FDA Oks Food From Cloned Animals

Diet and Nutrition
21

[quote]vroom wrote:
Moomin wrote:
Who knows what the long term effects of consuming food with genetic defects will have on us?

News flash.

Genetic defects are a normal part of nature and the food we eat. Basically, if the animal is viable and lives, whether natural or cloned, we are already eating it.

Come on people, cloning is not introducing chemicals into the food supply, they are already there. Cloning is not introducing hormones into the food supply, they are already there.

If you have moral issues, hell, I won’t argue about that. Make your choices in that regard, but if you want to claim danger, you’ll have to show that there is some type of difference between the cloned and natural animals.

Both types wander around and say Moo from time to time…

Now, something I would worry about, personally, is a slow loss of genetic diversity in our livestock. Eventually, when it gets too inbred, we’ll have livestock that are all mostly susceptible to the same things. Let’s aim for synthetic meat grown in a vat and get past this whole issue entirely.

Mmm, vat culture M25a, tastes just like brown turkey meat. Mmmmm.[/quote]

Not at all.
A clone cow could be different than a normal cow.
The National Academy of Sciences already warned that commercialization of cloned livestock for food production could increase the incidence of E. coli infections and other food-borne illnesses.
No one knows for sure whether cloned animals are fit for human consumption.
The cloned cow and the normal,farm raised cow may not be the same.
I think the FDA needs to do more research on this matter before allowing this to happen.
The FDA action follows the recent news that the agency has refused to investigate health problems in animal clones on a U.S. dairy farm. Greg Wiles, whose Williamsport Maryland “Futuraland 2020” dairy was the first farm in the nation to have cloned cows, told FDA that one of his two cow clones was suffering from unexplained health problems. Wiles told Food Chemical News that the clone “just stopped growing…she just looks terrible,” but says that when he reported the problems to FDA and other federal officials, he was “paddled around like a tennis ball from agency to agency.” CFS has asked the Agriculture Department to intervene in the case to stop any sale and prohibit the slaughter of clones and their progeny for food.

22

[quote]Cthulhu wrote:
Not at all.
A clone cow could be different than a normal cow.
[/quote]

In what way? It’s going to be a living breathing animal. Defects occur during natural reproduction as well…

Really? Have they said how? In what way is this different than the current risk for E. coli and other food borne illnesses? The word “could” is pretty silly in this regard.

[quote]
No one knows for sure whether cloned animals are fit for human consumption.
The cloned cow and the normal,farm raised cow may not be the same.[/quote]

Again, in what way. Are you concerned that artificially inseminated calves are not the same as bull impregnated calves too?

[quote]
I think the FDA needs to do more research on this matter before allowing this to happen.
The FDA action follows the recent news that the agency has refused to investigate health problems in animal clones on a U.S. dairy farm. Greg Wiles, whose Williamsport Maryland “Futuraland 2020” dairy was the first farm in the nation to have cloned cows, told FDA that one of his two cow clones was suffering from unexplained health problems. Wiles told Food Chemical News that the clone “just stopped growing…she just looks terrible,” but says that when he reported the problems to FDA and other federal officials, he was “paddled around like a tennis ball from agency to agency.” CFS has asked the Agriculture Department to intervene in the case to stop any sale and prohibit the slaughter of clones and their progeny for food.[/quote]

I think you need to look a little deeper into the cloning process and what it means for a complex organism to function and support life.

Genetic defects happen all the time, naturally, and we don’t freak out about them because they are “natural”. These aren’t genetically altered spaces cows that breathe in CO2 and release oxygen while growing spools of cotton candy. Come up with something other than pure scare tactics, please.

–

Neph, I’m certainly not against labelling, so that people can choose to be scared and so forth if they wish to.

However, given the way the cloning works, and the way the life either is or is not viable – and that disease, problems, and so forth happen to all types of animals all the time, the only thing I’m worried about is that standards for meat inspections are kept to a high level and that things like mad cow disease are kept out of the food supply.

