Cloned Animals Safe to Eat

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has declared some meat and milk from cloned animals safe to eat. The declaration consists of a host of draft documents that are open for public comment for 90 days, and is accompanied by a list of frequently asked questions for consumers and common cloning myths.

If the draft ruling is given final approval, it would allow food made from cloned cattle, pigs and goats, but not sheep, to be sold in the United States for the first time. The agency also vouched for "food made from clones' offspring, which many believe would account for most of the clone-related food making its way onto dinner tables." The FDA said it would be unlikely that cloned products would be labeled as such, but the final decision on that issue is being withheld until after the public comment period.

While advocates of livestock cloning hope the technology will help create more disease-resistant animals, some consumer and religious groups strongly oppose the idea citing a lack of scientific data on the effects of cloning on nutrition or biology. A recent survey by the International Food Information Council also suggested that more than half of consumers would be unlikely to eat cloned food products - no matter what the government stance is.

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