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FDA Set To Approve Products from Cloned Cows
phantomlord writes "The FDA is currently set to allow beef and milk from cloned animals onto the market. Further, the products will likely not be branded as such and there is no way to know if we're currently consuming products from cloned animals." From the article: "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."
There will always be a group (Bate for Fox news) giving enviromentalist a bad name. Unfortunatly there will always be groups claiming to be Enviromentalest groups complaining about anything new and potentionaly good, bringing up erational fears and missing the point. There is so much we can do to improve the environment using a lot of these "Envromental Enemies" technologies. Genetically Engineered Corn can be used to create a biodegradable plastic, but Some Crazy Enviromental Groups will not give a green thumb becuase genetically engineered crops are evil. eradatated meat which kills of a lot of the bacteria, Some enviromental groups are giving that the thumbs down because it uses radation and radation is evil too, Even though after the meat has ben radated the raditation drops to well below what would happen if you defrosted it in the microwave. Meat Cloning will only improve the quiality and helthynes of the food, as well proving a cheaper cost, unlike hormones, and additional chemicals cloning is just extending the same meat. If you want to debate meat cloning get off the Envrionmental band wagon and explain how the inital costs will only allow the richest farmers to use this process and creating a market which puts more farmers out of buisness and make it difficult for 3rd world countries to get into the process. But envriomental. Darn it most of them don't eat meat anyways so cloning shouldn't effect them.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
is not health impact on humans consuming 'cloned' produce. Nor is it even genetically breading for improved feedstock.
The real danger here is a homogenized feed stock. If every cow in the world (or greater market region) is a clone of the same cow, they will all have the same strengths and weaknesses. A virus that may have previously only effected 5% of the feedstock population could suddenly effect 100% of the feedstock population.
I can see using cloning in two situations. 1) Immediate needs over ride the risk of losing the entire stock, and 2) as a small % of existing live breading facilities. As in a beef farmer may have a few hundred head of cattle, of those, 90% are 'normal' bread cows, the other 10% are clones. The clones would likely have a higher resale rate as you would be almost guaranteed the perfect cow. This way, even if something effects the clowned cow, you won't be out the entire food source, just a portion of "cash cow" income.
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
I recently found I have diabetes type 2. Thats the one where you have to watch your diet and take some metformin and other drugs (maybe), and exercise. (BLAH). Boo hoo for me, my Dad has it, my Grandfather on my mom's side, I'd be a little stupid if I wasn't expecting it. In any case, I went to these "Diabetes seminars" put on by the local hospital. There is a nurse, and she talks about how to take care of yourself. Lots of fliers, and basically, she says, don't eat this don't eat that, all the stuff I like. 3 days of seminars, and I have to go visit the nurse and do this and that and the other.
Eventually I figure out that this is just go generate easy money for the hospital. They are billing the province a huge amount for each seminar and visits, so I said screw it. Now I just do it myself and everything is fine.
Where am I going with this tho? Thanks for asking. Everybody is saying this is bad for you, that is bad for you. Oh, don't drink milk, it causes cancer. Don't eat peanut butter at school, people have allergy's. Freakin peanut butter, I grew up on that. Something is always bad for you. You have to eat something. I'll be damned if I'm going to spend my life eating rabbit food. Screw that.
So they are cloning my steaks now. Sometimes I find a really good tbone at the butcher, sometimes it's not so good. I would love to find one that I like, and clone that over and over again. Give me another a1j447L2K please. Perfect every time. Whew hew.
Let's not forget that every time somebody says something is bad for you, there is an agenda behind it. Pepsi says Coke is bad for you. Coke says Pepsi is bad for you. Milk marketers say juice is bad for you. The government wants you to know smoking is bad for you because it is a huge burdon on the health industry. (Well, it is bad for you, duh!).
It drives me crazy everybody telling me what to eat and what to drink. I'll do what I want.
Mean what you say...say what you mean.
I'll throw rubbish back at you. I disagree with the "good, cheap, fast" because it absolutely does NOT prove itself in reality. I've been running businesses since I was 13, and I tell you think: I always sold 2 of the 3, but I also tried to make the third better. This is how competition works.
If I was good and cheap, my competitor would try to mimic me and try to do it faster. Eventually, they would. Over time, good gets better, cheap gets cheaper, and fast gets faster. It is ridiculous to think of competition as a closed system. Actually, a State-licensed market IS a closed system only because no one has to worry about good, cheap OR fast. State-licensing makes things worse, more expensive and slower. See DMV for proof.
Soon we'll all be eating cloned beef from cattle raised in high density feedlots who stand around in their own feces and urine pumped full of growth hormones and antibiotics. Then the meat will have to be irradiated to kill the resistant strains of E. coli created in the cattle's stomachs because were forced to eat corn that they didn't evolve to eat.