23

[quote]boatguy wrote:

Remember, these are the same folks who, in response to studies showing that most American women were deficient in iron, LOWERED the RDA of iron, to show that women were getting plenty.[/quote]

the FDA does not set the RDAs

24

As an inital aside I would like to mention another particularly interesting application of genetic engineering, although not quite the same as cloning. I believe it was monsanto that created a strain of vegetables that had a gene implanted in their genetic code that would produce a modern chemical pesticide in the leaves of the plant and not the food part of the crop itself, rendering it immune to disease. A fantastic idea! Imagine their shock when people exposed to the crop in flower became ill. The pesticide had made its way into the pollen of the plant and clouds of pesticide laced pollen were being inhaled by those unlucky enough to come into contact.

Coming back to the topic, It is correct to say that genetic defects are par for the course when it comes to the animals we eat at the moment. However, these genetic defects are minor. All life has a base level of genetic defects inherent in its DNA. In principle cloned meat should be fine to eat, and if the technology was proven to within 99.999% certainty of being safe I would probably join in and eat the stuff myself.

However, cloned animals have so far shown reduced lifespans, higher incidence of diseases and mortality rates. As far as the meat circus goes though, longevity is not important, so as long as they’re still standing when they go for the chop they’re classified as identical. The reason is currently thought to be from the vastly higher rate of genetic defects introduced by the current cloning process, although this is not known for certain.

In actual fact, in the production of these clones, most clones do not even gestate, and many of those that do are deformed or have serious problems. The production of one successful clone is a lottery, and a rather cruel one at that. Despite the fact that these animals have identical genetic code to their parents, they still die (supposedly due to the defects). As long as this is the case there is obviously a big difference between the current concept of “clones” proposed for introduction into the food chain and normal animals.

As you’ve mentioned mad cow disease, you must be familiar with the idea of a prion protein, on that above a certain concentration in the body turns your brain to sponge over ten years or so. This was another alien concept until cows started going loopy and falling over in a brain damaged stupor years ago. The concerns of that fiasco were neatly coverd up by the legislation being changed in the UK so that all beef cattle must be killed before a certain age of maturity. This has the nifty benefit of ensuring that no cows live long enough now for symptoms to appear.

The human form of the above disease is also on record as being contracted by cannibal tribes whose delicacy was human brains, causing the accumulation of prion protein in the food chain and consequently turning their brains to sponge.

These cases alone highlight the dangers of subtle problems that arise in the food chain. This time from a protein! This is a “naturally” occuring phenomenon, brought about by mother nature in response to the “unnatural” feeding of a species to itself.

Surely now the dangers of introducing an unknown quantity of man made genetic defects into the food chain on a large scale are apparent now? Who knows what the effects of this could be in the long term. Who knows what new varients of mad cow disease or even worse horrors may make it into our food supply. And as history has shown time and time again, we will find out if its safe or not at the expense of peoples lives, when it is too late. If our fears are unfounded then brilliant, I’m all for it. But anyone who claims that out understanding of science is good enough to ensure beyond a shadow of a doubt to say that eating defective clones is perfectly OK is deluding themselves as to the superiority of human intelligence. Or are we all still happy to put blind faith in the wonders of science.

The arguments put forward that third world countries stand to benefit from the “super” clones is simply bullshit, they need money and resources to grow crops. Meat is the most inefficient way of feeding a large population, one cow eats up a stack of cropland for grazing alone, the same space used to grow crops generates far more food. Meat is a luxury for those rich enough to be able to afford it. I.e us.

I have no problem with cloning, or the idea of cloning animals with exceptional characteristics for food in theory. However, the technology is far from perfect, our level of knowledge and understanding about the long term implications is far from adequate, and the current impetus into getting cloned food into the foodchain is a profit driven enterprise to make meat and milk cheaper to produce, disguised as a benefit to humanity.

Are we really kidding ourselves that the people pushing this through dont stand to make a lot of money out of it and that they are actually doing it as a service to humanity? After all, our food supply in the west is hardly inadequate at the moment is it? Half of america is dying from the diseases of the obesity epidemic? Do we REALLY need cloned food? Is it a fucking urgent concern of humanity that we NEED to take this risk, however minor it is?

25

[quote]nephorm wrote:
vroom wrote:
but if you want to claim danger, you’ll have to show that there is some type of difference between the cloned and natural animals.

I disagree. The burden of proof is on the companies selling the product. Not that I think they should be prohibited from selling… I just think they should slap on a label.[/quote]

It most certainly should be. Like I said before, drugs go through clinical trials and appear fine only to demonstrate serious side effects once released on the market for widespread consumption after awhile. But at least anyone choosing to take a prescription drugs makes that choice and accepts any unanticipated consequences. Everyone, on the other hand, has to eat. And I should not be forced to eat cloned meat and poultry that has not truly had time to prove itself safe because preliminary clinical trials show no problems.

