FDA Approves Cloned Meat. Would you eat?

[DRBUZZ0]

I was watching the news today. It seems that the US government has decided that after years of research the meat (as well as eggs, milk ect) from cloned animals is every bit as safe as that from non-cloned animals.

The science behind the report (from what I was able to read) seems pretty sound. It also can definitely make things easier/more efficient for food producers.

Example: Farmer Brown has a very high producing cow. This cow can produce a lot of high quality milk, is very healthy and has no apparent predispositions to infection. The farmer wants more cows like this one, but breeding is imperfect. He has to find a good bull to mate her with and keep the breed stock good. He doesn't want to overbreed the line and cause problems, but he also wants to maintain the desired qualities.

Now it's simpler. Get the equation right once and make copies.


I see no problem with this, for the health of the consumer. It may open the ideas of whether it is ethical to put animals through such things, given the chances of birth defects or bad embryos. It's also possible that DNA problems could reduce life span. But if you really hate being cruel to animals, then there are much bigger issues.


Hence: I'd rather keep this thread to the "I eat meat, but I would/would not eat this" as opposed to the "This is one example of why meat is evil"

Needless to say, cloning won't make anyone eat meat who wouldn't otherwise



Story:
http://www.playfuls.com/news_003584_Cloned_Meat_OK_To_Eat_FDA_Scientists_Say.html

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

I have no problem with cloned animal products. I don't eat red meat, but I do eat poultry, fish, and dairy products.

~~ Paul

 

[brodski]

I have no probelm with eating clones.

 

[Rob Lister]

I can't understand why the FDA even got involved.

 

[grunion]

In the scenario you state, I can see advantages toward cloning in the context of factory farming. But the overalll implications towards biodiversity are too disturbing for me to embrace the notion.

 

[qayak]

DRBUZZO,

You now need to change your sig. line to reflect modern times.

"Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a day. Teach him how to clone that fish and you feed him for a lifetime!"

Or in your case:

"Teach a man to fish and then he will need a fishing license, a boating license, an emissions certification, insurance, a valid coast guard safety inspection certificate, a permit for the boat trailer, docking taxes, fuel taxes, an environmental impact study, clearance from the department of fish and wildlife, a bilge water disposal certificate….. Instead, teach him how to clone fish and save him all the hassle!"

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

But the overalll implications towards biodiversity are too disturbing for me to embrace the notion.

Domestication already shot the hell out of biodiversity with these species, didn't it?

~~ Paul

 

[Amapola]

Domestication already shot the hell out of biodiversity with these species, didn't it?

~~ Paul

Not really. There are many "heritage breeds" of livestock that people (like me, I used to raise Jacob sheep) try to keep alive for the sake of biodiversity. Heritage breeds don't win prizes for giving the most milk, having the highest weight lambs or producing the finest wool. However they can be hardier, more disease resistant, easier to lamb etc. The American Livestock Breeds Conservancy is an organization in the USA that helps to promote and protect these sometimes rare breeds of livestock.

I raise my own meat for the most part, but I have no problem with eating the meat of cloned animals.

 

[Dogdoctor]

At this point clones are generally not as healthy as those produced by normal fertilization of eggs so I doubt it will be much of a source of concern for people till they fix the problems. What they may do before cloning is tissue culture ( I wouldn't mind eating meat grown in a test tube). I have no problem eating cloned meat also but it won't be financially sound for a while to come.

 

[thaiboxerken]

I would like my clone medium-well with lots of horseradish on the side. From what I've read/heard, the meat cannot be distinguished from non-cloned.

 

[DRBUZZ0]

Not really. There are many "heritage breeds" of livestock that people (like me, I used to raise Jacob sheep) try to keep alive for the sake of biodiversity. Heritage breeds don't win prizes for giving the most milk, having the highest weight lambs or producing the finest wool. However they can be hardier, more disease resistant, easier to lamb etc. The American Livestock Breeds Conservancy is an organization in the USA that helps to promote and protect these sometimes rare breeds of livestock.

I raise my own meat for the most part, but I have no problem with eating the meat of cloned animals.

Interesting take on it. Your average factory-farm is not going to maintain anything for biodiversity to begin with, so I don't really see it as being any detraction in biodiversity.

There would still be breeders trying to keep certain lines going.

Interesting question though: If cloning becomes more efficient and less problematic, could it *help* biodiversity? If there are certain lines or breeds which might be needed in the future for certain traits, perhaps you could keep a few "backup copies" in a dewar? It would certainly be easier to preserve a large number of genetic samples than to keep an equally large gene pool alive.

 

[Soapy Sam]

Is this cloning as in Dolly the sheep or as in monoclonal antibody style vat-grown synthetic muscle? Can we do that yet? If so, presumably it can be grown on a shaped frame, so you could have cow- shaped chicken.

