good time to go vegan
So, as you've probably heard. The FDA has announced that food (meat,dairy, etc) from cloned animals & their offspring is safe for human consumption.
How did they do this? By examining the nutritional quality of the food produced by these animals.
Obviously this is something akin to testing the quality of welds on an airplane by seeing if it gets off the ground. Ie, a completely different level of abstraction. Kind of related, but hardly conclusive.
Even in the brief Nature article, it's mentioned:
"The agency also found no evidence of poor health among cloned animals,with the exception of newborn cloned calves. These calves are often unhealthy immediately after they are born, but typically recover withina few weeks."
They go on to say that that kind of problem is common with these kinds of assisted-reproduction technologies.
Now, I'm not saying that cloned animals are a good thing or not, I honestly don't have the knowledge or skills to assess this. It all just seems a little premature, given the complexity & relative newness of animal cloning technology (eg, we only managed to clone a human embryo in 2005).
Even the FDA acknowledges:
"Currently, it is not possible to draw any conclusions regarding the longevity of livestock clones or possible long-term health consequences"
Smarter people than I have a pretty good discussion about it here (I suggest viewing at level 4+). Some good points raised:
1. Cloned animals have shortened telomeres (ie, the newborn clone is the same internal age as the adult it was cloned from)
2. We still don't know if these kinds of deep internal changes affect humans or not.
3. Consumers don't have to be told if their products are cloned or not.
4. The FDA doesn't exactly have a stellar record for looking after consumers vs, say, big food corporates (pharma, farmer)
from here (admittedly a cloning protest site, but still):
FDA has a poor track record in evaluating the science of animal cloning. In 2003, the agency released a draft assessment that was widely heralded as demonstrating the safety of cloned food; yet this assessment relied on a single industry-sponsored study of cloned milk, and no data at all on meat from animal clones. The agency's latest assessment claims that no issues in food from animal clones were found, yet among the few new studies cited, several reported troubling results. Among the studies, published just this month, one found a failure rate in animal cloning of over 90%, with over 40% of "successful" clones suffering from disabling health problems leading to early death. Another found significant health differences in clones' offspring compared to normal animals. A third study found that healthy appearing clones are often physiologically different than normal animals, and concluded that food from clones should not be marketed without further research. The National Academy of Sciences has said that there is not enough data to know if the hidden defects in clones could pose food safety risks.
Pretty obviously, another reason to either stay the hell away from animal products, or move to a country (like NZ) where they're much more aggressively careful with the food manufacturing process.
How did they do this? By examining the nutritional quality of the food produced by these animals.
Obviously this is something akin to testing the quality of welds on an airplane by seeing if it gets off the ground. Ie, a completely different level of abstraction. Kind of related, but hardly conclusive.
Even in the brief Nature article, it's mentioned:
"The agency also found no evidence of poor health among cloned animals,with the exception of newborn cloned calves. These calves are often unhealthy immediately after they are born, but typically recover withina few weeks."
They go on to say that that kind of problem is common with these kinds of assisted-reproduction technologies.
Now, I'm not saying that cloned animals are a good thing or not, I honestly don't have the knowledge or skills to assess this. It all just seems a little premature, given the complexity & relative newness of animal cloning technology (eg, we only managed to clone a human embryo in 2005).
Even the FDA acknowledges:
"Currently, it is not possible to draw any conclusions regarding the longevity of livestock clones or possible long-term health consequences"
Smarter people than I have a pretty good discussion about it here (I suggest viewing at level 4+). Some good points raised:
1. Cloned animals have shortened telomeres (ie, the newborn clone is the same internal age as the adult it was cloned from)
2. We still don't know if these kinds of deep internal changes affect humans or not.
3. Consumers don't have to be told if their products are cloned or not.
4. The FDA doesn't exactly have a stellar record for looking after consumers vs, say, big food corporates (pharma, farmer)
from here (admittedly a cloning protest site, but still):
FDA has a poor track record in evaluating the science of animal cloning. In 2003, the agency released a draft assessment that was widely heralded as demonstrating the safety of cloned food; yet this assessment relied on a single industry-sponsored study of cloned milk, and no data at all on meat from animal clones. The agency's latest assessment claims that no issues in food from animal clones were found, yet among the few new studies cited, several reported troubling results. Among the studies, published just this month, one found a failure rate in animal cloning of over 90%, with over 40% of "successful" clones suffering from disabling health problems leading to early death. Another found significant health differences in clones' offspring compared to normal animals. A third study found that healthy appearing clones are often physiologically different than normal animals, and concluded that food from clones should not be marketed without further research. The National Academy of Sciences has said that there is not enough data to know if the hidden defects in clones could pose food safety risks.
Pretty obviously, another reason to either stay the hell away from animal products, or move to a country (like NZ) where they're much more aggressively careful with the food manufacturing process.