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| Posted: May 27, 2008 |
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In January, the Food and Drug Administration decided that meat and milk from cloned animals is safe to eat. Two experts on different sides of the issue -- a veterinarian whose company produces cloned animals and an advocate for clone-free food -- answered your questions. |
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| Lewis Eigen of Potomac, Md. asks |
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| Some people are scared of cloned foods. Others like me would like to see these new technologies used as soon as reasonable. Why not require that cloned meat be labeled? Then each person can take or not take risks, support or not support science. |
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| Don Coover responds: |
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 I agree that people should have the option to use or not to use a new technology, but the suggested solution may be more burdensome than useful.
Labeling products takes money; to require that animals that are derived in some way from cloning be labeled as "cloned" seems easy and not too big a deal. In fact, establishing a trail of those animals and handling (and labeling) their products would be costly and difficult.
Remember, the technology has been studied and found to be safe. I think it would be fine for a company to provide a product that is not produced using cloning technologies, and label it as such, and charge a premium for it, if there was a market out there. If foods produced using cloning technology are safe (and they are), they don't need to be labeled. If they are not safe, they should not be produced or sold. |
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| Jaydee Hanson responds: |
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 We at the Center for Food Safety believe that foods from clones and their progeny of should be labeled. A poll conducted by the Consumers Union in July of 2007 found that 89 percent of consumers want meat and milk derived from cloned animals to be labeled and 69 percent of consumers were concerned about eating milk or meat from cloned animals. A poll conducted in May 2008 by the Food Marketing Institute found similar results with 81 percent believing that meat and milk from clones should be labeled, and 77 percent not comfortable with eating meat and milk from clones. The FDA's own focus groups also made clear that people do not want to eat meat and milk from clones. Unfortunately, the FDA did not release those studies until we and other groups filed freedom of information requests. |
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