| Vol. 9 | No. 3 | Summer 2007 |
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Dialogue
Do food products from cloned animals pose a risk to human health? |
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has announced plans to lift a moratorium on the sale of meat and milk products from cloned animals. Although UCS is not aware of any evidence currently demonstrating that such products pose food safety hazards, we are not satisfied with the methodology of the scientific studies assembled by the FDA to address this concern. Most importantly, the studies were simply those that happened to be available in the existing literature or volunteered by companies rather than research conducted in accordance with FDA-determined specifications for comparative safety studies.
Food safety is only one of many concerns associated with cloning. Cloning accelerates the trend toward more uniformity and less genetic diversity among food animals, making populations more vulnerable to catastrophic losses from disease, climate change, and terrorism. In addition, cloning techniques used today continue to exhibit stubbornly high failure rates (often 90 percent or above) that translate into deformities and premature death for large numbers of both clones and surrogate mothers.
Finally, the FDA has indicated that it will not require cloned meat and dairy products to be labeled as such. UCS believes consumers should have the right to choose which foods they will eat and to use their purchasing power to influence the ways in which food is produced. The FDA’s current unwillingness to require labels deprives consumers of that right.
To learn more about this issue, visit the UCS website at ucsusa.org/food_and_environment.
Also in this issue of Earthwise:
Close to Home
How to Preserve Biodiversity
