Spade & Spoon: Localizing the Way Westerners Eat
After FDA Approval, Input Sought from Montanans on Cloning
By Kisha Lewellyn Schlegel, 1-22-08
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Two weeks ago, I reported on the possibility that the FDA would make a decision that cloned meat and milk is safe to eat. This article follows up on that story, after the FDA released their decision on January 15th that cloned food is indeed safe to enter our food chain.
This week, Whitefish, Montana’s State Representative Mike Jopek, sent out an email asking constituents to tell him what they think about cloned food. In it, he writes:
“I am looking for input as I truly respect the insight on the best approach. If no approach at all is warrented, (sic) please let me know. I also know many folks are unaware of this debate and may rather I continue to advocate for a more fair tax climate, better state funding of our education system, and clean water and open public lands. But I am a farmer who believes that good food is the foundation to a great health system.”
The organic farmer’s outreach comes less than a week after the FDA decided that cloned milk and meat are safe to eat. “We found nothing in the food that could potentially be hazardous. The food in every respect is indistinguishable from food from any other animal,” according to FDA food safety chief Dr. Stephen Sundlof. “It is beyond our imagination to even find a theory that would cause the food to be unsafe.”
Even so, the USDA has asked producers to continue a voluntary moratorium on sales of meat or milk from clones for a little longer, claiming that this decision is solely for marketing reasons and to distribute the safety findings among foreign trade partners and food companies. As Bruce Knight, USDA Undersecretary, said, “This is about market acceptance.”
But that market acceptance may come by default since the USDA moratorium applies to clones but not their offspring. Companies producing clones, such as Viagen Inc. and Trans Ova Genetics, have already focused their efforts on immediately selling the offspring of clones into the market…no labels required.
For Jopek, “Montanans know best and have a right to morally good food,” and the government’s decision puts that at risk. Subsequently, he is considering reintroducing a bill in the 2009 Legislative Session that would put a moratorium on cloned milk and meat products in Montana. The bill could also include mandatory labeling of cloned milk and meat and ban public funding for research on animals cloned for consumption.
Jopek introduced a similar bill (opens pdf) in 2007, which would have put a similar ban in place. According to Jopek, this bill failed in the House Agricultural Committee because of “heavy lobbying from big-corporate agricultural interest.”
Jopek is not alone in his concern. Margaret Mellon, Director of the Food and Environment Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists writes:
“Animal cloning is a controversial technology with few, if any, benefits to consumers. Although successful clones may appear normal, the possibility remains that some may harbor subtle genetic defects that could impair their health or make them unsafe for consumption. The FDA should have required that cloned products be labeled as such and kept them off the market at least until it established a mandatory tracking system to allow retailers to avoid purchasing the products.
“The agency’s risk assessment is long on assumptions and short on hard data. It fails to address ethical issues associated with cloning, including the role of animal cloning as a steppingstone to human cloning.
Because of these risks Jopek, calls the decision to allow cloned products into our food supply, “bad for our family farmers, our morals, our State, and consumer confidence.” Whether Montanans agree with him is yet to be seen.
Join Kisha Lewyllen Schlegel each week for a discussion about local food and agriculture in the Rocky Mountain West at www.newwest.net/spadeandspoon.
Resources: If you have comments, contact: Rep. Mike Jopek mike@mikejopek.com 406.250.1184
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Comments
The mistakes end up in frankfurters, etc., now.
I doubt they'll be served up as steaks or chops for years and years...
On another note, morality and looking out for the best interest of the people is not a known strong point of the FDA, as they consistently approve products from special interest groups to the detriment of consumer well-being ~ based on this history, their guarantee of safety is not one that comforts me. Think about this: If labelling of cloned foods was mandated, likely not many of us would buy a cloned product, given the price difference was not too great compared to the natural variety. Therefore they came up with the "don't tell them the difference" marketing strategy. This has been done for a long time with more food items than we know. This is one of the worst things my government can do - render me helpless and a fool with what they are dishing out without my knowledge or consent.
Do you know how much a cloned bull costs? Over $10,000.
At that cost, you will never see a cloned cow, bull, or any other animal in your food basket. As Trace Adkins said on Bill Maher... "did these animals stop f*cking? What problem does this solve?" The man is right. I guess we just have to be up in arms about something? How bout the fact that food to fuel (biodiesel, ethanol) represent huge and significant threats to not only our food supply but world food markets. THAT is something to think about.
People who don't like the idea can just ask, Hey, is this clone-source meat?
If they don't get an answer, shop elsewhere. Enough do that, and cloned meat will die in the marketplace, both of money and of ideas. Simple.
I love neo-Luddism.
which describes the methods and results.
The sky is falling people would still be using candles if they had their way. As we progress in knowledge things will change and change is not always something to fear. How many of you who are wringing your hands about this really understand the process of cloning? Read about it and learn before you condemn.
