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| Would You Eat Meat Derived from Cloned Animals? |
| Yes, Enthusiastically |
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75% |
[ 12 ] |
| Yes, Just Don't Tell Me What I'm Eating |
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12% |
[ 2 ] |
| No Opinion |
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6% |
[ 1 ] |
| Not Unless I Had No Alternative |
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6% |
[ 1 ] |
| No, Never |
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0% |
[ 0 ] |
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| Total Votes : 16 |
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Message |
Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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 Posted: Thu Dec 28, 2006 9:36 pm Post subject: Would You Eat Meat Derived from Cloned Animals...? |
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All Things Considered, December 28, 2006 � The Food and Drug Administration says meat and milk from most cloned animals is safe to eat. But the agency won't lift a voluntary moratorium on the sale of any products from cloned livestock for at least three months.
For more than three years, the FDA has been saying that meat and milk from cloned animals is safe to eat. Today they finally backed this up with a thousand-page draft risk assessment, introduced at a telephone news conference.
Steven Sundloff, who heads the FDA's Center for Veterinary Medicine, said they have looked at more than 100 studies of cattle, pigs and goats, and see nothing to suggest any risk to human health.
Clones may sound creepy, but they can be seen as being essentially identical twins of other animals -- simply born later.
The process isn't without risk for the animals. Cloned animals are more likely to be born with problems. But Dr. Sundloff says those problems are the same sort found in livestock born with the help of commonly used technologies, such as in vitro fertilization.
And debilitated animals don't go into the food supply, cloned or not. In fact, because it costs $20,000 to produce a cloned animal, Dr. Sundloff said clones will not soon fill pastures and pig barns. |
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6692091
I vote "no opinion." I have not given this much thought. I do not believe that cloned meat will come onto the market in mass quantities or be served in my regular restaurants anytime soon. But what do you think? |
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ED209
Joined: 17 Oct 2006
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| Posted: Thu Dec 28, 2006 10:39 pm Post subject: |
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How about eating yourself?
That's not a random insult or auto-arousal suggestion. But if they could clone... say your ribs(and just your ribs mind you) would you partake in some Gopher wings.
I'm all for cloned or GM meat so long as the checks are in place. |
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mateomiguel
Joined: 16 May 2005
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| Posted: Thu Dec 28, 2006 11:07 pm Post subject: |
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| There's nothing wrong with cloned meat. in fact its even better, it means less cruelty to animals. Take a rib biopsy from a cow, grow the cells in culture into the perfect shape of a steak, and ship it off. Cow stays alive to give more biopsies in the future, lives to ripe old age, everybody's happy. |
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mindmetoo
Joined: 02 Feb 2004
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| Posted: Fri Dec 29, 2006 4:43 pm Post subject: |
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If the FDA declares it safe, alright then. I can't possibly test every food product out there myself and ultimately have to trust the government bodies we put in place to keep us reasonably safe.
How is cloned meat bad? Is eating a cow's twin bad?
The natural world is awash in deadly parasites, from tape worms to malaria. Parasites are nearly unknown in North America because we have very exact and tightly regulated agriculture. You're far more in danger of dying eating "natural" foods you'd catch out in the bush or water from a remote "pristine" stream than the products we produce in the labs we call farms.
PETA et al will undoubtedly come up with a frankenfood label and irrational fear will keep it off the market. I remember a lot of people initially refused to go to grocery stores that used laser scanners at the checkout because they thought the lasers were beaming radiation into their food. |
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Spitting Llama
Joined: 08 Dec 2006
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| Posted: Sat Dec 30, 2006 12:49 am Post subject: let me know |
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| I heard about this too and am pretty sure I would eat cloned or GMed meats and cheezes. This is a big statement for me cause I worked on organic farms for a couple of years. I still think we shouldn't be chemming up all our fruits and veggies though. is that a conflicting standpoint, probly so.. |
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Spitting Llama
Joined: 08 Dec 2006
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| Posted: Sat Dec 30, 2006 12:49 am Post subject: |
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| Oh yeah, I think they should just label the stuff so people can choose for themselves. |
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Manner of Speaking
Joined: 09 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Sat Dec 30, 2006 12:58 am Post subject: |
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Assuming that "cloned livestock" is defined as livestock originating from a cloned embryo or zygote, I see no immediate problems with consuming cloned livestock on health grounds. However, there are a couple of aspects of cloning livestock I have issues with.
First of all, US consumers are not being given the choice of whether or not they want to consume cloned livestock products, because they will not be labelled separately. Regardless of their reasons for doing so, I think consumers should have a right to choose not to purchase cloned livestock products if they want.
Second, I think at least one of the drivers for producing cloned livestock is the ongoing efforts by agrifood companies to monopolize the production of food. On this basis alone, I would choose not to purchase cloned livestock products, regardless of whether or not they are safe to eat. |
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alffy
Joined: 25 Apr 2006
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| Posted: Sat Dec 30, 2006 1:31 am Post subject: |
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| mindmetoo wrote: |
| If the FDA declares it safe, alright then. |
I'm a heck of a The-Government-should-be-involved-in-fixing-serious-public-issues kinda Liberal (in the modern American version of the term), but this statement just gives me the willies!
I think the government should be involved in keeping the public safe, I just don't trust our political system enough to share this sentiment!
Oh, and as to cloned meat- by the current definition they clearly mean meat from cloned animals (as opposed to cloned animal parts). Basically, they say its okay to eat Dolly the sheep (well, not now, as if there was any meat left on her bones it would be a bit rancid). Cloned sheep would just be mutton (unless you get 'um early enough for lamb!), cloned cattle, beef, and so on. As someone pointed out earlier, it would be like eating an animal's identical twin-no real problem.
