Food from Cloned Animals Ruled Safe to Eat

By Carol Johnson

Meat and dairy farmers in the fledgling agricultural cloning industry have been eagerly awaiting validation from official agencies that would support their claims of food from cloned animals being just as safe as food from animals bred the natural way. Consumers have so far been wary and skeptical about such ideas, fearing that clones may carry hidden health risks that aren't readily observable. Some point to the high death rates seen in newborn cloned animals and the suffering endured by surrogate mothers, which can have problems giving birth to the cloned offspring, which are often oversized.

Scientists around the world—including two companies in the United States—are interested in cloning prize-winning dairy cows, beef cattle, and pigs, so that they can consistently deliver high-quality products to the industry based on previous successes by the original animals. As a result, several countries around the world have been studying the viability and healthiness of food from cloned animals, and results from those studies are expected to be released over the next few months. Federal governments have been under pressure for some time to engage in scientific studies to decide the issue definitively.

The European Food Safety Authority in particular has been pushed to research the issue because despite the fact that European companies are generally not interested in adopting the technology, the EU has been pressured by the international community to make a ruling so that other nations can export their meat and milk products there without worrying about legal entanglements. Also, many farmers in Europe use semen from American cattle, so if cloned animals are introduced into the mix the question would remain as to whether the end product would pose any risk to consumers.

In December 2006 the FDA issued a "draft risk assessment" saying that their researchers had found no unique health risks associated with meat or milk from clones or their offspring. Noting that report, the European Commission asked its Food Safety Authority to provide an unbiased scientific opinion on the safety of food from clones, as well as an assessment of the effects of cloning on overall animal welfare and the environment.

The highly anticipated 47-page report stated that meat and milk from healthy cloned cattle and pigs is "very unlikely" to pose any health risks to consumers. It asserted that such products are just as nutritious and safe as meat and milk from non-cloned animals. "Based on current knowledge, there is no expectation that clones or their progeny would introduce any new food safety risks compared with conventionally bred animals," the report said.

Unlike in the United States, European researchers must incorporate ethical and social factors into studies of this nature. The "precautionary principle" followed in Europe calls for researchers to err on the side of caution whenever there is any uncertainty about potential risk factors. The report noted that many cloned farm animals have health problems, including life-threatening physiological abnormalities. Therefore, in Europe, where animal welfare is much more publicly watched than in the United States, that issue could be just enough of a red flag to keep Europeans from fully embracing the idea of cloning animals on a large scale for commercial purposes. The report concluded that sexually produced offspring of clones, however, are fully normal. And those animals are far more likely to enter the food supply than clones themselves, which are more valuable as breeding animals rather than slaughtering stock.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is due to release its final report soon on food from clones. New Zealand has already released a positive report on the safety of food from clones and their progeny, and Argentina and Canada are expected to release their own reports soon. Many food safety advocates have asked the FDA to delay approving cloned food, hoping that Europeans will demand marketing restrictions on the products. Some hope that even if Europe gives a green light to allowing cloned food products into the food supply on a regular basis, they will require labels to advise consumers about what they are buying. However, the FDA has said that if no novel risks are identified, it is unlikely to require that cloned food be labeled as such in the United States.