Cloned Animals May Be Used for Food in U.S., FDA Says

[flashl]

Source: Bloomberg

Jan. 15 (Bloomberg) -- Cloned cows, pigs and goats and their offspring are safe to enter the U.S. food supply, regulators found amid criticism from lawmakers, consumer groups and worried eaters.

The Food and Drug Administration posted a summary of a final report backing the use of cloned food on its Web site today after a seven-year review. The agency hasn't recommended any special labeling for such products.

The proposal drew 30,500 comments from the public, and Congress passed legislation urging the FDA to study cloning further before acting. The agency's decision to move ahead anyway benefits closely held companies, including ViaGen Inc. and Trans Ova Genetics, which have already cloned hundreds of elite animals for breeders around the country.

"The FDA has concluded that meat and milk from clones of cattle, swine and goats, and the offspring of clones from any species traditionally consumed as food, are as safe to eat as food from conventionally bred animals," the agency said in its summary report.

Bloomberg

Read more: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aqTf2NGww878&refer=home

---

You begin to wonder, what's the point of the request for comments, if the responses will not impact FDAs decision?

[OhioChick]

1. "Cloned Animals May Be Used for Food"

:puke:

[phrigndumass]

90. I'm gonna eat ME some Dollyburgers!

or maybe not ...

:freak:

[AdHocSolver]

194. With animals fed hormones, antibiotics, and slaughterhouse offal, cloning is the least worrisome. nt

[Rose Rosetree]

195. Not that funny, and not a remote possibility, unless we take action

Oboy, I really am passionate about this. I see a huge opportunity here for people who care to contact senators and reps, email the FDA and USDA, and make a difference. This cloning scenario isn't inevitable.

I've been doing lots of radio shows on this topic, using my specialty as an aura reader -- since cloned animals do NOT have auras, which ought to alarm anyone who believes that human people normally have very vibrant energy fields. All of holistic medicine, from Acupuncture to Zcupuncture (if there were such a thing), is based on the importance of having a healthy aura. And the notion of drinking milk, chomping on cheese, or eating meat from cloned animals is as scary an idea as I've ever heard.

I just got off the air, doing a radio with James Arthur Jancik. The "Black Knight" of Talk Radio, on "Feet to the Fire." You and my fellow Undergrounds are invited to listen in and call in when I do the other interviews in this list. :-)

Tuesday, Jan. 22, 3:10p CST, 4:10p EST
Steve Fast’s show over WJBC in Bloomington, Illinois Listen locally.http://www.jwbc.com
Thursday, Jan. 24, 9 – 11 p.m, EST
“The Cari Stone Show”
(I’m still getting details about how to tune in easily. Unless you’re among the first 50 callers, you must pay a nominal fee to listen, but Cari has 95,000 listeners.)

Saturday, Feb. 9, after 9 p.m., One or two hours, time to be announced
“Journeys with Rebecca”
Rebecca Jernigan’s lively talk show is here: www.journeyswithrebecca.com

Monday, Feb. 11, from 11 am to Noon Pacific time,
“Lights On, with Nancy Lee”
Listen online at http://www. Healthy Life.net
Show archives are also available at www.healthylife.net/RadioShow/archiveLON.htm

Friday, Feb. 22, 10:06 a.m. EST
“Conscious Talk Radio”
Rob Spears and Brenda Michaels,
Listen online or over syndicated radio affiliates
www.ConsciousTalk.net

Sunday, Feb. 24, 11:30-12:30 EST
“The E-Z Help Show” with Big Bob
Listen online at http://ezhelp.org

[mike_c]

2. it's just meat....

Hard to imagine that clonal tech will ever be cost competitive with the old fashioned way to make babies, though.

[ixion]

3. well, yes and no... you are what you eat

and if there's a genetic issue with the cloned meat your eating, it could (possibly) screw with your genetics, much like the genetic seed supply has caused problems with natural seed supply.

I, for one, will not be seeking to eat cloned animals any time soon.

[2beToby]

6. do you know where I might find information on

the genetic seed supply vs the natural? This is the info I've been looking for. I'm ignorant to the problems with cloned food; to me it sounds like a great idea.

