WASHINGTON, 30 December 2006 — Fierce debate is expected in the US after top government scientists ruled that milk and meat from cloned animals is as safe to eat as food from conventionally raised methods and can be sold to the public.
A final decision is yet to be made, but the ruling by the Food and Drug Administration brings the controversial technology a step closer to allow the sale of meat made from cloned cattle and goats in grocery stores.
But the FDA’s five year study and 678-page report failed to satisfy critics who cite concerns rooted in ethics, not science.
“Neither the agency nor animal scientists are qualified to tell us whether and when it is ethically acceptable for humans to alter the essential nature of animals,” said Carol Tucker Foreman of Washington-based Consumer Federation of America’s Food Policy Institute. She and others say it is time for a national discussion on whether tailor-making animals in laboratories is wise.
“Congressional hearings might start a robust societal dialogue on those issues,” said Gregory Jaffe, biotechnology director at the Center for Science in the Public Interest.
Polls show Americans are hardly clamoring for bacon cheeseburgers made from cloned animals or their offspring.
In a survey released this month by the Pew Initiative on Food and Biotechnology, 64% of respondents were “uncomfortable with animal cloning.”
