Cloned food

On Friday (that's right, Halloween), the U.S. Food and Drug Administration had a trick of its own up its sleeve - it issued a draft assessment regarding the safety of consuming "food products derived from animal clones and their offspring".

While this is just a draft and does not legalize the sale of food from cloned animals in the U.S., it does state that food from cloned animals is "likely to be as safe to eat as food from their non-clone counterparts". This telegraphs the FDA's intention to commercialize cloned food unless new information comes up or there's significant public outcry.

Promisingly, the announcement about the report does go on to say:

"Although the document being released today does not specifically address ethical issues, that fact does not mean FDA is overlooking those issues. The draft risk assessment is intended only to address the safety of food from animal clones and the risks to animal clones, and the assessment is only one part of an orderly and public process to address the many facets of the cloning issue."

While I am not against cloning per se, I would like to see issues regarding cloning debated thoroughly and thoughtfully, so I will be following this story as it develops over the coming months and years.

Posted by Dan on November 03, 2003 at 08:52 AM | TrackBack