FDA Says, “Cloned Animals Are Safe To Eat”

The Food and Drug Administration in America has tentatively concluded that milk and meat from cloned animals are safe to eat, a finding that could eventually clear the way for such products to reach supermarket shelves and for cloning to be widely used to breed barnyard animals. The agency's conclusions are contained in a summary, to be released Friday, of a risk assessment that it has conducted. Agency officials said they would now solicit public comments and hoped to issue a more detailed decision by late next spring on how, if at all, cloning would be regulated in the United States, including whether such food should be labeled. But if the preliminary conclusion stands, labeling would not be needed and there would be minimal regulation, Stephen Sundlof, director of the FDA Center for Veterinary Medicine, said in an interview. "There appears to be few if any safety concerns," he said. "If we consider them materially the same as traditional foods, the role for the FDA would be minimal." The major concern about cloning is that it produces a high number of abnormalities that result in failed pregnancies and offspring that are larger than normal and sometimes have developmental problems. The FDA, in its analysis, assumes that grossly abnormal animals would be rejected as sources of milk or meat. But the question remains whether clones not obviously malformed could have subtle problems that might, for instance, change the nutritional composition of milk or introduce harmful substances into meat. The 11-page summary of its risk assessment states that those animals that do make it through early childhood appear to be normal, as measured by chemical analysis of their blood and by comparing the composition of milk from cloned cows with milk from other cows. Still, the agency conceded that it was basing its conclusions on little data, particularly for animals other than cows. The conclusions apply only to clones made from conventional animals. The FDA has yet to assess the safety of genetically modified animals, which can be created using cloning or other methods. Full article over at the [nicely designed] IHT.