Things to come

[cptstickfigure]

The FDA has announced that meat and milk from cloned animals is safe to eat.
What I want to know is how this issue even came up.
I know I tend to be very conservative in my thinking,
but I've always understood farmers, even the new breed, to be incredibly risk-averse.
Under what circumstances is cloning more viable than traditional breeding?

Comments

[cgthree]

Then other farmers (well, really large rich agribusiness firms, it sounded like) would buy the cloned "seed animals" for around 15K+ a pop (i.e. your average small time farmers Need Not Apply), and use those to breed (normally) the animals for eating.

i don't know how it is in the UK, but it seems that here in the US, as far as the Food Industry is concerned, there are no such things as 'small-time farmers.' they are, more or less, inconsequential, and will be sued out of business as soon as it can be determined that any proprietary genetic material has accidentally made its way into their product.

BBC wasn't all that enthusiastic about this plan and kept asking "what about labelling?" but the chick from the FDA was really getting irate, saying people should only need labels if it's a LEGITIMATE thing to be concerned about, a real difference, not just labels for the sake of labels.

again, in the US, the FDA is not really big on actually fulfilling its stated purpose--truth in labeling. Monsanto has engaged in quite a bit of harassment-lawsuit attempts to prevent truth-in-labeling; when a private dairy decides to label their products with anything such as "does not come from cows treated with rBGH or rBST," Monsanto lawywers show up claiming that "you're not legally allowed to say that, because it implies that rBGH/rBST may not be safe, which is untrue." thus, labeling your product with a true statement is construed as lie. IIRC, Monsanto hasn't been successful in making this stick, but this litigation is as much about running the little guys out of business by making them run up exhorbitant legal bills as it is about trying to win the point.