The FDA has approved the sale and consumption of meat and milk from cloned animals and their offspring in the United States without requiring labeling. However, cloning is still an inefficient process with a high rate of stillbirths and offspring mortality. While the FDA claims food from cloned animals is as safe as conventionally produced food, they have not conducted long-term studies on human health effects. Consumers currently have no way of knowing if the food they purchase comes from cloned animals. Mandatory labeling would allow personal choice just as labels do for organic versus conventional products.

1. Not Enough Science
Kara Marie Delay
Well, the unthinkable has happened here in America. We have officially become the first
country to approve the consumption of meat and milk from cloned cattle, pigs, and goats. In
January 2008, officials at the FDA (Food and Drug Administration) approved the sale of food
from cloned animals, and even though the USDA (United States Department of Agriculture)
has asked food companies to voluntarily maintain a ban on products from clones, that ban
didn’t apply to the clone’s offspring. The FDA has even recently admitted that meat and milk
from the offspring of cloned mammals can very well already have entered the United States
food supply. Now here lies the question: Is the meat and milk that we’re purchasing in our
Missoula supermarket shelves the product of cloned offspring? And if so, how would we know?
We wouldn’t.
The FDA has stated that the labeling of “non-cloned” food is not required because the food
derived from these sources is no different from food derived from conventionally bred animals.
It has also been made known that based on a final risk assessment, a report written by FDA
scientists and issued in January 2008, the FDA has concluded that meat and milk from cow,
pig, and goat clones and the offspring of any animal clones are as safe as the food we eat
everyday.
Cell cloning technology, referred to as somatic cell nuclear transfer, involves the inserting the
nucleus of a somatic cell of an animal, such as a skin cell, into another animals unfertilized
egg cell after it’s nucleus has been removed. As a result, the generic characteristics of the
parent animal are transferred to the offspring, with the offspring growing to have physical
characteristics identical to the parent. The cloned animals, especially cattle, are expected to
produce high quality beef and high quantities of milk. The FDA ruling was a major victory for
cloning companies who hope to use these cloned animals primarily for breeding purposes and
for the selling of copies of prize dairy cows, steers, and hogs.
If this cloning technology is expected to produce such great results, what is the controversy?
The answer: a high rate of stillbirths. The animals that are undergoing this cloning process,
especially cattle and pigs, are far more likely to have stillborn offspring, and have a 30%
chance of having offspring that will die after birth - five times higher than conventionally bred
animals. The likelihood of even successfully producing a calf through this cloning technology is
extremely low, a mere 9%. Even though the FDA has knowledge of these complications
involved in animal cloning, it has still approved the sale of cloned meat and milk without
knowing what the health risks are to human consumers after consuming these products for a
lengthened period of time.
I believe the decision to eat cloned meat is a personal decision, just the same as it is a
personal decision for a family to purchase organic food. One would be able to make that
decision based on reading the labeling of the products they buy and choosing those that are
labeled organic. According to the USDA, “agricultural products that are sold, labeled, or
represented as organic must be produced and processed in accordance with the NOP (National

2. Organic Program) standards.” People trust that when they purchase food that is labeled
organic that that is what they’re getting. What if these labels meant nothing?
Since organic farmers have certain standards they’re required to follow before they’re allowed
to carry the organic label, shouldn’t producers of cloned animal meat and milk have certain
standards that they are required to follow, including the mandatory labeling of such? The
consumer has the choice at their local supermarket - we Missoulians have a choice at our
Missoula supermarkets - on what we purchase: caffeinated vs. decaffeinated - dairy vs.
lactose free - butter vs. margarine - chicken vs. tofu - conventionally grown vs. organic. We’re
able to make that decision because our food is labeled and if it’s not what we want or agree
with we don’t purchase it. The problem is that cloned animal meat and milk currently are not
required to be labeled as such, so we Missoulians have no idea what we’re purchasing.
Thankfully, there is a little light upon this dark situation for America. Companies can make a
request to the FDA to label their products as clone-free. There is already an ongoing list of
companies that have enforced a ban on cloned products including Smithfield Foods, General
Mills, Campbell Soup, Nestle, California Pizza Kitchen, Supervalu, Kraft Foods, and Tyson
Foods.
Personally, for the health of myself and my family, I hope scientists are required to conduct
further research into the effects of long term consumption of cloned products. I also hope that
they do this research open to the public, while not allowing producers to sneak these products
onto our Missoula shelves. Let the cloning companies be the guinea pigs. Let us consumers
watch the condition of their health. Be willing to convince us by your example in ingesting the
cloned products instead of simply stating your opinions of the studies you’ve done “thus far”.
If organically grown food can be just as beneficial to me, and really be no different from
conventionally grown food, other than being grown and processed healthier, yet still carries a
label, the same should be for cloned animal meat and milk if it’s “just as safe as the food we
eat everyday”.