The FDA's Dangerous Cloned Beef Decision

On the same day that Starbucks announces that it will no longer offer organic milk to customers at its 15,000 stores, the US Food and Drug Administration announced that cloned animals are safe to eat. The New York Times reported on Wednesday that the "voluntary moratorium" observed by farmers on the sale of cloned animal products and that of their offspring has been lifted. "This is a milestone," declared Mark Walton, president of Viagen in Austin, Texas, a leading livestock cloning company.

But a milestone for what? At a time when government agencies should be working in unison on a plan to reduce carbon emissions in the environment from as many sources as possible, the FDA's cloning decision is a bad one. The carbon footprint of the beef industry is an enormous one. From livestocking to slaughter to meatpacking and then retail sales in grocery stores or restaurants, beef production is a part of the looming, energy-driven environmental disaster. Now the industry wants to sell more of what they are claiming will be a better-engineered cow. The fact that cloned mammals have only existed for just over a decade and that research by consumer advocacy groups does not yet support their introduction into the food supply is another, equally disturbing concern. Many in Congress also oppose the FDA ruling.

Overall, Americans need to eat less, not more meat, especially from cloned animal products, whose impact on consumers' health is uncertain. Excessive consumption of meat products is clearly linked to heart disease and the consumption of large and consistent quantities of fast food meals is considered a major cause of obesity in America. In classic FDA tradition, the government also announced that it would not require labeling of cloned products, just as it bowed to pressure from the dairy industry over the labeling of organic milk products and the presence of BGH. What effect will BGH or pesticides, fungicides and herbicides in their own grain supply or antibiotics to treat conditions like mastitis in cattle have on cloned animals? Tell your Congressman to tell the FDA, "You go first."

Comments

[shedances]

I'm not comfortable with the science that goes into cloning such animals ~ let alone, eating them afterwards! But, here's where I'm particularly nervous: How can consumers carefully judge the meat products we're buying (& feeding to others in our families...) if the government does not require proper product-labeling, stating that it is actually from a "cloned" animal?

K

[CMacGyver1]

"Is this necessary? Did cows stop fucking?"

~Trace Adkins

[LordMoon]

I used to eat a lot of red meat, but now I've reduced that to practically nothing. Not because I don't like it, I love a good steak.

But because I believe eating red meat is dangerous.

Anyone who has ever done any research into NVCJD - Mad Cow disease. Knows that our government stopped doing routine tests for the presence of Prions in beef, at the direction of the Bush administration.

However, studies show that a large percentage of people dying of Alzheimers disease are actully people dying from NvCJD.

It is dificult to estimate the number because our government, very protective of the Beef industry, has thwarted efforts to get a good count of what this represents.

It may seem like a simple thing to genetically alter protein, to make it better. However there are risks involved. It may well be that Mad cow disease is not caused by prions at all, but by genetic engineering. Because mad cow disease may result when the topography of protein - shape of protein, causes other proteins in a cellular matrix to line up forming long strands of protein molecules that are destructive of brain cells. It may be an unforseen consequence of genetic engineering, rather than a result of infection with prions.

Consquently Prions may be a result of genetic engineering not the cause of NVCJD.

Since the FDA, and USDA, has allowed agribusiness to change the genetic structure of a large amount of the food we eat, without ever doing any tests to evaluate whether or not there were unseen consquences, it could be possible to get NVCJD from anything you eat not just beef.

If this were true it would explain why vegetarians of gotten this disease.

The primary mission of the FDA, and USDA under the Bush regime was to make money for the corporate food Giants, and unfortunatley that means the public must take risks when ever they eat something.

