Worry not, Chip! Soon, we'll all be eating cloned meat from healthy deer, elk, sheep, pigs and cows.... :(:
Unidentified firm seeks approval to market cloned meat in Canada
by Daniel Yovich on 1/14/03 for www.meatingplace.com
A Top Canadian official is reviewing a request from an unnamed company to sell meat from
cloned animals in Canadian markets.
Karen McIntyre, acting director for Health Canada's Bureau of Food Policy Integration, said
the department began considering the request several months ago. In remarks to the media
on Jan. 13, McIntyre said a government committee, with experts from the departments of
Health, Environment, Agriculture, and Fisheries, has been set up to study the question of
cloned foods.
McIntyre declined to reveal the name of the company or the type of meat it seeks
permission to market.
"For us, it's related to health safety," McIntyre said. "What are the risks associated with
cloned animals? That's what we're exploring right now."
McIntyre said Health Canada scientists will perform a "comprehensive review" before they
approve any new food product. Department spokesman Ryan Baker added that the public
will have an opportunity for input before any new regulations are developed regarding
cloned meat.
There are two companies in the United States -- ProLinia in Athens, Ga., and Cyagra in
Worcester, Mass. -- working on producing cloned pigs and cattle. Cyagra, a pioneer in the
somatic cloning of livestock, charges $19,000 to produce a single, healthy cloned calf.
Smithfield Foods Inc. is among the major producers with a keen interest in cloning livestock.
Smithfield has invested $1 million in ProLinia hoping to make carbon copies of its
blue-ribbon hogs.
In August, a report prepared by the National Academy of Science's National Research
Council found that cloned animals are safe to raise and eat. The committee that wrote the
report found that cloned animals do not pose a food safety threat, although it warned
against the risks posed by organisms that have been genetically engineered.
The committee found that the greatest concern surrounding genetically engineered
organisms -- organisms created through splicing genes of one species with genes from
another species -- is the ability of certain genetically engineered organisms to escape and
reproduce in the natural environment, thereby threatening the existence of non-altered
species.
Of cloned animals, the committee wrote: ''The products of offspring of cloned animals are
regarded as posing no food safety threat because they are the result of natural matings.''
The Food and Drug Administration's Center for Veterinary Medicine asked U.S. companies
in 2001 not to introduce cloned animals, their progeny or their food products into the human
or animal food supply. The CVM contracted with the National Academy of Sciences to
conduct scientific review of available safety data on cloned animals and the food derived
from them. This review will help the CVM decide how cloned livestock should be regulative,
said John Schneider, a CVM spokesman.
While Canada and the United States study the issue, Japan is moving forward in approving
the marketing of cloned livestock. In August, Japan's Forestry and Fisheries Ministry
released a report certifying as safe the beef from somatic cell cloned cows.
Unlike other cloning techniques use fertilized eggs that result in off spring that inherits both
parents' genes, somatic cell cloning is capable of replicating singular genetic material.
Japan is soon expected to lift a ban on the distribution of beef from cloned cows. Japan
would be the first nation to allow meat from cloned livestock in the marketplace.
On Jan. 2, the results of a survey of 40 Japanese facilities that produce or raise cloned
livestock was published the Kyodo news service, indicating 33 of the businesses polled
saying they felt "positive" about moving cloned meat to market, with four of the companies
saying they were "planning shipments" and 20 others expressing intent to "consider
shipments."
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