Only real problems in animal cloning arise from the fact genetic material is copied from an adult cell (although there is some cool stuff happening with blastomeres and mitochondria DNA and other things leading to, among other things, Chimeras- now that would be cool on the grocery shelves, pork/beef clones! Probably taste like chicken), and these problems could lead to earlier aging and similar troubles for the clone. No real difference in the final product, though.
Now that cool stuff about cloning just certain body parts of animals, like say some spare ribs, that ain't happening anytime soon. I don't honestly see it happening at all, just some sci-fi fairytale sorta stuff. Problem has to do with the developmental process- we simply don't understand it enough to take, say, some stem cells from a cow and regulate the genes and environment in just the perfect process to produce a rack of ribs. It just ain't happening anytime soon (and from my research into developmental genetics, I don't see it happening for a LONG time, if ever). Its just a lot easier creating the whole cow and then cutting out the tasty bits later. |
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mindmetoo
Joined: 02 Feb 2004
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| Posted: Sat Dec 30, 2006 5:35 am Post subject: |
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| alffy wrote: |
| mindmetoo wrote: |
| If the FDA declares it safe, alright then. |
I'm a heck of a The-Government-should-be-involved-in-fixing-serious-public-issues kinda Liberal (in the modern American version of the term), but this statement just gives me the willies! |
You ignored and failed to quote my qualifier:
"keep us reasonably safe."
A group like the FDA is not perfect, certainly subject to politics and corporate pressure, and one should be an educated consumer. But at the end of the day, the aspirin I take, the water I drink, the pork I cook... I have to wager some government agency has done its job. I can't possibly test it all myself. |
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alffy
Joined: 25 Apr 2006
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| Posted: Sat Dec 30, 2006 9:56 am Post subject: |
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| mindmetoo wrote: |
| alffy wrote: |
| mindmetoo wrote: |
| If the FDA declares it safe, alright then. |
I'm a heck of a The-Government-should-be-involved-in-fixing-serious-public-issues kinda Liberal (in the modern American version of the term), but this statement just gives me the willies! |
You ignored and failed to quote my qualifier:
"keep us reasonably safe."
A group like the FDA is not perfect, certainly subject to politics and corporate pressure, and one should be an educated consumer. But at the end of the day, the aspirin I take, the water I drink, the pork I cook... I have to wager some government agency has done its job. I can't possibly test it all myself. |
You are correct, sir! I was merely trying a bit of slightly inebriated good-humored sarcasam. It didn't work. Oh, well.
In all seriousness, though, I do disagree on a certain level with your reasoning. I tend to think that much of the safety involved in our food, medicine and other commercially produced sundry items of existence is dictated by market forces and fear of relatitory litigation. Remember the Tylenol scare from the 70's? Tamper-resistant packaging that makes our medications (and other food items) safer was driven not by government legislation, but rather fear of market share loss on the part of the manufacturers.
I truly am a progressive Liberal (currently living in one of the bastions of progressivism in the US, Madison, WI), but my concerns regarding many government agencies such as the FDA is not the job they do, but rather the manner in which it is done. So many major manufacturers/corporations have powerful influence in the government processes today (as you pointed out) that agencies such as the FDA often can not be considered truly independent, especially considering the current US administration with its considerable ties to business.
My major problem with the FDA, and other similar agencies, is that they are effectively giving cover to many manufacturers. The declaration of a medication "effective" or a food product "safe" is not often the result of a process of long, independent testing performed free of outside interference by the government, rather it is the result of political maneuvering, bartering, and sometimes outright crooked dealings. This government label, then, affords the product a veneer of acceptability, even when there may be considerable evidence to the contrary (some of our major concerns about "acceptable" levels of arsenic in the water in this country are based in just such labeling practices of "safe").
I guess what I am trying to say is that the reason your aspirin is safe is due most significantly to the fact that if it wasn't you wouldn't buy it, than to the auspices of the FDA. |
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mindmetoo
Joined: 02 Feb 2004
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| Posted: Sat Dec 30, 2006 5:38 pm Post subject: |
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| alffy wrote: |
I guess what I am trying to say is that the reason your aspirin is safe is due most significantly to the fact that if it wasn't you wouldn't buy it, than to the auspices of the FDA. |
It reached market initially as a safe product because of the FDA. |
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SirFink
Joined: 05 Mar 2006
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| Posted: Sat Dec 30, 2006 11:06 pm Post subject: |
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| mindmetoo wrote: |
How is cloned meat bad? Is eating a cow's twin bad? |
The thing is we are currently eating, essentially, clones. We don't allow livestock to run around freely in the forest and screw whatever it wants, i.e. natural selection of mates. We have selectively bred animals and plants for centuries in order to produce foods that have a good shelf life, are cheap to produce and (lastly) taste good and are nutritious.
The danger of all this (both selective breeding and cloning) is that genetic diversity in a population makes that population more resistant and able to survive disease or changes in the environment.
If a parasite should come along that affects a certain cow, well if all cows are exactly the same they will all fall victim to the parasite, devastating the population and the beef industry. This is why genetic diversity in a population of cows, chickens, apples, grapes, etc. is so important and why cloning (and selective breeding) isn't a very good idea. But the industry wants consistency because it just makes running a business easier and more profitable. |
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Big_Bird
Joined: 31 Jan 2003
Location: Sometimes here sometimes there...
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| Posted: Mon Jan 01, 2007 8:55 pm Post subject: |
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Your poll doesn't include the option 'possibly.' I might possibly consider eating the cloned meat...if it were produced in such a way that the brain of the animal wasn't replicated.
If they could produce meat from a creature that had no way of knowing it was alive, had no feelings of pain (both emotional or physical) and lacked the will to live, I might reconsider my vegetarianism. |
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