[NeilFiertel]

WE OUGHT TO EAT WHAT OUR ANCESTORS ATE AND I AM NOT TALKING ABOUT THREE OR FOUR THOUSAND YEARS AGO BUT 40,OOO YEARS AGO WHEN OUR SPECIES CAME ABOUT..MAYBE EVEN A LONGER TIME SPAN AGO. FRUIT, ROOTS, SOME LEAVES,NUTS, FISH AND, OH YES, MEAT. WE DID NOT EAT BREADS AND GRAINS OTHER THAN THE ODD SEED GATHERED. WE WORKED HARD TO FIND THAT VARIED DIET. IF WE WERE VERY LUCKY OUR BROTHER OR FATHER OR WE OURSELVES COULD BRING DOWN A FLEET- FOOTED ANIMAL BUT MORE LIKELY WE SCAVENGED AND ATE THE MARROW FROM AN ANIMAL KILL. IT WAS NOT A NICE LIFE. MODERN OBESITY HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH EATING MEAT AND ALL TO DO WITH EATING PILES OF CARBS IN THE FORM OF FRIES AND HIGH FRUCTOSE JUNK DRINKS. IT IS NOT THE BURGER BUT THE SIDES PILED WITH CHEESE, GRAVY SALT AND TRANSFATS..CLONED MEAT IS MEAT..PERIOD. PEOPLE HAVE A LOT MORE TO WORRY ABOUT THAN THE METHODOLOGY OF EMBRYO DIVISION. THIS IS A QUASI RELIGIOUS THING..THE SILLY GOD DID NOT MAKE IT ARGUMENT. MORE IMPORTANTLY IS THE COMMERCIAL USE OF NASTY SYNTHETIC FATS AND SWEETNESS PROVIDED BY AGRICORPS WHO GET SUBSIDIZED GRANTS TO TURN OUT SUGARY CORN SYRUP WHICH IS CHEAP TO USE SO THE SOFT DRINK COMPANIES CAN CONTINUE TO POISON THE UNWARY AND LEADS DIRECTLY FROM CONGRESS TO DIABETES TYPE 2. THE CLONED MEAT ANNOUNCEMENT IS TRIVIAL COMPARED TO THE ABOVE. IT IS ALSO TRUE ABOUT METHANE PRODUCTION FROM ANIMAL FARMING BUT MUCH MORE IS PRODUCED BY TERMITES AND SO FORTH. YES WE NEED TO CLEAN UP OUR ACT. STOP BUYING HUMMERS AND FORGET ABOUT GIVING UP A NICE RARE CLONE STEAK..MAKE SURE THE BURGER IS WELL DONE!

[John3950]

For dsigeorge who posted the snooty comment about how ignorant peasants shouldn't worry about cloning because Mendel discovered the laws of genetics...cloning is NOT the same as controlled breeding, hybridization etc. It's at a whole other level and its implications are far from clear. As far as I know, only a certain percentage of clones survive. Doesn't that tell you something is flaky about the whole business? And of course the FDA like many other govt. agencies has been hopelessly corrupted by this evil administration.

[michie62]

As someone who grew up on a farm, I have always looked at meat as part of life. When I buy beef, I buy from farmers that do not and have not used chemical feed. I buy from farmers who are organic, using organic grain to feed their animals. Beef was part of our income when I was a child. It was always humorous--and maddening--to be in a grocery store as a child and have some "townie" say "Look at the price of beef, those farmers are getting rich on us." My grandmother would sweetly smile and say "As the wife of a farmer, I can tell you we are NOT getting rich off of you buying this meat. The meat packer and the grocer are getting rich off of you." Cloning meat will not help the farmers economic status. Buy beef from family farms, not corporate and try to buy organic.

[livesbythec]

How frightening! What's next? After watching the FDA squirm during recent congressional hearings on C-SPAN, I've lost all faith in their ability to actually regulate and monitor potentially harmful contaminates from food/drugs. Now, we will be forced to blindly trust that they will be able to safely manage the cloning industry as well? Did I miss something? Has there been a great demand for cloned meat over the past few years? Thank heavens I am already a vegan.

[Bob Egan]

I have no problem with 'cloned' animals --- just don't clone Bush!

