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Bill Would Require Labels on Cloned Food
ComeBack writes "Steaks, pork chops, milk and other products from cloned livestock would have to be clearly labeled on grocers' shelves under a bill pending in the California Legislature.
If passed, the requirement could be more stringent than federal rules. The Food and Drug Administration is poised to give final approval to meat and milk from cloned animals without any special labeling, though a bill introduced in Congress would require it."
Mini-Me: Are you a clone of an angel?
Foxxy Cleopatra: Ohhh how sweet. No, my mini-man, I'm not.
Mini-Me: Are you sure you don't have a little clone in you?
Foxxy Cleopatra: Yes I'm sure.
Mini-Me: Would you like to?
If you could reason with religious people, there would be no religious people
The point is to allow consumers to make their own decisions on what goes into their bodies.
Just recently, the FDA has quietly changed the labeling requirements on using irradiation to package food with. Now, It is called pasteurization. Yup, just like Milk's process (which simply flash heats and cools the milk).
Do not get me wrong. I have no qualm about eating irradiated food. But I do believe that I should get to know what I am eating. As it is, it bother me that the markets are required to show that a fish comes from china (as it should), but a dog food with imported products such as Wheat Glutin can be labeled as made in America/Canada.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
If cloning produces a genetically identical animal to the original what is the purpose? The original cow wasn't labeled when it made its way through the superstore, why should the exact copies be labeled?
...because just about everything in the whole store would have a sticker on it.
Apples? Cloned. Potatos? Cloned. Bannanas? Cloned.
Most commercial strawberries are propagated via runners.
Corn is a freak hybrid. Always has been.
And yet a bunch of kook Californians are trying to use cloning to stoke fear in consumers.
Never say the hard left isn't as anti-scientific as the hard right.
...why aren't people complaining about the originals? After all, a clone is (literally) exactly the same.
I just read Slashdot for the articles.
All the following is IMHO.
I think labels are a good thing; consumers can educate themselves if they want to and they have all the relevant info available.
I think having food labeled whether it's genetically modified is also helpful.
I'm always looking for food that has been obtained using fair trade practices.
I also look for food that has been obtained using sustainable and eco-friendly practices.
My only choices now are to go to the local organic/natural food store and internet stores, not only for food but for environmentally friendly household products (and others).
cloning an unmodified strain of cattle, while not wise in terms of failsafing your herds, will at least produce the exact same natural cows.
research has been showing genetically modified foods may be detrimental to your health, and yet no label for them.
i guess government "concern for safety" only applies when the industry to be targetted doesnt have billions in revenues.
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
I could swear that i read this article on slashdot before ... i just can't find the link ...
Clones AREN'T exact copies. At least with our current technology. Clones tend to die a lot quicker than the real things and develop more diseases.
Thats the rub. Cloning does not result in exact copies. We also do not know what are the possible long-term side effects or risks are.
Lord High Crapflooder The Right Honourable Vlad Craig Esther McDavenpherson III
Destroyer of Mercatur.Net
Untill they figure out that we're not only killing the animals, we're killing them over & over again.
Wanna fight ? Bend over, stick your head up your ass, and fight for air.
Actually, I know exactly what is in Splenda. I have no idea what has been sprayed on the fruit.
The problem is that usually it's the bull that's cloned because he has fathered goos dairy cows and only for the purpose of breeding.
So the dairy cow isn't technically cloned.
Now would the milk be labeled coned?
My thoughts are that consumers SHOULD be aware of what they are eating, and they should be able to choose what to eat themselves. It may be that while not worried about the health impact of cloned meat, a consumer may have ethical concerns about scientists tinkering to produce cloned animals.
What I want to know though, is what happens to the offspring of cloned animals? Is their meat also labelled? If the offspring were the result of a pairing of two cloned animals, then presumably they also have cloned genes floating through their bodies. If the parents are unhealthy, then presumably the offspring are too.
What about the pairing of a cloned animal with an uncloned one? What do you do about their offspring?