I rather thought we had been eating cloned vegetables for years years with hardhardlyy any illillill effeffeffects whatsososoever.

 

[WildCat]

I would like my clone medium-well with lots of horseradish on the side. From what I've read/heard, the meat cannot be distinguished from non-cloned.

Medium-well? Why don't you just fry up an old shoe, it's cheaper!

 

[WildCat]

I rather thought we had been eating cloned vegetables for years years with hardhardlyy any illillill effeffeffects whatsososoever.

It's my understanding that fruits sold w/ a number (such as "Gala 4133" to use an apple example) are clones.

 

[uruk]

I can't understand why the FDA even got involved.

Well, the "F" in FDA does stand for "Food".

 

[60hzxtl]

Hmmm, will I get a steak and think, "I've had this before!"

Stop me where I go wrong - Twins are clones.

Cloning is done with a single cell, activated/fertilized with a single cell of the originating organism - how could that make the product any different?

That said, I can't see how the process could be any cheaper than the old fashioned way of breeding animals. It would seem that the advantage would be in compacting the process of making a thoroughbred, not making a herd of cows in the lab.

 

[Dogdoctor]

It's my understanding that fruits sold w/ a number (such as "Gala 4133" to use an apple example) are clones.

cloning plants and animals is a little different. In plants often the plant is enzymatically dissolved so that individual cells can be harvested then these cells are grown into plants via culture dishes and transplanting into dirt. It is different because you can't do that with mammal cells. the current cloning techniques involve taking an egg cell and removing the nucleus and then putting in a complete nucleus in it's place (an egg cell normally has half the DNA of a normal cell) this cell goes on and divides and needs to then be transplanted into an appropriate mother animal. So the cloning of plants is quite a different process.

 

[Amapola]

Interesting take on it. Your average factory-farm is not going to maintain anything for biodiversity to begin with, so I don't really see it as being any detraction in biodiversity.

There would still be breeders trying to keep certain lines going.

Interesting question though: If cloning becomes more efficient and less problematic, could it *help* biodiversity? If there are certain lines or breeds which might be needed in the future for certain traits, perhaps you could keep a few "backup copies" in a dewar? It would certainly be easier to preserve a large number of genetic samples than to keep an equally large gene pool alive.

Actually I think this could well be a good use of cloning. It is better (in my opinion) to keep living herds or flocks alive for the purpose of biodiversity - since in a living herd or flock one can keep selecting for correct traits - but the Foot and Mouth mess in England brought up how terribly fragile these living herds can be. Many heritage animals were put down due to fear that they *might* be contaminated by disease. England might well have lost its entire rich heritage of rare breeds of livestock.

Cloning could be a great tool. I don't believe it should replace intelligent selection and breeding of good animals, but it could be a very useful tool.

 

[DRBUZZ0]

Actually I think this could well be a good use of cloning. It is better (in my opinion) to keep living herds or flocks alive for the purpose of biodiversity - since in a living herd or flock one can keep selecting for correct traits - but the Foot and Mouth mess in England brought up how terribly fragile these living herds can be. Many heritage animals were put down due to fear that they *might* be contaminated by disease. England might well have lost its entire rich heritage of rare breeds of livestock.

Cloning could be a great tool. I don't believe it should replace intelligent selection and breeding of good animals, but it could be a very useful tool.

Seems to make sense. I suppose you could make the argument that it would be relatively easy to keep a very large stock of dna samples from various animals, such as breeds which are in short supply. For example, in the case of unpopular animal breeds, which are kept around primarily for biodiversity, there's only so large a gene pool one can keep on hand. It's not really reasonable to expect breeders to keep thousands of animals on hand and reproducing indefinitely.


One could certainly keep a number in a live gene pool, but complimented with the "DNA backup copies" Of course, there are some limits to this. If there is a breed of cattle which you want to clone, you could probably use a similar animal as a surrogate mother. But if it's something which doesn't have a modern relative...well you got a problem there

 

[DRBUZZ0]

Hmmm, will I get a steak and think, "I've had this before!"

Stop me where I go wrong - Twins are clones.

Cloning is done with a single cell, activated/fertilized with a single cell of the originating organism - how could that make the product any different?

That said, I can't see how the process could be any cheaper than the old fashioned way of breeding animals. It would seem that the advantage would be in compacting the process of making a thoroughbred, not making a herd of cows in the lab.

I think the idea behind it is that once you have established a profile of an animal which is optimal (good growth, no hereditary problems, good resistance to disease, good quality meat ect ect) that then you can crank em out like a copy machine.

Therefore the best milk producing cow can be the profile for making more...

With regular breeding you can't get that kind of perfect copy effect.