26

Scary anecdotes about genetic engineering do not belong in the same discussion as cloning.

Disease development and progression is an ongoing problem in all species, regardless of cloning or lack of cloning. Look at our concerns for a global flu pandemic developing due to ongoing viral mutations.

As for the possible cruelty or other moral aspects, I’m not trying to argue that cloning is okay from that standpoint. Take whatever moral stance you like…

I’m just trying to point out that in order for the clone to gestate through to the point of birth, alive, it has to still be a cow. It will have the same working parts and the same chemistry.

Again, to go back to mad cow, the problem there is the unnatural process of feeding cow remains back to cows as a way to decrease costs. We should be more concerned that cows be allowed to live naturally and eat naturally than whether or not they were cloned.

Unfortunately, whether cloned or not, our cows (and other food animals) are big lab experiments already with respect to feeding and lifestyle. What, no fear until the world “clone” is introduced?

All the problems remain the same… but now that the word clone is introduced we have a new scapegoat for them. Start foaming at the mouth over current practices first and I’ll be much more impressed.

27

[quote]jsbrook wrote:
It most certainly should be. Like I said before, drugs go through clinical trials and appear fine only to demonstrate serious side effects once released on the market for widespread consumption after awhile. But at least anyone choosing to take a prescription drugs makes that choice and accepts any unanticipated consequences. Everyone, on the other hand, has to eat. And I should not be forced to eat cloned meat and poultry that has not truly had time to prove itself safe because preliminary clinical trials show no problems.[/quote]

Again, you are letting your fear get to you.

Drugs are artificial compounds introduced into our bodies that will have unknown effects until time allows us to spot them.

As much as cloning sounds scary and so forth, it is not introducing man made compounds into the final cow. The cow is born, lives and grows just like the other cows. It’s a cow.

The problem is that we already pump cows, in general, full of antibiotics, chemicals or unnatural foods.

Now, if they engineer animals to allow them to eat or digest different foods, or to grow meat in certain ways, then I’d start to get scared, because they are interfering with the natural way in which a cow functions.

All we are doing now is birthing a new cow that has traits that we like. Of course it is being done for money, but it isn’t engineering a cow, mother nature already did that work, so we want some extra copies.

Label it, I’m not against that. Then people can make their choices…

28

I just watched a re-run of the movie Soylent Green.

It’s people! It’s people!

29

I’ll have to think about this some more. My initial reaction could,ve been cut and pasted from my brain to Vroom,s posts. On one hand the basic science amounts to copying a file from one drive to another on my network.

However that little voice keeps tapping me on the intellectual shoulder and saying “it wouldn’t be beyond feasibility that something we don’t yet know could come into play in the future. Also, what do I have to gain from this? If nothing, then I’d just as soon leave well enough alone.”

I just don’t know at this point, but it doesn’t sit right with me for reasons I can’t quite put my finger on and that may turn out to be unfounded in the long run. We are however still in the short run.

30

[quote]Tiribulus wrote:
I’ll have to think about this some more. My initial reaction could,ve been cut and pasted from my brain to Vroom,s posts. On one hand the basic science amounts to copying a file from one drive to another on my network.

However that little voice keeps tapping me on the intellectual shoulder and saying “it wouldn’t be beyond feasibility that something we don’t yet know could come into play in the future. Also, what do I have to gain from this? If nothing, then I’d just as soon leave well enough alone.”

I just don’t know at this point, but it doesn’t sit right with me for reasons I can’t quite put my finger on and that may turn out to be unfounded in the long run. We are however still in the short run.[/quote]

Exactly. That is why it should be labeled as cloned.

I don’t forsee any problems but I would probably avoid it on principle.

31

[quote]vroom wrote:
jsbrook wrote:
It most certainly should be. Like I said before, drugs go through clinical trials and appear fine only to demonstrate serious side effects once released on the market for widespread consumption after awhile. But at least anyone choosing to take a prescription drugs makes that choice and accepts any unanticipated consequences. Everyone, on the other hand, has to eat. And I should not be forced to eat cloned meat and poultry that has not truly had time to prove itself safe because preliminary clinical trials show no problems.

