major fault with the report.
The FDA says that due to these findings, were these products to be available to the public, it would not have the authority to require labels on products that came from clones.
In this sense, the FDA would be stripping the consumer of choice. The cloned meat would be mixed in with the real meat, and no one would be the wiser. This is absurd! If people want cloned meat because it is cheaper, or fresh, or whatever, I say let them have it, but let them choose.
Any consumer can walk into any clothing store in America, pick up a T-shirt, and read where the product was made and of what materials.
Does our government not consider this information pertinent when the product is something that we put into our bodies?

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