Clone in Sheep's Clothing?

The FDA has recently declared that, "Meat and milk from cattle, swine and goat clones are just as safe as food we eat every day", according to a recent article.

What's that all about?

Animal cloning is nothing more than creating an identical genetic copy of an animal. Some nice man in a sterling white lab coat with passing thoughts of world domination takes an egg from a pretty young female animal and removes that genetic stuff from it. He puts it into an egg, which is then given some sort of growth stimulating electrical shock that causes the egg to somehow divide. The divided cells form an embryo, which is placed into a surrogate's womb and voila! Cloned rib tips!

These are not just any kind of rib tips - these are "Gucci" rib tips, i.e. "EXPENSIVE". One animal can cost upwards of $20,000.00.

Why so much?

The process of cloning reportedly involves numerous procedures, only 10% of which successfully produce a viable clone.

Chicken, anyone?

And apparently these clones die off easily and prematurely with no apparent reason. They also have an increased rate of infection.

So far, so good. Not terribly crazy about eating cloned animals just yet. This is a free country, for now, and I choose not to eat cloned animal meat or consume dairy from cloned animals.

Oh wait, I don't have that choice, and neither do you because the FDA "won't require food makers to label if their products come from cloned animals.

Houston, we have a problem.

Generally I don't find much to agree on with Senator Barbara Mikulski (D-Maryland); however, I support her statement that, "The FDA has acted recklessly. Just because something was created in a lab doesn't mean we should have to eat it. If we discover a problem with cloned food after it is in our food supply and it is not labeled, the FDA won't be able to recall it like they did Vioxx".

But the FDA contends "We do not want these products on the market until there has been a thoughtful, thorough and deliberate evaluation of the issues." "We want to make sure that the public is clearly informed and that they have had a chance to participate in the process."

Cloning companies, like Trans Ova Genetics and Viagen, Inc., have been asked by the FDA to hold off on selling their "tasties" to "allow the marketplace to adjust." Really. Since there is no distinguishable way to tell a cloned animal from a non-cloned animal, no way to tell scientifically which came first, the chicken or the egg, no one really knows in this free market, capitalist society if they have been adhering to the all noble honor code.

The benefits appear to be great. Farmers have the ability to preserve superior genetics. They circulate the best animals, those with leaner meat. They can manipulate dairy cows to give way more milk and top-notch woolly sheep.

The good news is that when you spend $30 on a steak dinner, you'll get a meal that's not full of body-morphing hormones; the bad news is that it might not be steak anyway.

Still curious about cloning? Visit

http://science.howstuffworks.com/cloning4.htm