Prism Webcast News

Clone farm’ cows born in the UK

Saturday, June 7, 2008 Source: UK
Posted in Cloning Science | Tagged Cloning, Science

Eight ‘clone farm’ cows have been born in the UK. Their mother is a clone - created in a U.S. laboratory with cells taken from the ear of a prize-winning animal. The Daily Mail reports that meat or milk from the calves, flown into Britain as frozen embryos and implanted into a surrogate, could be on sale here within months. Though food from clones is barred from the food chain, there are no legal safeguards over their offspring. A Food Standards Agency study, conducted by analysts at Creative Research, is the first in-depth investigation of public attitudes to clone farming. It found an overwhelming majority of consumers object to all ‘clone farm’ plans, they consider it a dangerous manipulation of nature and are unhappy that scientists are racing ahead.

Daily Mail (6 June, front page, p.4)
The Daily Telegraph - online (6 June)

UK Soil Association comment: The Soil Association believes that the offspring of cloned animals should not be used for food:

• food safety cannot and should not be judged until there is a body of scientific understanding of the biological impacts of cloning
• with so little research into the health impacts, it is unscientific and totally irresponsible to simply ‘assume’ or ‘hope’ that these animals are safe for eating
• this approach has been proven to be wrong with GM: many animal trials show negative effects from ‘EU approved’ GM crops
• there are major animal welfare problems, which mean this technique should not be allowed even if it is ’safe’
• the commercial use of cloning, such as for AI, will further reduce the genetic diversity of livestock and so promote disease epidemics
• more generally, this technique will promote industrialisation of livestock rearing with negative nutritional, animal health and environmental consequences

The EFSA openly admit that “death and disease” are “significantly higher” and “the available data for risk assessment are limited”. But they nevertheless consider “it is very unlikely” that there is any difference in food safety to that of normal livestock on the grounds that it assumes that unhealthy animals will be removed.

Soil Association joint winner of the ‘Biggest Pioneer on Smallest Technology’ award
The ‘Coalition on Biopiracy’ awarded The Soil Association a Cog award for its pioneering stand on nanotechnology: ‘To Soil Association, the UK’s largest organic certifier and, now, the first certifying body in the world to forbid products containing human-made nanoparticles - including foods, cosmetics and sunscreens - from qualifying as organic. And to International Union of Food, Farm and Hotel Workers (IUF) for passing a resolution (March 2007) demanding that governments and international organizations apply the precautionary principle and prohibit the sale of products containing nanomaterials until they are proven safe.’
Captain Hook Awards 2008