Would you like your Abomination Medium or Rare?

[Matthitjah]

Yikes!

Know what really is making me a little edgy about this? There will be no labeling of the products.

Read on....................

Quote The Washington Post;

FDA Is Set To Approve Milk, Meat From Clones

By Rick Weiss

Washington Post Staff Writer

Tuesday, October 17, 2006; A01

Three years after the Food and Drug Administration first hinted that it might permit the sale of milk and meat from cloned animals, prompting public reactions that ranged from curiosity to disgust, the agency is poised to endorse marketing of the mass-produced animals for public consumption.

The decision, expected by the end of this year, is based largely on new data indicating that milk and meat from cloned livestock and their offspring pose no unique risks to consumers.

"Our evaluation is that the food from cloned animals is as safe as the food we eat every day," said Stephen F. Sundlof, the FDA's chief of veterinary medicine, who has overseen the long-stalled risk assessment.

Farmers and companies that have been growing cloned barnyard animals from single cells in anticipation of a lucrative market say cloning will bring consumers a level of consistency and quality impossible to attain with conventional breeding, making perfectly marbled beef and reliably lean and tasty pork the norm on grocery shelves.

But groups opposed to the new technology, including a coalition of powerful food companies concerned that the public will reject Dolly-the-Lamb chops and clonal cream in their coffee, have not given up.

On Thursday, advocacy groups filed a petition asking the FDA to regulate cloned farm animals one type at a time, much as it regulates new drugs, a change that would drastically slow marketing approval. Some are also questioning the ethics of a technology that, while more efficient than it used to be, still poses risks for pregnant animals and their newborns.

"The government talks about being science-based, and that's great, but I think there is another pillar here: the question of whether we really want to do this," said Carol Tucker Foreman, director of food policy at the Consumer Federation of America.

That there is a debate at all about integrating clones into the food supply is evidence of the remarkable progress made since the 1996 birth of Dolly, the world's first mammalian clone, created from an udder cell of an anonymous ewe.

Scientists have now applied the technique successfully to cattle, horses, pigs, goats and other mammals. Each clone is a genetic replica of the animal that donated the cell from which it was grown.

Cloning could solve a number of long-standing farm problems. Many prize males are not recognized as such until long after they have been tamed by castration. With cloning, that lack of semen would not matter. Cloning also allows farmers to make many copies of exceptional milk producers; with natural breeding, cows have only one offspring per year, and half are males.

In the eyes of many in agriculture, cloning is simply the latest in a string of advances such as artificial insemination and in vitro fertilization that have given farmers better control over animal reproduction.

"Clones are just clones. They are not genetically engineered animals," said Barbara Glenn, chief of animal biotechnology at the Biotechnology Industry Organization.

The FDA agrees with that distinction, Sundlof said. The agency has already said it will regulate transgenic animals -- those that have been engineered by adding specific, valuable genes -- in much the way it regulates pharmaceuticals, under a new category called "New Animal Drugs." No such animals are currently on the market.

By contrast, proponents say, clones are simply twins, albeit born a generation apart.

It was October 2003 when the FDA released its first draft document concluding that clones and their offspring are safe to eat, prompting several cloning companies to scale up their operations.

But an agency advisory panel and the National Academies, while generally supportive, raised flags, citing a paucity of safety data.

That, and opposition led largely by the International Dairy Foods Association, which represents such large, brand-sensitive companies as Kraft Foods, Dannon, General Mills and Nestl

[Matthitjah]

Sounds like this might be a job for the Meatrix revisited?

http://www.themeatrix2.com/

Peace,

Dave

[JustinM]

Can they actually clone cattle faster than the animals can reproduce themselves? I doubt it. I see no societal benefit from cloning animals, it's expensive and just feels morally wrong.

[Matthitjah]

Grace to you,

Justin,

I don't think the point is the speed with which they can reproduce the animals. The larger point is that they are trying to tamper with Gods order of nature so as to predispose these animals to better charecteristics.

Cloning also allows farmers to make many copies of exceptional milk producers; with natural breeding, cows have only one offspring per year, and half are males.

In the eyes of many in agriculture, cloning is simply the latest in a string of advances such as artificial insemination and in vitro fertilization that have given farmers better control over animal reproduction.

It's not an issue at all about quantity. Rather QUALITY. They are trying to breed out Gods natural way of doing things in an effort to manufacture a Higher Order of animal. All for PROFIT.

Peace,

Dave

[tah]

Man has felt he had a "better way" than God since the garden...

some will never learn...

burn mine please...

[ted]

I can't shake this vision of Uber-cows running around the pastures of America, all looking like Arnold Schwartzenegger with muscles and stuff......

t.