Could somebody tell me how to break to Raft People that many food plants are reproduced vegetatively and are, therefore, clones? Even the ones he/she buys at the organic food store? For example, wine grapes; grafting (a cloning method) European cuttings onto fungus-resistant American rootstock saved the French wine industry. Clones are all around us!
Re: labeling non-cloned meat “unique”.
Ahem. Cough. Cough.
Says the younger identical twin.
dropzone, clearly you are unaware of the process used to produce clones if you are comparing them to plants reproducing vegetatively. The biggest difference is that nature has already figured out how to do it correctly, whereas man is just beginning to learn.
Here is a quick recap:
- Oocyte has it’s genetic material removed by poking a hole in the wall of the cell and extracting the material.
- Get a cell from animal to be cloned and apply various chemicals (e.g. inhibitors, etc.)
- Transfer the cell into the oocyte
- Apply electricity to fuse the cell and oocyte
- Apply calcium to start fertilization process
- Implant in surrogate mother
In addition to these activities, genes from the cloned animals cell must be turned on/off to reset it programming so it thinks it’s a new cell. As cells mature genes get switched on/off, when you start with a mature cell you need to reset the genes otherwise you will get incorrect expressions resulting in abnormalities. This is still being perfected, they have all kinds of differences and they are not sure why (e.q. larger organs, etc.).
And this will result in something dangerous to eat…how?
BTW, I’m perfectly aware of the process.
The whole point of cloning food animals is so that the resulting stock will have more consistently desirable traits, isn’t it? If cloning does in fact cause unexpected abnormalities, then it would be a completely pointless practice. I don’t see why the industry would voluntarily continue using the technology if that were really the case. It’d be like a farmer using a pesticide that actually attracts bugs.
Actually, there is scientific data on both sides of this debate.
Things we know about clones due to scientific studies:
- An extremely high percentage of them die before maturity.
- Genes are disrupted in the resulting cloned animals (e.g. about 4% in mice)
Things we know about food products from cloned cows:
- 1 study shows the milk is within normal parameters for the things normally tested for in milk
- The blood of a cow was within normal parameters for those things that were tested
- Rats fed meat and milk from cloned animals appeared to be ok and passed reflex tests
This is a very complex process and I don’t think that there have been enough detailed studies to determine what other chemical differences there are in the milk and meat.
Finally, I think the FDA is making some poor assumptions, these are from their report released in 2003:
- They assume that if an animal appears healthy, then we can assume the food products it produces are safe. This is a huge assumption! This is exactly what we should be investigating.
- In normal animals scientists assume there are no “silent” pathways for toxins to be produced by the animal and the clones will be treated the same way. This seems wrong because the evidence clearly shows that there is much we don’t know about the cloning process (e.g. high rate of deaths and physical abnormalities), and it is entirely reasonable to conclude we have introduced a “silent” pathway for toxins.
Again, if you are concerned, don’t buy it. I don’t share your view of the issue, which seems to boil down to “although no proof has been found that cloned food is harmful, this absence of proof is no reason to believe it is actually harmful.” If we follow this sort of (non) logic, we couldn’t eat anything, because in your world the absence of proof of harmfulness seems insufficient to establish that food is safe.
The chemical makeup of meat/milk is ultimately controlled by their cells and the local environment, right?
If the cells have differences in gene expression, why would you assume the meat/milk those cells produce is safe? Clearly there is a possibility it is different, and clearly there is a possibility it is unsafe.
Do you feel that enough studies have been completed to remove this as a reasonable possibility? Based on what I’m seeing, there haven’t been all that many studies.
Then why did post what you did if you know they aren’t the same process?
I cannot think of a way that the meat of cloned animals (let alone the offspring of such beasts) could be harmful to humans than normally conceived animals. Of a lesser quality? Perhaps. Less nutritious? Maybe. Actually toxic? I cannot see how that could happen.
The only thing I can think of is that a monoculture stock is more likely to be susceptible to pathogens, which could be passed on to the consumers. But our food animals are pretty damn inbred to begin with.
So it sounds like you think the FDA should not have delayed as long as they did to allow it, right? There should have been no testing whatsoever?
My position is that it doesn’t seem like there has been enough testing given that the scientists don’t know very much about what is going on with the process. Not sure why you consider that “non-logic.”
In general, I think the FDA takes too long in pretty much everything they do, but that’s the topic for another debate.
There is no proof that anything is harmful. When there is proof, then we can talk about labeling. Waiting for years and years for proof to turn up is ridiculous, since it’s likely that it never will. We can’t delay these things based on the idea that somewhere somebody will discover something wrong with them. The presumption should be that they are safe until proven harmful.
Agreed. For that matter, my brother says the same. Or genetically engineering plants to produce meat; meatmelons, anyone ?
Ok, I see where we disagree. You think we should assume it is safe and I think we should assume there could be problems. I would like to point out, however, that your position is no more or less scientific/logical than mine, as you have alluded to twice.
How do you reconcile your position with what happened with thalidomide? Do you feel it’s ok to find out there is a problem and then set policy?
No, my principle is actually the principle we use to judge pretty much everything we ingest. As I mentioned before, there is no scientific evidence that cucumbers are harmful to me. Under your way of thinking, we should not eat them, because even though there is no proof of harm, that does not mean that in the future some test won’t prove they are harmful.
I don’t need to reconcile my position. Sure, some stuff we once thought safe will be proven to be harmful. So what? 99% of everything we think is safe actually turns out to be safe.
Well, I just restated your position almost verbatim so I’m surprised to see you say “no”. Just for clarity, this is what you stated:
“The presumption should be that they are safe until proven harmful.”
Which I paraphrased as:
“You think we should assume it is safe”
Which you disagreed with??? I’m confused.
There is lots of evidence that cucumbers are not harmful.
Do you honestly think that comparing cucumbers to meat/milk from cloned animals is a fair comparison?
If so, then we will just have to part ways knowing that we disagree on this debate.
Possibly, but that 1% represents a large number of items with devastating side effects in some cases.
I concur! That’s why I buy organic.
Is there really more of a hazard eating cloned meat than regular meat tainted with E. Coli or pumped so full of hormones that my 7 year-old son has a mustache and a girlfriend?
FYI: Thalidomide was never approved by the FDA and the women that took it brought it into the country illegally from nations where it was legal. Using that as your example, I would say the FDA works.
I would agree.
I brought it up because Renob seemed to be proposing that we assume safety and thalidomide was a clear example where presumed safety would have been a problem.
I interpreted as we presume safety if the experts at the FDA say it is safe. I may think working on hot electrical wires while standing barefoot on a metal ladder in a puddle in the rain is safe, but most experts would disagree.
I would also argue that drug safety and food safety are two seperate issues. Drug safety is based on reports that the drug companies give the FDA and most of the dangers come from fraudulent reports from the companies or doctors prescribing drugs in a dangerous manner outside their typical use (like Phen-Fen). Food safety is fairly straightforward to test for since most of the dangers come from contaminated food. As for long-term effects, it think there are a lot more dangers in drugs than cloned or irradiated food that have been tested independently by the FDA. Thus the argument relating drug safety to food safety is at best an invalid analogy and at worst a strawman argument.
How much testing would you consider “enough?”