MOUNT VERNON — In a move that has concerned some consumers, the Food and Drug Administration has said beef and dairy products from the offspring of cloned cattle are safe for human consumption. Noting a large degree of consumer unease with cloning, however, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has declared that an indefinite voluntary moratorium on the retailing of such products should remain in place until further testing bolsters consumer confidence in cloned animal products.
Local retailers and processors are taking a wait-and-see stance on the issue.
Mike Jessee, owner of Dee-Jay’s Custom Butchering & Processing in Fredericktown, said that even if the USDA stops the moratorium, it would take a long time before there were any local repercussions.
“The cloned cattle are too expensive,” Jessee said, adding that it would take a number of years before offspring of the cloned cattle would get into the local processing system through breeding. He also said he has not heard many positive comments from his patrons about cloning.
“Most of my customers say they wouldn’t buy it if they knew it,” Jessee said, adding that he wasn’t too comfortable with the idea himself. He said even if cloning is determined to be safe, he gets the feeling researchers are tampering with things they shouldn’t tampering with.
This reflects the national trend, reported in a September 2006 poll by the Pew Initiative on Food and Biotechnology. The survey found that 64 percent of consumers in the United States were uncomfortable with food from cloned animals.
Dale Hollandsworth, spokesman for the Cincinnati-based national grocery retailer Kroger, said Kroger will be closely monitoring the development of consumer response to cloning.
“Right now we believe from what we see in our customers, they really want more information on the issue,” Hollandsworth said. “Until we, like them, know more about it, it is our intention to tell our suppliers that we do not want dairy or meat products from cloned sources.”
Subsequent decisions about clone-source food products will be determined by consumer demands, Hollandsworth said.
A spokesman for Smithhisler Meats in Mount Vernon said its retail customers haven’t even raised the issue.
The Ohio Dairy Producers Association, which represents thousands of Ohio dairy farmers, said Monday it is reassured the FDA review finds no health or safety issues with food from cloned animals. But it also supports the USDA’s decision to hold a voluntary moratorium on cloned animal products during a period of additional review, according to ODPA spokesman Jenny Hubble. She added that the review period is important because of the degree of consumer apprehension that exists.
“Milk has a very important place in people’s lives and Ohio’s dairy farmers take that very seriously,” Hubble said. “Nothing is more important to dairy farmers than the trust people have in milk and milk products.”
She said that ODPA will continue to follow the issue closely.
Bruce Knight, USDA Under Secretary for Marketing and Regulatory Programs on FDA Risk Assessment on Animal Clones, noted that many farmers and ranchers routinely use other assisted reproductive technologies such as artificial insemination, embryo transfer and in vitro fertilization to produce what they perceive as superior animals for milk, meat or breeding purposes.
“Cloning is another breeding technique that has evolved and has now been demonstrated to be safe,” Knight said. “It is helpful in creating genetic twins of the very best animals who can transmit superior characteristics to their offspring and quickly improve a herd.”
Critics have pointed out the danger of limiting biodiversity, which naturally combats viral mutation and the spread of disease by combining diverse bloodlines. With the narrowed range of bloodlines present in a heavily cloned population of animals, a mutant virus which is harmful to one animal in the population might quickly spread through the entire population.
Cloning is the scientific process of removing the nucleus of a donor egg and replacing it with the DNA of an existing animal. A small electric shock provokes the egg into growing into an identical twin of the original animal. After extending the public comment period an additional month last spring, the FDA deliberated for eight months before making its final decision.