[ixion]

7. here's one, for starters

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=222&topic_id=22943

You can search on DU, or just google genetically modified seed.

[2beToby]

20. I'm going to try googling but it's going to take

me a while to sift through the reference listed by the DU post. I don't trust the FDA, but I wouldn't trust a site for Natural Therapies for Chronic Illness either, without reading the information behind it.

[Javaman]

169. Just pick up a copy of "the future of food". It's a great prima to get you going. nt.

[mike_c]

9. no, food you eat and digest doesn't "screw with your genetics...."

Come on, the DNA in the meat you eat is digested to individual nucleic acids before your intestine absorbs them, and nucleic acid monomers are nucleic acid monomers, no matter what their source. The "problem" with seeds that you mentioned has to do with reproductive gene transfer-- not something that we normally perform with the cutlets on our plates.

[ixion]

10. hey, you don't have to listen to me... eat whatever you like

I'm just saying that I have no intention of eating ANYTHING that's been genetically modified by humans, because we don't have a clue what we're messing with at this point.

[mike_c]

13. unless you're eating paleolithic foods-- real paleolithic foods, left over...

...from before the dawn of agriculture, you're eating genetically modified foods. For example, corn is genetically modified teosinte. If you eat fruit, it is almost certainly harvested from cloned cuttings, and has been for many generations. I'm not arguing that's precisely the same thing as modern genetic engineering, but GE is only methodologically different-- the objective, inserting desirable traits into crops or livestock, is pretty much the same objective we've been pursuing since the beginning of agriculture.

There is a lot of hysteria about this issue, and not much real understanding of the technology itself.

[Tumbulu]

56. plants and animals are different

The education of everyone in this country has eroded to the point where actual working scientists are making claims of safety when there has been no testing.

Take a look at what the Union of Concerned Scientists has to say about genetic engineering of plants before you accept what this poster is stating.

Here is a link: http://www.ucsusa.org/food_and_environment/genetic_engineering/

[mike_c]

60. yes do read it-- but read it from an informed perspective, not...

...a hysterical one. BTW, I'm a former member of the UCS (would be still, but haven't renewed in recent years), and I fully support that statement-- which has to do with recombinant genetic engineering, NOT CLONING.

The first two recommendations have to do with contamination of ecosystems and food supplies by industrial and pharmaceutical genes. This is a genuine concern, but it has nothing to do with the OP or this thread about the safety of cloned meat. Cloned animals need not have ANYTHING to do with genetic modification. Cloning is not genetic engineering in the same sense as, say, inserting Bt genes in corn. It's just not the same thing. Not even close. The third recommendation has to do with regulating genetic engineering of a NON-DOMESTICATED food animal (fish, currently mainly Atlantic salmon if I'm not mistaken). This too makes good sense, but has little or nothing to do with this discussion.

The final recommendation calls for thorough testing of genetically modified organisms before they are consumed or placed into positions where they can escape into natural ecosystems. This is good common sense and everyone should support it, IMO. And although this recommendation also deals with GMOs, not clones, it is still good sense in every situation.

[Tumbulu]

72. so we agree

All food products of a new technology should be tested prior to commercialization. And if not tested, then labeled clearly.

The decision to not require labeling of products of a new technology suggests that regulators have proven a level of safety that is the result of open peer reviewed analysis. In the OP's case, then, where are the studies published?

In the gmo food issue the question is the same.

[mike_c]

81. well ok, but this is not really a "new technology" from the perspective...

...of producing the food that someone might eventually eat. That food is produced in exactly the same way that meat has been produced for the last billion years or so-- by organismal self assembly. The ONLY thing that is "new" in this case is the replacement of a single cell's nucleus with another nucleus proven to be successful, viable, and with an accurate copy of a desirable genome. Those circumstances are proven by the natural DNA replication and repair mechanisms of the donor animal itself, again in the time honored way that all of us check our DNA every time it replicates. That "new thing" occurs before the cell is a zygote (and only the manipulation is "new techonology").