If an animals is just 1/4 or 1/8 or 1/256th cloned, does it still get a warning?
If the pattern goes 9am, 10am, 11am, why isn't noon 12am?
If enough* people are concerned about it, then it makes sense to label accordingly. If I weren't a vegetarian, then I'd have no problem paying less for cloned meat, as I think it's highly unlikely that cloning could result in any danger to the consumer. If you feel differently, then you should be allowed to opt out - which is what labeling allows.
* enough should be a pretty low bar as labeling isn't that expensive. Maybe 1% = "enough", but I'm just making up numbers here.Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
As an agrologist that grew up in the dairy industry, I can tell you right now this is one of the most laughable initiatives to come along in a long time. Too bad the people proposing this don't have half a clue about how we use genetics in the production of livestock products. THERE WILL BE NO MEAT OR MILK COMING FROM ANY CLONED ANIMALS FOR A LONG TIME. These people are wasting everyone's time.
They've been smoking cloned dope for well over 20 years, without much protest or concern. Essentially all, or nearly all, marijuana is grown from cloned stock. You'd think that would assuage their fears somewhat.
I was taught to respect my elders. The trouble is, it's getting harder and harder to find some.
There are a lot of people with moral objections to cloning of any kind. They believe it is playing God. Whether you or I agree is neither here nor there. While I might disagree with many veiws of, say, a conservative Christian, I think they have as much right to know whether the food they buy conflicts with their beliefs as anyone else. Jews and Muslims don't eat pork, Hindus don't eat beef. This generally gets respected. Anyone remember McDonald's getting in trouble for not making it known they were using beef lard to fry their fries? I can't imagine how horrible it would feel to be Hindu and find out that your potatoes containted literal sacred cow. I think many people would feel the same about their meat being cloned, and they should have the choice not to eat it.
>Personally, if I were a dairy farmer, I'd start up a brand with cloning as a gimmick.
8 13.htm
Already being done with beef cattle.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200704/s1898
In this case it's not a gimmick but a way to retain the same high-quality tenderness and flavour genes in his herd.
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
What is the point of the label without any information regarding the risks?
1. So you can falsely imply risks and sell your competing product as clone-free.
2. So you can hire more government employees to police the label requirement. They (or their union) will contribute to your campaign.
3. For the revenue from the fines on "improperly" labeled food.
4. You run a law firm and can sue companies for "harm" from cloned food. They settle out of court.
5. Who better to head the food labeling bureau than the guy who wrote the bill?
So the short answer is profit.
This is the reason behind most regulation or other government action.
This post reminds me of pseudo-intellectuals who are very proud of themselves, but don't have jobs.
It's been a long time.
Clarus? What's that? I know of Claris though.
'For all we know, healthy intact telomeres (which were present in the parent organism but not present in cloned copies) are an important part of a healthy balanced diet'
Possible but not probable. There are millions on things you can purchase and consume on the market that haven't undergone extensive testing. There is no reason to single out cloned meat for testing except that the idea freaks you out. That's like saying escargot needs to undergo clinical testing for safety because something as gross as snails could be dangerous. Don't try pulling the natural vs unnatural card either. Something is not more likely to be safe simply because its natural, nature has produced more things that are harmful to man than man has.
This is one of those issues that nobody cares about unless you shove it under their nose. Mandating something like this means more additional expense for the producer than just print on a label. It means they have to have seperate facilities and handle the two seperately. You can no longer send them to a single slaughter house to be butchered and mixed together. Grocery stores would also have to keep and handle the meats seperately. Instead of taking 50 of cut A and grinding it up then splitting it into 1.2lb (they are always intentionally over) packages they will have to handle and process two batches. Thousands of Grocers and processors across the country are suddenly open to liability if they make a mistake in the handling. These expenses will be passed on to EVERYONE whether they care about cloned meat or not.
Like most issues, this is something best left out of the law books. If people are really concerned then they will voice their complaints loudly enough that some vendors will voluntarily tag their meats 'all natural' and pass the premiums on to the consumers who care about the distinction.