My concern is personal - as a mother with a formerly robust son with an onset of health issues five years ago, mostly relating to his immune system. He underwent testing from a variety of physicians, narrowing down the cause as exposure to foods that he was sensitive to, meaning ones with pesticides, GMO, ect al. He has no true allergies otherwise and this caused his immune system to suffer? It didn't make sense to me then. So began a few years of extensive research on food, diet, cause and effect. We had eaten reasonably healthy from the supermarket shelves before and still do, however I read labels closely now -this is very important to us. BTW, my son's immune system is much better, yet it will be a lifelong process. If eating products with GMO and pesticides can wreak this havoc with one kid's health, what similar or greater potential damage can cloned dna "gone wrong" do to any one? There are enough questions about this technology where there are unknowns and the FDA is releasing it into the public? I am a single mom with daily life keeping my hands full and am not a person that is "fearful, fanatical or uneducated." If there is something we feel strongly about we become educated and that removes the fear. I am striving to protect my kids due to our personal experience and share what I have learned if it can benefit even one person reading this. It should be all about our personal choice. Enough said.
http://www.hsus.org/farm/resources/research/practices/genetic_engineering_and_cloning_farm_animals.html
Condensed quotes from above link:
Recent cloning research also reveals high failure rates and abnormalities, problems widely acknowledged by scientists in the field and indicative of poor animal welfare.(10,11) The list of problems from which clones can suffer is extensive, including enlarged tongues; malformed faces; intestinal blockages; diabetes; shortened tendons; deformed feet; weakened immune systems; dysfunctional hearts, brains, livers, and kidneys; respiratory distress; and circulatory problems.(12-16)
Ian Wilmut, Ph.D., who led the team to clone Dolly the sheep, also found low success rates and a host of problems upon review of the world's cloned animals. His review specified regularly occurring defects, such as fetal overgrowth, or large offspring syndrome, in cattle and sheep; heart defects in pigs; developmental difficulties, lung problems, and malfunctioning immune systems in cows, sheep, and pigs; and individual problems, including a lamb barely able to breathe due to grossly thickened muscles surrounding the lungs—which led him to conclude: "The widespread problems associated with clones has led to questions as to whether any clone was entirely normal....There is abundant evidence that cloning can and does go wrong...."(19)
Seemingly healthy bioengineered animals are at risk for a variety of defects. "All cloned babies have some sort of errors," stated researcher Ryuzo Yanagimachi. "I'm surprised they can survive it."(34) Another researcher, Rudolph Jaenisch, a biologist at Whitehead Institute at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, reached a similar conclusion, stating, "Cloned animals that reach birth or beyond may appear normal, but our research shows they're not."(35) "From what we know, I would argue that cloned animals cannot be normal," Jaenisch concludes. "They can be closer to normal, but not normal."(36)
Some abnormalities may not show up until later in life. Particularly among cloned dairy cows, the most common causes of death are late-developing musculoskeletal problems so severe that the cows need to be euthanized. According to leading(37) cloning scientist David Norman Wells, the development of musculoskeletal problems, such as chronic lameness and severely contracted flexor tendons, in these high-production animals "emphasizes the point that any underlying frailties in cloned animals may not be fully revealed until the animals are stressed in some manner."(38)
Immune deficiency is another defect challenging cloned animals. Researchers with the University of Missouri and the U.S. Department of Agriculture found the immune systems of cloned pigs do not fight diseases as effectively as those of non-cloned pigs. The cloned animals' immune systems did not produce sufficient quantities of natural proteins called cytokines, which animals must have in order to survive infections. This impaired immune function may contribute to cloned animals' susceptibility to illness and early death.(39)
Decreased immune function, combined with decreasing genetic diversity—a problem that will be exacerbated by even moderate adoption of cloning—increases vulnerability to disease. A single pathogen could devastate countless numbers of genetically identical animals, putting animal health and the global food supply at risk. The rampant spread of disease has already become an international problem and applying biotechnology to commercial animal agriculture could be disastrous in this regard.
The mounting evidence shows that death and deformities found in many cloned and genetically engineered animals are the norm rather than the exception, resulting in needless suffering.
...
On September 19, 2005, four days before his resignation, Lester Crawford, D.V.M., Ph.D., then Commissioner of the FDA, said in a speech before the 28th Annual National Food Policy Conference: "With respect to use of cloned animals for human food, FDA has stated upfront that the risk assessment methodology and all the information used in performing the risk assessment would be publicly available....Until the risk assessment is complete and publicly available, the voluntary moratorium on release of these products into the food supply remains in effect; and secondly, while our risk assessment only addresses the safety of food from animal clones and the risks to the cloned animals, we are well aware that there are many social and ethical issues related to the cloning of animals."(42) (Emphasis added.)
Indeed, while animal safety is part of the FDA's remit, it is clear that the agency's principal concern lies with food—not animal—safety. In fact, there are no regulations to protect the welfare of animals from dysgenic effects during cloning or genetic engineering.
Conclusion
High failure rates, defects, disabilities, and premature death of both surrogate mothers and offspring have plagued the application of biotechnology to farm animals. As there are currently no regulations to protect farm animals during cloning or genetic engineering in agricultural research, the welfare of these animals can and does suffer greatly.
"Mistakes are built into life; character is defined in the breach. There is no such thing as "business ethics," only ethics of individual business men and women."
So if it is left up to our individual ethics, awareness is key, in order to have at least a fighting chance of taking a gamble with our health.
In fact, I would suggest that parents be held criminally responsible for injuries to children from such unpasterized fluids. These injuries are completely preventable if not but for dogmatic convictions.