Again, you are letting your fear get to you.

Drugs are artificial compounds introduced into our bodies that will have unknown effects until time allows us to spot them.

As much as cloning sounds scary and so forth, it is not introducing man made compounds into the final cow. The cow is born, lives and grows just like the other cows. It’s a cow.

The problem is that we already pump cows, in general, full of antibiotics, chemicals or unnatural foods.

Now, if they engineer animals to allow them to eat or digest different foods, or to grow meat in certain ways, then I’d start to get scared, because they are interfering with the natural way in which a cow functions.

All we are doing now is birthing a new cow that has traits that we like. Of course it is being done for money, but it isn’t engineering a cow, mother nature already did that work, so we want some extra copies.

Label it, I’m not against that. Then people can make their choices…[/quote]

Cmon, Vroom. You’re not a scientist. You don’t really know what you’re talking about. Time and time again, negative disatrous consequences have come about from things much less suspect than cloning. It’s in its infancy. We really have no idea of the intracacies of cloning. The fact that cloned animals go on to develop diseases at significantly higher rates than their ‘parents’ and naturally-born offsapring might well say something.

I don’t know how genetic engineering came to be discussed or why its relevant. The fact that cloning is not true genetic engineering doesn’t mean it doesn’t have its own dangers. The whole issue IS the labeling. And that the FDA does not plan to differentiate or label differently. I have no problem that animals would be cloned for consumption. They may well prove to be fine. Time will tell and not preliminary clinical trials.

32

[quote]Zap Branigan wrote:
Tiribulus wrote:
I’ll have to think about this some more. My initial reaction could,ve been cut and pasted from my brain to Vroom,s posts. On one hand the basic science amounts to copying a file from one drive to another on my network.

However that little voice keeps tapping me on the intellectual shoulder and saying “it wouldn’t be beyond feasibility that something we don’t yet know could come into play in the future. Also, what do I have to gain from this? If nothing, then I’d just as soon leave well enough alone.”

I just don’t know at this point, but it doesn’t sit right with me for reasons I can’t quite put my finger on and that may turn out to be unfounded in the long run. We are however still in the short run.

Exactly. That is why it should be labeled as cloned.

I don’t forsee any problems but I would probably avoid it on principle.[/quote]

Yup.

33

[quote]vroom wrote:
Cthulhu wrote:
Not at all.
A clone cow could be different than a normal cow.

In what way? It’s going to be a living breathing animal. Defects occur during natural reproduction as well…

The National Academy of Sciences already warned that commercialization of cloned livestock for food production could increase the incidence of E. coli infections and other food-borne illnesses.

Really? Have they said how? In what way is this different than the current risk for E. coli and other food borne illnesses? The word “could” is pretty silly in this regard.

No one knows for sure whether cloned animals are fit for human consumption.
The cloned cow and the normal,farm raised cow may not be the same.

Again, in what way. Are you concerned that artificially inseminated calves are not the same as bull impregnated calves too?

I think the FDA needs to do more research on this matter before allowing this to happen.
The FDA action follows the recent news that the agency has refused to investigate health problems in animal clones on a U.S. dairy farm. Greg Wiles, whose Williamsport Maryland “Futuraland 2020” dairy was the first farm in the nation to have cloned cows, told FDA that one of his two cow clones was suffering from unexplained health problems. Wiles told Food Chemical News that the clone “just stopped growing…she just looks terrible,” but says that when he reported the problems to FDA and other federal officials, he was “paddled around like a tennis ball from agency to agency.” CFS has asked the Agriculture Department to intervene in the case to stop any sale and prohibit the slaughter of clones and their progeny for food.

I think you need to look a little deeper into the cloning process and what it means for a complex organism to function and support life.

Genetic defects happen all the time, naturally, and we don’t freak out about them because they are “natural”. These aren’t genetically altered spaces cows that breathe in CO2 and release oxygen while growing spools of cotton candy. Come up with something other than pure scare tactics, please.

–

Neph, I’m certainly not against labelling, so that people can choose to be scared and so forth if they wish to.

