Cloned Meat and Milk Is Cleared for Sale

By ROGER HIGHFIELD, The Daily Telegraph | January 16, 2008

America has become the first country to approve the consumption of meat and milk from cloned cattle, pigs, and goats.

"We conclude that meat and milk from cattle, swine, and goat clones are as safe as food we eat every day," the director of the Food and Drug Administration's Center for Food Safety, Stephen Sundlof, said.

The ruling is a victory for companies such as ViaGen and Trans Ova Genetics, which hope to use cloning to reproduce prize animals to increase milk yields and the efficiency with which the animal grows. The produce is likely to be on sale within five years.

The European Food Safety Authority issued a report last week saying that there was "unlikely" to be any difference between the safety of food from clones and their progeny and that of food from conventionally bred animals. Even though the first clone from an adult was Dolly the sheep, the FDA concluded that there was insufficient information to rule on the safety of food from cloned sheep.

Producers in America agreed in 2001 to refrain from introducing meat or milk from clones or their progeny into the food supply. The U.S. Department of Agriculture will meet retailers, producers, and customers "to provide a smooth and orderly market transition."

Labeling of "non-cloned" food is not required "because food derived from these sources is no different from food derived from conventionally bred animals," the FDA said.

However, supermarkets are wary of produce from cloned animals and market research has warned that consumers may be put off by the "yuck factor."

Consumer groups and some American Congress members say there is insufficient science to justify approval.

It remains to be seen how significant the FDA's announcement will be, given the lukewarm interest from companies such as Hormel Foods, which makes Spam. The FDA's decision came more than four years after it tentatively said food from cloned animals was safe, only to face a backlash from consumer groups and experts who said the science supporting the decision was shaky.