Subj: US food from cloned animals on its way to Britain
Date: 02-10-09 20:07:24 EDT
From: [log in to unmask] (NLP Wessex)
To: UndisclosedRecipients
And you thought that Saddam Hussein was mad?
Will consumers react and go into 'just don't eat anything from America these
days' mode?
"Cloned mice have hundreds of abnormal genes, which explains why
so many cloned animals die at or before birth and proves it would be
irresponsible to clone a human being, scientists said.
The process of cloning introduces the genetic mutations, and there seems no
immediate way around the problem, Rudolf Jaenisch and colleagues at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology reported....
They found many abnormal genes. The pattern was so clear that they could
tell normal mice from cloned mice by looking at the results of the gene chip
study, they reported. 'There is no reason in the world to assume that any
other mammal, including
humans, would be different from mice,' Jaenisch said....."
U.S. Study Says All Clones Genetically Abnormal
Reuters, 11 Sept 2002
http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/news/breaking_news/4051490.htm
NATURAL LAW PARTY WESSEX
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www.btinternet.com/~nlpwessex
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http://news.independent.co.uk/world/science_medical/story.jsp?story=339887
Cloned food on its way to Britain
By Geoffrey Lean, Environment Editor
06 October 2002
Food from cloned farm animals is heading towards dinner tables, after being
cleared by America's top scientific body.
US farmers already have cloned cattle, pigs and sheep and have been waiting
for official clearance before putting their milk and meat on the market.
Experts say that once cloned food goes on sale in America, probably as soon
as next year, it will be extremely hard to stop it being exported to
Britain.
Animal welfare experts are deeply alarmed at the prospect of what they
describe as "the ultimate in factory farming", because studies show that
cloning inflicts particularly great suffering.
Today is the Church of England's first Animal Welfare Sunday, an annual
event on which Anglicans will be asked to speak out against cruel farming
and switch to organic or free-range food.
Millions of shoppers are bound harbour suspicions about cloned food, after
the widespread rejection of GM produce but the Food Standards Agency
admits that it would not automatically be labelled.
The new report by the US National Academy of Sciences concluded that
there is no evidence that cloned produce poses "a food safety concern". Dr
Kim Waddell, director of the two-year study, told the Independent on Sunday
late last week: "We cannot envisage any problem from a theoretical
standpoint, and there is nothing to suggest that there would be one."
Though cautiously worded, and accompanied by calls for further studies, this
assurance is likely to lead the US Government's Food and Drug Administration
(FDA) which commissioned the report to give cloned food the go-ahead
over the next few months.
Cloning has progressed rapidly since the creation of Dolly the sheep at
Edinburgh's Roslin Institute five years ago. Now at least 14 firms in the
US, Japan, Canada and Australia mainly linked with universities are
carrying it out commercially. One company Prolinia, in Athens, Georgia
has even successfully cloned a cow after it had been slaughtered. It boasts:
"This breakthrough has the potential to revolutionise beef cattle production
by allowing producers to select cells from the highest quality meat, after
it has been graded, to clone animals to stock their herd."
Producers say milk, butter and cheese from cloned animals is likely to be
the first food to go on sale, probably next year. Meat would probably first
be produced from the offspring of clones, because the technique is
expensive, but this could change as costs fell. Veal from offspring could
again go on sale next year, and pork the year after.
Animal welfare charities are appalled at the prospect of the technology
spreading. They point out that many cloned embryos abort and that many that
are born alive have health defects: Dolly has developed arthritis. And they
add that breeding herds of identical animals would leave them particularly
susceptible to disease.
Julia Wrathall of the RSPCA said: "We can see no benefit at all from going
down this road. Animals would presumably be cloned for high production, and
they are already being pushed beyond the limit." She said the Government
failed to implement recommendations from official inquiries for controls on
the technology.
US farmers have been pouring away milk from cloned cattle, after being asked
by the FDA voluntarily to not sell it until there is an official ruling.
The Government says that Britain has no specific laws controlling produce
from cloned animals, though it would have to be shown to be the same as its
conventional counterpart. That, by definition, is what cloning produces.
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