However, given the way the cloning works, and the way the life either is or is not viable – and that disease, problems, and so forth happen to all types of animals all the time, the only thing I’m worried about is that standards for meat inspections are kept to a high level and that things like mad cow disease are kept out of the food supply.[/quote]

You’re missing the whole point of this thread.
I’m not saying everyone should stay away from cloned meat because it’s “unhealthy” for you.
Nor am I saying you should.
Although I am against it,it is because I believe the FDA rushed it too much and did not take the time to research it.
Although artificially inseminated calves appear to be the same as bull impregnated calves,with the exception of small differences,their life span is much shorter. I am concerned about that.
Also,what new drugs will they be using on these clones?
They still have to figure out if these drugs are even safe since they will be used in the meat people will be consuming(which I highly doubt is gonna be that safe).
There are plenty of unanswered questions.
I just think that they rushed this way too much.

34

[quote]jsbrook wrote:
Cmon, Vroom. You’re not a scientist. You don’t really know what you’re talking about.[/quote]

I’m not trying to tell you anything scientific. I’m trying to tell you that a calf that is born and lives its life, is a calf.

Do you have any realistic source material for these claims? Somebody surely did some serious studies already if you do…

There are many things that have dangers, as we all know. However, cloning itself doesn’t change basic life processes. Cows will still be cows. They will still eat what they are fed, grow and be slaughtered. They are still the same species and life form. You are taking a basic concern about cloning and supposing that somehow magic will happen and cows will produce lead instead of muscle or something fantastic.

Genetic engineering entered the discussion because it involves altering the life processes, artificially, to boost production of certain components or products, whether natural or otherwise. Genetic engineering is what would produce fantastic unknown consequences such as the above.

35

[quote]Cthulhu wrote:
You’re missing the whole point of this thread.[/quote]

Maybe I’m getting a different point from it than you think should be taken? I’m getting a lot of speculation based on what appears to be fear mongering through the use of emotionally loaded words – all supported by non-specific weasel words.

[quote]
Although artificially inseminated calves appear to be the same as bull impregnated calves,with the exception of small differences,their life span is much shorter. I am concerned about that.[/quote]

Do you have any studies that show this? Again, if you actually have such studies, recent ones, then it would start to look like a lot of studying has in fact been done.

I don’t see many questions that are based on anything other than wild speculation and fear. Issues seem to be getting mish-mashed together, such that cloning is bearing the brunt of fears for all the issues that are currently embedded in the meat industry.

There are a lot of issues, right now, that have nothing to do with cloning. Of course, they will still be there when cloning happens.

36

Uh so wait. Wouldnt it be more expensive to clone an animal than to just have them make babies like nature intended? I didn’t know we were in a cow/goat/pig shortage! No one tells me ANYTHING!

37

Ok, the reason I brought up genetic engineering was not to imply that cloning is the same, although they both involve the artifivial manipulation of DNA to some extent. The point is that genetic engineering has many cases where effects that have come about that the developers did not intend.

I would suggest reading this for starters, it discusses some of the possible risks.

The case about transgenic crops containing allergens is particularly disturbing, to think that those people with nut allergies could die from eating transgenic soybeans that contain the genes for brazil nut proteins.

As for disease development and progression, yes mutations do happen naturally and new diseases are born, but fortunately at a relatively slow rate, after all if it was happening fast, our current library of antibiotics would now be completely useless. Anything that speeds up the rate of mutation can be considered bad

The fact that many of the clones do not gestate and do not make it to term means that there is something seriously wrong with their working parts and their internal chemistry.

You are right about current practices being cause for concern. The widespread use of antibiotics in meat is definately cause for concern, since antibiotic resistance is an ongoing threat, and the prescence of low levels in the food chain increases the likelyhood that such a superbug might develop. Creating cloned animals that are more likely to get sick and require more medicines to keep them alive than the current meat population is not going to help the situation.

The possible danger with cloning is that when it comes to genetics, although a lot is know about the subject, we are nowhere near fully understanding the complete picture with regards to biology. The danger comes from the unknown mutations being introduced into the food chain. These could potentially alter the protein make-up of the foods we are consuming in a hazardous manner. If this is the case, I do not want to be unlucky enough to find out the hard way, which is extremely likely since I consume vast quantites of meat daily. Cloning as it stands currently IS introducing MAN MADE defects into the cows, which do not grow and live just like the other cows, as is evidenced by the vast number of mortalities and birth defects.