Since consumers will expect their irradatiated meat to glow in the dark, they'll create glowing cattle just like the glowing pigs.
Read Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma if you want to or watch Joel Salatin of Polyface Farms talk about the real future of raising meat (long) and how to turn vegetarians back into meat eaters and why it's important to have promiscuous healthy earthworms.
"You'll get nothing, and you'll like it!"
Interesting... I mostly disagree with you but I'm not surprised. My other random comments:
They should come up with a new word for these professionals who work for corporate farms to distinguish them from farmers
I prefer to purchase the majority of my food from a farmer who I can look in the eye... i.e. who lives nearby. I got on this kick a while back and I'm surprised how easy it is to get a majority of my family's food from within a 85 kilometer radius. (including most of my alcohol)
I here you on the labeling thing but I really do have content concerns and they absolutely don't get addressed with the US labeling system. But at least I can ask the farmer when I am at his farm what the deal is.
Clones mean monoculture doesn't that suggest one nasty bug means significant loss of product. Clones also mean patents and other artificially induced scarcity (I'l bet they won't be able to reproduce either)
Beef sucks, chicken raised in those corporate farm sucks. Venison, Kudu, _Impala_, and other wild-game meat is the most tasty thing you can buy. Warthog is good but tough...
If you like jerky you may _love_ biltong... but it may be impossible to dry in your climate
Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.
Labeling in Europe does NOT work, and it falls short of what would be considered "pro-consumer." The labeling laws are helpful to keep protected producers more protected. http://www.nature.com/nbt/journal/v24/n1/full/nbt0 106-23b.html
I'm NOT saying everyone should call every manufacturer -- instead, by removing labeling requirements and letting the competitive market give the consumers what they want, we'd see a better choice of quality, price and product numbers. If you and I wanted MORE labeling, we'd go to a store that worked with their producers to verify manufacturing and content, and we'd pay more. The market provides. If John and Jane didn't care at all, they could go to a store that bought the cheapest product -- the store would be the risk bearer in providing what the market wants.
Right now, I _HAVE_ to call because the labeling laws make it difficult to know what I'm eating. In Spring I called 15 "Zero Trans Fats" producers who verified that their products contain trans fats, just levels lower than the law requires (0.5 grams per serving). You might buy those products thinking their safe -- BECAUSE OF THE LAW! I had to take a step because of the law. Ridiculous.
> I live in the Midwest and we purchase unpasteurized cream locally. It tastes great, it's healthier,
Healthier? Cream is not healthy whatsoever, and unpasteurized cream is therefore more likely to be contaminated with bacteria.
I recall a European guy who's country had banned US vegetables "because of pesticides", which, of course, was really to protect local markets, claim the non-pesticide vegetables tasted better because they had no pesticides. No, they probably taste better because they're picked closer to being ripe, while the US picks theirs when they are hard little rocks so they can be handled with bulldozers without much damage, and thus be shipped, but are too small to ripen properly.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
You've posted a large amount of comments here so far, most of which are worthless since you assert things without citing any peer-reviewed scholarship. This one is just pure anecdotal evidence. It sure doesn't look like you're trying to sincerely make a case, are you just trying to linkspam for the site in your signature?
Yes, the pot discussion is slightly off topic. But I can't resist....I know I'm goint to sound like an old fart on this one, so I'll start by saying I'm 31. I've been smoking pot for 16 years, and I've watched the hydro revolution for a long time. Once in a while, for fun and variety, I get a bag of hydro and smoke and/or vaporize it. Then I go back to the good stuff, and by that I mean natural weed grown in the sun using soil. Why? It burns better. It burns slower and more efficiently, making the smoking experience longer and more enjoyable. It doesn't dry as quickly. I can leave it on the tray for an hour, go back to smoking it, and it doesn't crumble to dust in my hands. I can pack a bowl, and it goes around the circle a few times, and everybody gets a good hit. Most important: You build up less tolerance to the natural stuff, and the tolerance builds slower. I can smoke in the morning, and every couple hours all day, and get high each time. Notice that with dank bud, you smoke in the morning, get high, and every time you smoke for the rest of the day you barely feel any higher. And you're wasting huge amounts of money because it cost so much more! Now, I will admit that awesome dank bud has a taste that is unique and delicious, don't get me wrong. I'm just saying it's like a cake. All day every day I eat food, and once in a while I eat cake. To all the new stoners in the world: don't discount the natural stuff because you think it tastes bad compared to the kryptonite. Smoke with mindfulness, that means pay attention. You'll see what I'm saying is true.
we loose mllions of years worth of genetic variation caused by natural mutation and selection.
True. And false. We've lost MOST of the variety through breeding anyway. Also natural mutation doesn't provide ideal creatures, only different ones. And selection - well now WE are the ones doing the selecting, according to what WE need and not what random climactic or geological events dictate. Why should we put up with the inefficient cow nature provided -one that was well adapted to its role BEFORE modern agriculture but not ideally adapted to its modern "niche", when we can create a better cow that is more suited to its current role?
