Wisconsin Ag Connection - National/World News - FDA Expected to Approve Cloned Meat, Milk

National & World Ag News Headlines

FDA Expected to Approve Cloned Meat, Milk
USAgNet - 01/08/2008

The Food and Drug Administration has spent more than six years dealing with the question of whether meat and milk from cloned animals are safe to eat. It now appears that the FDA will declare them as safe for human consumption as early as this week. The FDA had asked producers of cloned livestock not to sell food products from such animals pending its ruling on their safety although it is unclear whether the voluntary hold will be lifted.

The cost of cloned cattle is about $15,000 to $20,000 per copy, which will limit the use of animals for breeding. This would push the timetable for cloned meat and milk to hit the market out three to five years. Some animal breeders in the U.S. have already been experimenting with cloning animals.

The FDA tentatively ruled in 2006 that milk and meat from cloned cattle, swine and goats are no different from healthy, conventionally bred adult animals. The agency has called cloning merely "a more advanced form of" breeding technologies already widely used in the cattle industry, such as artificial insemination, embryo transfer and in vitro fertilization. However, most consumer groups are strongly against products from cloned animals. Some consumers and consumer groups still refer to genetically altered foods.

The FDA's decision will be closely watched by regulators around the world. There are already livestock clones in countries such as Australia, Canada, France, Japan and New Zealand, but they have rarely entered the food supply.