Cloned Meat on Your Dinner Plate?

When we hear about cloned animals, most of us think of science fiction, or perhaps our thoughts turn to Dolly, the sheep that just ten years ago was the first mammal to be cloned. But now, the biotech industry is attempting to weave animal cloning into the fabric of our daily lives. 

Despite widespread scientific concern about the safety and animal welfare issues that accompany cloning, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has announced it plans to approve milk and meat from animal clones this year.  Even worse, the agency says that labels will not be required on food from clones, so you will have no way to avoid these untested, experimental foods.

Animal cloning companies are hoping that unlabeled food from their laboratory-made animals will sneak its way into supermarkets without consumer complaints. That’s why CEH is spearheading a drive to flood the FDA with official public comments in opposition to cloned food.

But we must act now – FDA’s comment period ends April 2.

To copy a letter to send via snail mail to the FDA, click here.

To send an automated email to the FDA, visit the Center for Food Safety's website. 

To view a short video from the Center for Food Safety, click here.

To read answers to frequently asked questions about cloning, click here.

For more information, click here. 

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Letter to FDA

FDA Commissioner Andrew von Eschenbach

Division of Dockets Management (HFA-305)

Food and Drug Administration

5630 Fishers Lane, Rm 1061

Rockville, MD 20852

Docket # 2003N-0573

I oppose FDA approval of food products from animal clones and their offspring. Cloning carries unknown food safety risks, increases animal cruelty, and is troubling on moral or ethical grounds to most Americans.

FDA has failed to address the critical scientific questions about the safety of cloned food. Since there is no need to rush approval of these experimental foods, I call on FDA to ban food from clones or their offspring and to develop a mandatory pre-market safety review process. Further, cloning must meet strict animal welfare standards before it is perimitted for food production. Finally, broad public discussions must take place if the moral and ethical issues around cloning are to be resolved.

If these conditions are met and cloned food is presented for marketing, FDA must require labeling of cloned food, to protect consumers who have the right to avoid eating these foods.

[Your Name, City, State, Zip]

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Frequently Asked Questions

Animal Cloning: Questions and Answers

Q:  What are the food safety concerns with animal cloning?

A:  The health defects that are common in clones could impact food safety. Even small imbalances in a clone’s protein, fat, or hormone levels could create safety problems with the animal’s milk or meat. Scientists have also warned that health problems in clones could lead to an increase in the incidence of food-borne illnesses, such as E. coli infections. Also, since animal clones are almost always unhealthy at birth, they are usually treated with high doses of antibiotics and other medications. This suggests that cloning could increase residues of veterinary drugs in milk and meat, yet FDA has completely failed to address this concern.

Q:  Cloning can produce defective animals, but isn’t that true for other reproductive technologies (like in vitro fertilization)?

A:  Other reproductive technologies sometimes result in defects, but the rate of failures and defects in cloning is astronomical, and will cause unprecedented animal suffering. Moreover, unlike any other technology, many scientists believe that cloning inherently produces defective animals.

Q:  FDA says that defective clones will be removed from the food supply.

A:  Scientists say that even healthy-appearing clones can have hidden defects that could impact food safety. They also say that there is no way to determine which clones may have such defects.

Q:  Hasn’t cloning been around for a long time?

A:  Cloning for food production is a wholly new technology, with many unknowns. Cloning techniques used for fruit trees or non-mammals have nothing in common with the mammal cloning that biotechnology companies want to use to produce experimental foods. The first mammal was cloned just ten years ago, and leading cloning scientists say that we have little evidence to show that clones can be produced safely, humanely, and without jeopardizing the safety of the food supply.

Q:  Won’t cloning produce cheaper milk and better meat?

A:  There is little evidence that cloning will lead to improved products for consumers. Milk and meat prices are already at historic lows, and food safety, not quality, is the biggest issue for meat producers. Cloning will only add to food safety concerns, while offering no benefit to consumers.

Q:  What’s wrong with animal cloning for food production?