Also we lose the associated benefits of variation such as different animals haveing different levels of immunity to different diseases. Having all your eggs in one basket is a REALLY bad idea.
Here finally is an argument that DOES make sense, as a potential danger. But first, we will adopt the cow that is naturally resistent to all the diseases we know of. This is part of what we are looking for in our ideal cow. This only leaves us open to the animal being vulnerable to a newly mutated pathogen, and I agree it's a risk in any monoculture. This is solved by keeping adequate vigilance, isolation, and hygene. And at worst, I'm sure the entire original stock is not going to be killed off, that would be foolish.
An interesting point you make in the subject line - but evolution does NOT stop just because you manipulated genes. The new "supercows" can also continue to mutate. There's nothing stopping that. What we'll lose is the variety that sexual reproduction brings, but to be frank we've bred out most of the differences already anyway. But random mutations will STILL occur.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
GM means weird changes. (good ones, if you trust the corporation...)
Cloning means NO changes.
But as you say, there are other issues: grass-fed (yummy) or corn-fed (gaaa... all my food tastes like corn, from salmon to soda!), free-range (lean) or feedlot (greasy), etc. BTW, you can buy nice beef and unusual meat over the net. It's shipped in dry ice.
We need to go beyond cloning. The solution is a matter replicator.
I don't think removing the laws would give us more or better labels. 90% of people don't read labels, so the companies would stop to save costs. But where would that leave people which obscure allegies, like whey? Not everyone with obscure allergies lives near a health food store that would continue labeling.
"What is Internet Explorer 7? Are you saying we can't access the normal internet?" - I love tech support. Really.
The USDA allows food producers to round down if their products have .5 grams or less of a food component. They can claim that there is 0 grams trans fat if their products contain .2 grams per serving.
So you see, a producer could easily claim that their products claim "ONLY 0.2 GRAMS OF TRANS FAT PER SERVING!!!", gov't regulations do not prevent this. The producers used free market wisdom to keep their consumers uneducated as to the contents of their food. Removing government regulation means no reporting on the trans fat content at all (and no FDA study).
Of course, as an anachno-capitalist, you believe that the corporations of the world, in their unquenchable thirst for wealth, will inadvertently benefit all mankind with the magic of making money for themselves. This is because using their monetary influence to negatively affect consumer education about the ill-effects of their products would just be wrong. This is something they only do because government regulations tell them that they can't. They're like teenagers in this way.
And as to your original point, this is not good news. If this means cheaper beef by increased cattle agriculture, it means a less efficient use of the land. This does not benefit the poor of the world who are already grossly overusing their farmlands and still coming up short of even supplying their people with grain. A greatly decreased consumption of beef would benefit all humanity much better. I don't think the regulation of beef consumption is the answer, but the misinformation that food producers are only too eager to push will not go away or just sort it self out through the market. The incentive that concerned citizens provide them with, with their phone calls and concerned letters, will not outweigh the incentive that the general public provides when it is too lazy, ignorant, or misinformed to stop eating so much beef.
Also, in your link to Nature, the op-ed makes a good point for not repealing all GMO notification laws, but improving testing methods to make them effective.
If you and I wanted MORE labeling, we'd go to a store that worked with their producers to verify manufacturing and content, and we'd pay more.
Grocers like Whole Foods already tout their GM-free wares far above and beyond what regulations require, because their consumers give them the incentive to do so. There's only enough incentive to do this on niche markets (the wealthy), for those educated on the topic enough to have an opinion about GM foods. Do realize that this is not because most consumers don't want labelling, it's because they haven't been informed or they've been misinformed (usually by producers or retailers). The market doesn't care if they are adversely affected in a decade or two.
Death and danger are my various breads and various butters.
A great example for this is the practicing Jewish market for Kosher foods. Labelling laws are inadequate for Kosher standards. It is impossible to discover if a product is Kosher from the required labelling alone. So there's a private, competitive market for Kosher certification and labelling, one which to my knowledge is regulated only the anarcho-capitalist way: by a free market. There have been instances where a product changed and a certification became incorrect, and in these cases the market took care of disseminating the information (and this was pre-Internet, btw). Moreover, the market provided for getting many, many products changed to meet the standard, including Coca-Cola. It's worth reading about some time.
Secession is the right of all sentient beings.
Jews tend to be much more of a community than say, those with shellfish allergies. I'm allergic to shellfish, and I can't name one other person I know with that allergy or web forum or anything else to meet and talk with other people with that allergy. I imagine few kosher keeping Jews would say they've never met another kosher keeping Jew and had no idea how to find one.
"What is Internet Explorer 7? Are you saying we can't access the normal internet?" - I love tech support. Really.