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After FDA Approval of Cloned Foods, Consumers and Lawmakers Fight Back

Tuesday, March 11, 2008
Posted in Cloning | Tagged Cloning

Washington, DC - Dissatisfied with the Food & Drug Administration’s recent decision to allow meat and milk from cloned animals in food, the United States Congress and a dozen states are taking matters into their own hands by proposing protective legislation.� The Center for Food Safety today announced their full endorsement of these proposed bills, especially House Resolution #4855, which calls for a moratorium on the introduction of food from clones and their offspring into the food supply.
HR 4855 - the Mikulski-Spector Amendment - is now being considered as an amendment to the Farm Bill currently under consideration in Congress.� It calls for the National Academy of Sciences to conduct comprehensive testing on the potential long-term health effects of meat and milk from clones and their offspring on humans.� The amendment to the Farm Bill also calls for a moratorium to remain in place until these studies are completed and reviewed. “The government has a responsibility to ensure that the food we eat is healthy and safe, and we have seen no evidence from the FDA that food from clones is either,” said Andrew Kimbrell, founder and executive director of the Center for Food Safety. “We cannot support approval of the technology until the health studies outlined by HR 4855 prove that clones are safe for human consumption.� Both the House and Senate have heard and approved HR 4855; we now urge Congress to pass the Farm Bill with the amendment included.”
Beyond possible health dangers, the economic drawbacks to prematurely introducing food from clones and their offspring into the nation’s food supply are considerable. Foreign markets are now deliberating on whether to allow the importation of meat and milk from clones.� The European Union’s Group on Ethics in Science and New Technologies has already concluded that “the risks of negative effects were grave enough to keep cloned products off the European market.” �If the European Union will not take American food from clones or their offspring, this would impact and could seriously threaten the livelihood of the nation’s livestock and dairy farmers.
In the wake of the of the FDA’s risk assessment clearing clones for use as food, a regulatory vacuum now exists.� To fill that void, a number of federal and state bills have been introduced.� Among other things, they are requiring that clear and prominent labeling be used on products made from clones and their offspring.
“The FDA’s judgment on cloned foods was premature, reckless and troubling, and the Center for Food Safety supports consumers and lawmakers, who are fighting to restore sanity to the process,” continued Kimbrell. �”It’s clear that consumers don’t want food from clones, but if the government succeeds in foisting clones upon them, labels will at least restore their right to know and their fundamental freedom to choose what goes onto their families’ dinner plates.”
The pending labeling legislation at the Federal level breaks out as follows:

US HR 992 calls for labeling cloned food products and by-products, and the establishment of a record-keeping audit system for tracking clones;

• US S 414 requires labels for all cloned food products as well as a record-keeping audit system;

The state bills:

• California (Bill # CA SB 1121), Kentucky (Bill # KY HB 378), New Jersey (NJ A 1325) and� North Carolina (NC H 84) have proposed laws requiring that all foods products made from clones and their offspring be labeled;

• Massachusetts (Bill # MA SB 255) has introduced legislation obliging labeling of raw foods sold over the counter and prepared foods sold in restaurants derived from clones and/or their offspring;

• Michigan (Bill # MI HB 5614) proposes requiring labeling of milk products from clones;

• Missouri (Bill # MO HB 1555) calls for labeling of all livestock, dairy and poultry products derived from clones;

• New York State (Bill # NY AB 7421) backs the introduction of “clone-free” labels for foods not derived from clones or their offspring and a database tracking livestock sales records for a minimum of two years

• New York City (Title 20) makes it illegal to sell food from clones without labeling;

• Tennessee (Bills # TN HB 3715 and TN SB 3850) supports labeling of all milk and meat products made from clones as well as food and food products that have been genetically altered or modified;

• Washington (Bill # WA SB 5161) advocates labeling of all products derived from cloned animals.

Recent opinion surveys showing that the majority of Americans do not want milk or meat from cloned animals in their food includes a December 2006 poll by the Pew Initiative on Food and Biotechnology found that nearly two-thirds of U.S. consumers were uncomfortable with animal cloning; a national survey conducted this year by Consumers Union which found that 89 percent of Americans want to see cloned foods labeled and 69 percent have concerns about cloned meat and dairy products in the food supply.� Additionally, a recent Gallup Poll reported that more than 60 percent of Americans believe that it is immoral to clone animals, while the Pew Initiative on Food and Biotechnology found that a similar percentage say that, despite FDA approval, they won’t buy milk from cloned animals.
In its risk assessment of cloned food, the FDA claims to have evaluated extensive peer reviewed safety studies to support its conclusion, yet a recent report issued by CFS, Not Ready for Prime Time, shows the assessment only references three peer-reviewed food safety studies, all of which focus on the narrow issue of milk from cloned cows.� What is even more disturbing is that these studies were partially funded by the same biotech firms that produce clones for profit.
For an executive summary of the Center for Food Safety’s report, please visit http://www.centerforfoodsafety.org/pubs/NotReadyForPrimeTime_ExecSummary.pdf.� Visit http://www.centerforfoodsafety.org/pubs/FDA_Cloning_RAreview_Report_FINAL.pdf for the full report.

The Center for Food Safety is national, non-profit, membership organization founded in 1997 that works to protect human health and the environment by curbing the use of harmful food production technologies and by promoting organic and other forms of sustainable agriculture. On the web at: http://www.centerforfoodsafety.org