As for mad cow disease, it took twenty years of bad practice before the disease became evident, and before that time it was considered safe to feed cows the processed remains of other cows. Carbon tetrachloride used to be used in Dry cleaning laundrettes everywhere for years, until exceptionally large numbers of dry cleaning employees began dying of liver cancer. Chemists then cottoned on to the fact that the two things might just be related.

In all science, when things are introduced into the general population, risk assesment must be conducted. My point here is that since introducing cloned animals into the food chain could have far reaching longterm consequences beyond our current level of comprehension, we should be especially cautious before we go blazing in and introduce dodgily cloned genes for the general consumption of the population. Its not a case of letting the fear get to us, its a case of accurately judging the risks to humanity and acting accordingly. The technology needs to be refined and tested over the extreme long term, and we should really wait until our understanding of genetics has matured. We still fully dont understand organic chemistry, how compounds behave on the molecular level. Genetics is a whole new ball game that needs to be treated with caution.

Like I said before, to introduce a potential long reaching health risk to the general population, even if the risk is tiny, is reckless, especially when we have plenty of food anyway. Cant we just be happy with what we’ve got? I can go to my local supermarket and buy a ton of meat, its affordable and relatively healthy. Why do we need this crap? We dont, its simply the wheels of capitalism driving progress, as a few people stand to get very rich from this.

38

[quote]Moomin wrote:
In all science, when things are introduced into the general population, risk assesment must be conducted. My point here is that since introducing cloned animals into the food chain could have far reaching longterm consequences beyond our current level of comprehension, we should be especially cautious before we go blazing in and introduce dodgily cloned genes for the general consumption of the population. Its not a case of letting the fear get to us, its a case of accurately judging the risks to humanity and acting accordingly. The technology needs to be refined and tested over the extreme long term, and we should really wait until our understanding of genetics has matured. We still fully dont understand organic chemistry, how compounds behave on the molecular level. Genetics is a whole new ball game that needs to be treated with caution.[/quote]

You can’t equate deciding to feed cows food they don’t normally eat with something like this. It’s a totally different animal (bad pun, I know).

Anyway, the way you describe it, it sounds like we’d better stop having babies and reproducing too.

Genetics are simply the building blocks of life. Whether you have a baby naturally, through artificial insemination, or through cloning, you are mixing genes in order to create a new life.

Mutation, in nature, is very common and rapid, except that most mutations are not viable and do not become present as mature species that can reproduce. There are statistics out there concerning estimates of spontaneously occurring natural abortions due to defects.

Genetic engineering has to do with manmade changes in genes in order to create something different. Cloning is reproductive technology used to create an animal as close to the original as possible.

Again, I’d say don’t lump all the problems with the food industry under the heading of “cloning” in an attempt to make it sound scary. If you do have research showing that modern cloning practices create all kinds of problems, then please trot it out for our review… so far I’m seeing lots of supposition, unrelated anecdotes and horror stories.

Pretty soon I’ll have trouble sleeping.

Personally, though I’ll never stop eating truckloads of meats, I’m hoping they’ll invent vat-o-lab-meat soon, so I can eat my dinner without having to consider the shitty life provided to many food animals and the conditions under which they are killed.

39

[quote]Cthulhu wrote:
You’re missing the whole point of this thread.
I’m not saying everyone should stay away from cloned meat because it’s “unhealthy” for you.
Nor am I saying you should.
Although I am against it,it is because I believe the FDA rushed it too much and did not take the time to research it.
[/quote]

What pissed me off about the study is that it is making such headlines in the media. Eating Cloned meat is not an issue. Clones cost so much more to produce than natural methods including AI, that noone is going to use them for food. They use clones to research them, not slaughter them tosee how tasty they are.

There are issues affecting people that the money in this study could have been used to fund. Instead the FDA funded a study that won’t have any effect for the next 20 years when clonging might become cheap enought to make it a viable possibility at which time they will do another study.

40

[quote]vroom wrote:
Moomin wrote:
In all science, when things are introduced into the general population, risk assesment must be conducted. My point here is that since introducing cloned animals into the food chain could have far reaching longterm consequences beyond our current level of comprehension, we should be especially cautious before we go blazing in and introduce dodgily cloned genes for the general consumption of the population. Its not a case of letting the fear get to us, its a case of accurately judging the risks to humanity and acting accordingly. The technology needs to be refined and tested over the extreme long term, and we should really wait until our understanding of genetics has matured. We still fully dont understand organic chemistry, how compounds behave on the molecular level. Genetics is a whole new ball game that needs to be treated with caution.

