FDA says meat and milk from clones are safe, but packers say they're not buying, at least not yet

A new report from the Food and Drug Administration on the safety of food from cloned animals probably will not end the debate on clones anytime soon. Rick Weiss of The Washington Post reports that the FDA says meat and milk from cloned animals are as safe as that from conventionally-bred animals. Still, the FDA acknowledged that "Moral, religious and ethical concerns ... have been raised." (Read more)

In response to the FDA's 968-page final risk assessment, Smithfield Foods and Tyson Foods announced they would not be producing meat from cloned animals (such as the cows at in a photo by PRNewsFoto), reports Tom Johnston of Meatingplace.com. "Tyson currently has no plans to purchase cloned livestock, especially since it will likely be a long time before such animals would even be available for market," Tyson spokesman Gary Mickelson told Meatingplace. "Whatever measures we ultimately take will be guided by government regulations and the desires of our customers and consumers."

In 2001, producers created a voluntary moratorium on using meat or milk from clones or their offspring, and the FDA wants that to remain in place for the time being, Johnston reports. He writes that the FDA has said it will not require special labeling for food from cloned animals, but it will "on a case-by-case basis, consider producers' requests to voluntarily label their products." (Read more)

The Society of Environmental Journalists offers a great page of resources and links for covering the issue. The page includes recent coverage of about the FDA and cloned livestock as well as information on companies working on cloned foods (such as Trans Ova Genetics and ViaGen). In addition, there is a list of consumer groups watching the issue. (Hat tip to Al Tompkins of the Poynter Institute)
The FDA assessed the more than 600 cloned farm animals in the United States and their offspring. Some had genes altered. "The FDA has said it will not approve gene-altered animals as food without additional tests for safety," Weiss writes. The FDA found no safety hazards for milk or meat from cloned cows or meat from cloned goats and pigs, and said it needed more information to decide on the safety of meat from cloned sheep.

The report helps clear the way for the marketing of food from cloned animals, but it will be years before that happens since those clones are still to valuable as breeders for to create what proponents call "a new generation of superior farm animals." There are other hurdles. Some consumer advocacy groups have pledged to fight against cloned animals, and U.S. trade agencies have had trouble getting foreign countries to accept gene-altered crops, a bad omen for cloned animals.

The Post also produced the graphic "From the Lab to Your Table" illustrating the life of a cloned animal, and it has excerpts from the report.