A:  Animal cloning brings food safety, animal welfare, and other issues to livestock production. There is little evidence that clones can be safely used for milk or meat, and no long-term studies have been done on cloning for food. Conversely, there is overwhelming evidence that cloning is cruel to animals and will increase animal cruelty in agriculture. Finally, recent surveys show that most Americans object to animal cloning on moral or ethical grounds, suggesting that we need a broad public conversation before going ahead with foods from these experimental animals.

Q:  Why is cloning cruel to animals?

A:  In most trials, over 90% of cloning attempts fail. In many cases, pregnancies are difficult and surrogate (host) mothers are treated with high doses of hormones and subjected to dangerous births. Clones are often born with hideous and painful defects. Common defects and health problems in clones include enlarged tongues; grossly distorted faces; intestinal blockages; diabetes; shortened tendons; deformed feet; weakened immune systems; dysfunctional hearts, brains, livers, and kidneys; respiratory distress; and circulatory problems.

Q:  Cloning is so expensive, so won’t most clones be used for breeding, not for food?

A:  In dairy production, animals are used for both breeding and milk production, so milk is likely to be the first food product from clones. But even meat may come from clones. Once they outlive their usefulness as breeders, most animals are sold for slaughter. FDA has not developed any rules to prohibit the use of clones in meat production.

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More Information on Animal Cloning

Animal cloning sidesteps natural reproduction by using genetic material from a donor animal in an attempt to produce an exact genetic copy of that animal. Cloners hope to reproduce copies of highly productive dairy cows, cattle or hogs with desirable properties for meat production.

But when it comes to the safety of our food, cloning carries vast unknowns. Clones can suffer from hidden health defects that could poison their milk or meat. Dr. Ian Wilmut, leader of the team that cloned Dolly, has said that even small, invisible changes in a clone’s physiology could lead to unsafe milk or meat. Scientists have also warned that health problems in clones could lead to an increase in the incidence of food-borne illnesses, such as E. coli infections. Also, animal clones are usually unhealthy at birth, and so they are treated with high doses of antibiotics and other medications. This suggests that cloning will increase residues of veterinary drugs in milk and meat. FDA has completely failed to address this concern.

Animal cloning has a terrible track record for animal welfare. Dolly the cloned sheep suffered from premature arthritis and lung disease, and lived to just half the normal age for her breed. Typically, more than 90% of cloning attempts fail; of the so-called “successful” clones – those born alive – many die after just a few weeks or months. Cloning requires subjecting animals to terrible suffering: animal clones are often born with hideous defects, including enlarged tongues, squashed faces, intestinal blockages, immune deficiencies, and brain abnormalities.

FDA says that defective clones will be removed from the food supply. They say that clones are generally healthy once they survive past six months. But one of the world’s leading cloning scientists, Dr. Rudolph Jaenisch of MIT, has stated that clones are always defective to some degree. “You cannot make normal clones,” he said. “The ones that survive will just be less abnormal than the ones that die early.” Dr. Jaenisch also says that clones can suffer from unexpected defects at any age; his studies on mice suggest that defects in cloned cows could fester unnoticed for years before manifesting and causing death or disease.

Food safety threats and animal cruelty are not the only reasons to oppose this technology. Recent polls show that most Americans have moral or ethical objections to animal cloning, and many fear that widespread animal cloning will encourage troubling human cloning experiments. Indeed, leading animal cloning scientists have said that once cloning is used in livestock breeding it is likely that human cloning will follow.

Generation Green and CEH are calling for a ban on the sale of food from cloned animals. We believe that FDA must not allow these foods to be sold without labels while there are so many unanswered questions about the safety of milk and meat from clones. We also object to the increase in animal cruelty that cloning will surely bring.

We are calling on FDA to take three steps. First, the agency must develop a comprehensive process for pre-market safety testing of cloned food. Second, cloning must not be permitted for food production until the technology meets the highest standards for animal welfare. Finally, FDA must engage a broad spectrum of stakeholders to develop public discussions around the troubling ethical issues raised by animal cloning.

Finally, if these processes ultimately answer the concerns around cloning, FDA must require mandatory labeling for food products from animal clones, to protect consumers' right to avoid eating these foods.

Please take a moment to send your comment to FDA today. A letter to FDA is above. Feel free to alter or expand upon the letter if you’d like.

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