You can’t equate deciding to feed cows food they don’t normally eat with something like this. It’s a totally different animal (bad pun, I know).

Anyway, the way you describe it, it sounds like we’d better stop having babies and reproducing too.

Genetics are simply the building blocks of life. Whether you have a baby naturally, through artificial insemination, or through cloning, you are mixing genes in order to create a new life.

Mutation, in nature, is very common and rapid, except that most mutations are not viable and do not become present as mature species that can reproduce. There are statistics out there concerning estimates of spontaneously occurring natural abortions due to defects.

Genetic engineering has to do with manmade changes in genes in order to create something different. Cloning is reproductive technology used to create an animal as close to the original as possible.

Again, I’d say don’t lump all the problems with the food industry under the heading of “cloning” in an attempt to make it sound scary. If you do have research showing that modern cloning practices create all kinds of problems, then please trot it out for our review… so far I’m seeing lots of supposition, unrelated anecdotes and horror stories.

Pretty soon I’ll have trouble sleeping.

Personally, though I’ll never stop eating truckloads of meats, I’m hoping they’ll invent vat-o-lab-meat soon, so I can eat my dinner without having to consider the shitty life provided to many food animals and the conditions under which they are killed.[/quote]

You’re right, you cant equate feeding cows something they’re not naturally meant to eat to cloning. Creating unnatural clones has potentially far worse implications for human health.

You also can’t equate the natural mixing of genes in sexual reproduction to cloning. The in the natural process of gene reproduction, the mutation (or error) rate is 1-5%. Without going into details, sexual reproduction introduces a form of error correction into the replication process, which is a presumed reason why most (if not all) mammals higher up the evolutionary chain use sexual reproduction, along with the advantages of sexual selection and genetic variety.

Current cloning technology is flawed in a number of ways. It is true that every cell in the body contains the full genetic code for a complete copy of the original organism. However, after growth and maturation, the differentiation of cells into their different types renders the bulk of their genetic code useless.

For example, living skin cells only transcribe the segement of our genetic code necessary to become skin cells. Although they carry the DNA for everything else, this is not used and lies dormant. In the process of the skin cells lifetime, as long as the skin cell segment of the DNA is intact, the skin can carry on replication as usual. If the rest of the DNA is damaged, this has no implications for the cell, it can simply carry on being a skin cell.

As a result of this, over our lifetime our DNA picks up a much higher rate of damage than the standard reproductive mutation rate. When a cell is removed from a body, and the nucleus is used for cloning, all the damaged DNA is cloned as well. This is the reason that most clones die or are horribly deformed.

The cloning process introduces a completely unnatural form of mutations in a large quantity. Its currently estimated it takes 400 tries to make one cloned calve that survives long enough to be called a successful clone. Some of the rest grow up with internal organs full of tumors and other weird shit.

As you can gather from this, the actual state of affairs is far from the 6th day ideal of cloning, where identical genetic copies are easily created. Even if the cloned DNA was not damaged, the first cloned sheep taught us that in the cloning process, the DNA present in the mitochondria of the host cell as well as the nucleus are expressed in the final organism.

This means that the current method of implanting a nucleus into a host cell can never produce an exact copy of teh original organism. This introduces further unnatural variation, although the implications of this are rather less serious, and would be partly comparible to the natural variation incurred by normal reproduction.

Clones also have longer telomeres (the length of DNA at the end of the coded information that gets shorter as we age). Since this used to be believed to be a major factor in biological aging, it is considered odd that the clones die off young, despite their apparently normal DNA.

It is obvious that the reality of cloning is far removed from the hollywood ideal that most peoples concept of cloning represents.

Can you really still say that the consumption of cloned meat sounds fine to you. Can you really stil deny that there is the possibility that we may be doing something more dangerous than we can currently comprehend? Just like we’ve done countless times in the past and caused suffering for millions? Do you have the utmost faith in your level of understanding that you would be prepared to feed cloned meat to your kids for 20 years in clinical trials to prove that its safe?

If you can then you either somehow know more than the rest of the human race, or you dont fully comprehend the possible danger. Ironically, this is the point that im trying to make, we need to be aware that we may not be fully aware of all the danger! This isnt scaremongering, its learning from past mistakes of the human race. Big ones!