Where did my burger come from?
It may surprise people if I say that do not find the concept of cloning absolutely horrendous.
But I don't, cloning might offer solutions to some of the worlds greatest problems; disease and hunger.
I still have not been able to form a opinion on the matter, we as a human race have been genetically modifying crops and animals for thousands of years, but not at the speed at which scientists are now capable of changing Mother Nature's creations.
What I do have a serious issue with is the fact that I would like to know IF something is genetically modified.
For the simple reason that I believe I should have the choice as to what I put inside my body.
So what does completely horrify me is the fact that genetically modified meats are now entering the food supply chain and we as a consumer have no way of knowing that we are buying it.
That is truly horrific, at this point in time we do not know what the long term consequences are of all these genetic modifications and personally I would like give it a lot more time before we decide if it is safe for human consumption.
The fact of the matter is: clones have now entered the British food supply chain and there is no way of knowing where these calves have ended up.
We will never know what has happened to the offspring of these calves, this I do find seriously disturbing.
DEFRA has acknowledged that they simply do not know.
The FDA in the US has approved against public opinion and against the wishes of its own congress to allow genetically modified foods on supermarket shelves.
So if you do want to allow this, I believe both FDA and DEFRA have the obligation to ensure that we as a consumer have the choice.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1024578/Eight-cloned-cows-born-B...
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To clone or not to clone?
Why not require that cloned meat be labeled to give the informed consumer choice?
In January, the Food and Drug Administration decided that meat and milk from cloned animals is safe to eat. Two experts on different sides of the issue -- a veterinarian whose company produces cloned animals and an advocate for clone-free food -- answered the question.
Don Coover responds:
I agree that people should have the option to use or not to use a new technology, but the suggested solution may be more burdensome than useful. Labeling products takes money; to require that animals that are derived in some way from cloning be labeled as "cloned" seems easy and not too big a deal. In fact, establishing a trail of those animals and handling (and labeling) their products would be costly and difficult. Remember, the technology has been studied and found to be safe. I think it would be fine for a company to provide a product that is not produced using cloning technologies, and label it as such, and charge a premium for it, if there was a market out there. If foods produced using cloning technology are safe (and they are), they don't need to be labeled. If they are not safe, they should not be produced or sold.
Jaydee Hanson responds:
The Center for Food Safety believe that foods from clones and their progeny of should be labeled. A poll conducted by the Consumers Union in July of 2007 found that 89 percent of consumers want meat and milk derived from cloned animals to be labeled and 69 percent of consumers were concerned about eating milk or meat from cloned animals. A poll conducted in May 2008 by the Food Marketing Institute found similar results with 81 percent believing that meat and milk from clones should be labeled, and 77 percent not comfortable with eating meat and milk from clones.
The FDA's own focus groups also made clear that people do not want to eat meat and milk from clones. Unfortunately, the FDA did not release those studies until we and other groups filed freedom of information requests.
CLONING FACTS:
An animal clone is an exact genetic copy of a donor animal. The cloning form used most frequently is somatic cell nuclear transfer, or SCNT, in which the genes of the donor animal are inserted into an egg cell that has had its nucleus removed. After a few steps in the lab, the egg cell is implanted in a surrogate, where it usually develops just like any other embryo.
Using cells from animal embryos to make clones has been done since the early 1990s, but the first animal cloned from an adult was Dolly the sheep, which was born in 1996. Livestock species that scientists have successfully cloned are cattle, pig, sheep and goats. Scientists have also cloned mice, rats, rabbits, cats, mules, horses and one dog. Chickens and other poultry have not been cloned.
The farming industry is interested in cloning as a means to increase the number of breeding animals with naturally occurring desirable traits, such as disease resistance or higher quality meat. This will allow for the more rapid spread of those characteristics through the herd.
Plants have been cloned for decades, in a process known as vegetative propagation. It takes about 30 years to breed a banana from seed, so to speed time to market, most commercial bananas are clones, as are potatoes, apples, grapes, pears and peaches.
There are no health complications unique to cloning, but some conditions, including large offspring syndrome, seem to occur more frequently in clones. Those problems tend to result in difficult labor as well as high gestational and post-natal mortality rates. Because of these and other issues, some consumer groups, including the Union of Concerned Scientists and Center for Food Safety, believe that more research is warranted.
http://www.newspress.com/Top/Article/artic...963902510989522 http://www.benjerry.com/features/cow_cloning_song/index.cfm