- WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- Milk
and meat products from cloned cattle, pigs and goats are safe for consumers
to eat, according to a Food and Drug Administration document obtained by
Reuters on Thursday.
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- The FDA findings bring the agency one step closer to
determining whether to allow the commercialization of food from cloned
animals. A final policy decision is expected next year.
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- Cloned animals -- which are genetically identical --
are attractive to the industry because ranchers are able to keep their
favorite livestock, providing better tasting meat and more milk and eggs.
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- "Edible products from normal, healthy clones or
their progeny do not appear to pose increased food consumption risk,"
said the 12-page executive summary of an FDA report. A copy of the report
was provided to Reuters by an industry source.
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- The FDA is expected to release the executive summary
of the new report on Friday. The entire report will be released at a later
date.
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- The nascent food cloning industry, which includes companies
such as ViaGen Inc., owned by Exeter Life Sciences, and Cyagra, is eagerly
awaiting the FDA's decision on commercialization. Smithfield Foods Inc.,
the top U.S. pork producer, has a technology development contract with
ViaGen.
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- Industry officials hope the FDA will make a decision
on commercialization quickly as some companies have had difficulty raising
funds from investors because of the uncertainty surrounding the issue.
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- An FDA spokesman was not immediately available for comment.
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- Biotech companies clone animals by taking the nuclei
of cells from adults and fusing them into other egg cells from which the
nuclei have been extracted. Livestock have already been cloned for sale
to producers.
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- Some consumer groups have urged the FDA to address the
moral and ethical concerns of animal cloning before approving its commercialization.
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- If the FDA does allow it, grocery stores are most likely
to sell meat and milk from the offspring of cloned animals, the agency
said. Their parents will probably not be slaughtered for food because of
their high price tag.
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- A cloned calf can sell for as much as $82,000. An average
calf sells for less than $1,000.
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- The FDA said cloned cattle between six and 18 months
of age are "virtually indistinguishable" from their conventional
parents, and can give birth to healthy offspring.
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- The FDA report does raise some concerns about cloned
animals immediately after birth. Many of the young animals are susceptible
to under-developed respiratory and cardiovascular systems, it said.
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- But as a food safety issue, the agency said the risk
was small. "Given that live neonatal clones are unlikely to enter
the food supply, they pose an extremely limited risk for consumption as
food," the document said.
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- With most of the scientific research focusing on cloned
cattle, the FDA said it had the most confidence that food products from
cattle were safe. The level of certainty is highest for bovine clones,
followed in decreasing order of certainty, by pig, goat and sheep clones,
the report said.
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- The report did not address whether these food products
should carry a special label alerting consumers that they are derived from
cloned animals. FDA officials have said food from cloned animals would
not be labeled if there were no significant health risks.
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- Earlier this year, Japan said it found no abnormalities
in meat or milk from cloned animals, but called for creation of a system
to deal with problems that might arise.
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