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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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| Bill Elkins of East Fallowfield, Pa. asks |
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| I'm a beef farmer. I can't believe cloners will make money even if the public puts aside fears. There are huge up-front costs that will get tacked onto the second generation animals, which will taste the same as conventional ones. Your thoughts? |
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| Don Coover responds: |
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 The value of the clones is that they are breeding animals, and the value of their genetics far outweighs the value of their carcass. I sell semen from bulls for artificial insemination; a single unit of semen is worth around $20 per unit. A bull can produce thousands of units a year. If there is demand for semen from a clone of a popular bull, that semen will be as valuable as the semen from the original bull, especially if the original bull is dead or semen is no longer available. There is money to be made from cloning, or people wouldn't be doing it.
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| Jaydee Hanson responds: |
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 You are right, cost does matter. The next step, marketing of cloned genetically engineered animals, might give cloners a tool to exert more economic control in the market, though. Animals with a gene from another organism inserted into their genome could be patentable. Cloners could then require royalty for every animal bred from their original animal. Cloning is essentially the best way to copy genetically engineered animals. The FDA already is considering whether to permit a genetically engineered fish on the market. The FDA and USDA are currently considering how they will regulate genetically engineered mammals and poultry. Cloning is too expensive for ordinary breeding operations; cloning is, in my opinion, the gateway to genetic engineering of livestock. |
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