[dsigeorge]

Alec, your fear of the use of basic science and your ignorance of the facts and history of cloning are showing. Take some time to study the history of corn and how it has been 'engineered' to give us the many varieties we now enjoy. Study Mendel and basic genetics and you will begin to understand that there is nothing different from the cloned and uncloned offspring of animals and plants. Please educate yourself before you print something based on no factual foundations.

[gevan]

Cloned animals are only copies of already existing animals. While it remains ridiculously expensive, there is not much chance of meeting clone meat in the supermarket meat case. Why not worry about genetically altered vegies? When one messes with the DNA of living organisms, we don't have a clue of what will ensue. Baldwin is off with this particular tirade. We should be more selective with what we are for or against.

[abroadabroad]

Yikes! With every passing day, I am more convinced that we are all of us spinning out of control. Contrary to many posts here, large corporations and industries are not evil, they are merely indifferent, sort of like hurricanes and cancer cells. The most successful ones do exactly what they are meant to do, which is more or less to scorch the earth. If our government makes it easy for them, then that is what we have designed our government to do. When someone decides to clone cattle, it's not just an industry trying to maximize profits. It is part of who we are. If you leave the United States for a while and then come back, you see how obscenely we consume our own prosperity in the desparate hope that we might ensure its continuation, like Saturn in overdrive.
So instead of looking for a culprit to blame, maybe we should all just start asking if we could please have a little less. Isn't talking about safety and regulation issues in regard to eating cloned beef sort of skipping a step? I mean, well, yuck! I am not a vegetarian, but at what point do we decide that an animal that pays the ultimate price to provide us with a meal deserves to be treated with a certain measure of dignity while it is alive? That is the least I can demand, even if it means eating vegan when I eat out and eating organic when I don't. I'm much less concerned about what a burger might do to my health than I am about what it could do to my humanity.

[mychris52]

The FDA may be the most corrupt of all government agencies. Rather then a government agency supposedly concerned about the health of Americans it should be labeled for what it is, and that is a subsidiary of the drug and biotich industries. The approval of BGh was over the objections of the lead reseachers. They continue to sanction GMF in spite of overwhelming evidence of the harmful effects. They refue to require labeling GMF their reasoning is that the consumer must prove harm. The Union of Concerned Scientists have decried the use of GMF. They are no more concerned with the health of Americans then Bush is concerned about the wealth of the poor and disenfranchised. They allowed Vioxx to continue to be sold in spite of the number of deaths, and only because of a whistle blower was Vioxx removed. They continue to attack dietary supplements in the hope that they can make them prescription items thus further enhancing the drug industry. I could go on and on about the perfidy of this agency

[LewisWalsh]

Italian heads of families have long said to their children: "Mangi i Suoi vegetali o salta dalla finestra." Translated they are saying: "Eat your vegetables or jump out of the window." I think that is about what the government is saying to us about our adulterated contaminated food supply.

I hope that future Americans will have superior immune systems, they will certainly be needing them.

[Rachel36]

Many of you may not agree but I don"t think the concerns expressed here are more or less legitimate than anyone else"s. We can't all be scientifically sophisticated but some of are trying to have some discussion here so we can learn and understand how to make better choices. Considering the number of drugs and food stuffs continuingly being pulled off the market, the bottom line is consumers don"t have faith in the FDA of the beef industry. I had a friend who nearly lost his life from eating tainted Con Agra beef years ago. The doctors weren"t able to catch all of the infection in time and had to cut off part of his foot. Clone or no clone, we can still question its safety when it's an agency under suspect. The FDA labeled Viagra and Vioxx to be safe too.

Someone mentioned something about there being no evidence. No evidence? Are you absolutely sure? I just read an article on the unreported deaths of young women who were mandated by the state to take Gardasil injections or they wouldn't be allowed to enroll in school. You know what their slogan is? "I wanna be one less". They managed that alright.

[ardeth]

Two words: Go vegan.

(and P.S., stay away from veggie frankenfoods)