I do agree that many will be concerned and that this will occur but I disagree that we should pass laws forcing people to behave the way we'd like each time there is a problem. The best solution in almost every case is to get rid of the existing laws, not to add new ones.
There is no reason to single out cloned meat for testing except that the idea freaks you out.
Almost everything we eat we have a pretty good history regarding it's safety. Cloned animals undergo a significantly altered process than non-cloned animals, this includes dna manipulation, apllying electric shocks to cell, etc. We do not have a clear understanding of why cloning results in so many failures and why they fail in the way they do. This is ample reason to be careful about ingesting that food until we know more.
Like most issues, this is something best left out of the law books.
This is precisely the situation where the govt should be involved. Does the average person have the resources to perform their own testing? Of course not. Should we trust a company trying to make a profit? Of course not.
The best solution in almost every case is to get rid of the existing laws, not to add new ones.
Radium based paint (glow in the dark, and deadly)
Lead based paint
PCB's
Asbestos
etc. etc. etc.
If something is found to be a problem, then a law is appropriate. If we still don't know (FDA testing, despite being a few years was pretty limited considering the nature of the changes being made to the dna,etc.), then it's appropriate to be cautious.
If it's a clone it's a normal animal, if the procedure to do the cloning works correctly... with the same dna as it's older sibling, like somehow having twins that were born months or years apart. How that dna is expressed as genes and proteins, etc is not predetemined... so a cow cloned from a white cow with a big black patch over it's eye will probably have a black patch or patches somewhere but not necessarily over the eye. A clone is not a mutant or genetically engineered... just genetically replicated (same as invitro or regular sexual reproduction).
So if you pair up two clones from the same dna parent... well it's the same as pairing up two siblings... could be a problem. Pair up two clones from separate dna parents... no problems.
A fool throws a stone into a well and a thousand sages can not remove it.
Protein (including any DNA, unless you're swallowing a. pylori bacteria) is broken down in the stomach under the action of acid and pepsin, into constituent amino acids. At this point, the specific genotype of the cow becomes a moot question. It's gone. The only health question post-breakdown is whether a toxin is present in the meat.
The diseases you describe occurring in cloned animals, due to abnormalities in their genomes as a result of cloning, are genetic in nature. The are not communicable any more than I could give you Multiple Sclerosis or Sickle-Cell Anemia by breathing on your neck. To suggest cloned meat poses some kind of nebulous danger to humans when it is passing inspection is utter foolishness. Show us how; come up with a theory and evidence of transmission. Otherwise, kindly shut up.
occultae nullus est respectus musicae - originally a Greek proverb
The folks pushing this don't want the labels so that they can avoid cloned meat. Anyone who really cares about it can buy from sources that target them (fx. the Trader Joe's chain). What they are interested in is making the average non-caring consumer think that there's something wrong with cloned meat, since there's what appears to be a warning label on it, and thus deter producers from using cloning.
That the FDA is set to allow sale of cloned meat without special labelling means that they've determined that it's not a distinction pertinent to anyone's health. That makes it the secular equivalent of a religious dietary restriction. The costs associated with making sure that the meat in a package isn't cloned should fall on those who care about it, not those who don't. If enough people do want badly enough to avoid cloned meat, specialty stores and sections within stores will cater to that. But it's not a health concern, so it shouldn't be depicted as such on the label. There are "contains nuts" labels because people can have serious allergic reactions to them. But there aren't big red "Warning! Not Kosher!" and "Not Halal!" labels on ham, nor "Contains Beef!" or "Contains Caffeine!" stickers on sausages and energy drinks despite devout Jews, Muslims, Hindus and Mormons not wanting to consume those things. Orthodox Jews pay a premium for kosher products, since they're the ones to whom it matters. So do people who want organic produce or "fair trade" coffee. And so should people wanting to avoid cloned meat, for the same reason: they're the ones wanting something different from the norm for other than objective health reasons.
"The Greens lynched a hacker in Chicago. Last month, but I think the body's still hanging from the old Water Tower."