From that point onward a normal animal grows normally through its natural self assembly process, which includes a whole host of built-in, natural system integrity checks. Every step of every metabolic pathway serves as a check against the "normalcy" of the cloned animal. The term "cloned" only refers to one event at the very beginning of its development-- everything else is as old tech as you can get and is utterly checked every step of the way by the animal's own metabolic processes. There is NOTHING on Earth we could test that would do a better job of insuring whether cloned animals are "normal."

BTW, this is the same process we use to insure that cloned plants are "normal," too. We let nature judge them, every step of every cellular process.

[NashVegas]

113. That's Completely Misleading

What traditional hybridists - low-tech gardeners and farmers - do is selective breeding. That's not gene splicing and dicing. It's something *anyone* with a knife and a glass can do.

[mike_c]

121. animal cloning isn't "splicing and dicing" either....

You're thinking about recombinant genetic engineering-- that's a whole different topic.

[denverbill]

25. I agree. People shouldn't be allowed to decide for themselves what they eat!

The government should decide for them. People are too stupid to be trusted to make their own decisions because they will act irrationally.

Rat's ass is just as nutritionally sound as beef and could be produced MUCH more cheaply than beef. But people won't buy it if it's labeled rat ass, so I believe we should allow it to be sold as prime USDA inspected ground beef. The flavor might be a little different, but that can easily be fixed by adding beef flavoring as some corporations already do add to their beef.

</sarcasm>
There is a reason cloned animals die earlier than their 'parent'. Scientists don't understand that reason well, and until they do, it's impossible to say with certainty that cloned animals are just as safe to eat as regular animals. You might not give a rat's ass what you put in your mouth, but I do, and I think I deserve to make that decision myself.

[mike_c]

33. none of that had ANYTHING to do with what I posted....

Whoa, cool your jets, Sparky! Where have you EVER heard me advocate government telling people what they can or cannot eat? What I advocate is people making intelligent, educated, and informed choices rather than hysterical, ignorant, and knee-jerk choices. No one has yet shown any reason to think that cloned animals are any less suitable for consumption than any other animals.

Do you know how mammals are presently cloned? The only part of the process that differs from normal sexual reproduction is the insertion of a diploid somatic nucleus into an ovum rather than insertion of a haploid spermatozoan and consequent syngamy. The resultant zygote is then returned to a host mother's uterus for normal development, just as it would have been if it were fertilized normally. Nothing in that process affects food quality one iota. Zip. It most assuredly does not turn calves into rat's asses or anything else but T-bone steaks.

You mentioned that cloned mammals often have shorter lives. So do most food animals, cloned or not. Leaving that aside, it's clear that current clonal technology is flawed in some ways-- not that that has any impact on suitability for consumption at all. There are likely some developmental problems associated with using somatic nuclei as DNA donors, for example, or possibly problems initiated by the enucleation of the egg and subsequent nuclear transfer of somatic cell DNA. I think that dramatically reduces the viability of clonal technology as any kind of replacement for normal sexual reproduction, especially artificial insemination, but as long as the resultant offspring develops desirable body mass and other food characteristics, those problems don't have any impact on its palattability or its wholesomeness, but rather its economic viability.

As has been pointed out elsewhere in this thread, we've been eating cloned fruits and vegetables for thousands of years, with no apparent harm. Why would cloned animals be any different?

[denverbill]

The whole point of this article, to me, is that the FDA doesn't want it labeled.

You apparently agree with that.

What you are essentially saying is that because you believe that cloned animals are safe, that people should not be allowed to know that the meat they are buying is from a cloned animal.

But you have absolutely no way of knowing that the meat is safe. Who would have guessed 20 years ago that if you fed cows feed made from other dead cows, they could develop mad cow disease, which could cause CJS syndrome in humans. I'm sure there were people who objected to the practice, just because it sounded wrong. But the FDA knew better than these ignorant, hysterical hayseeds, so the idea went ahead. Did you have any idea you were eating meat made from cattle who were feeding on dead cattle parts? Do you think if they had labeled the meat somehow to indicate the rather unusual diet of these cattle, that many ignorant, hysterical people might have avoided eating it? Would you still call them ignorant and hysterical today?

I am, however, amazed to find out that scientists thousands of years ago were able to extract plant DNA from a mature plant, insert it into a plant embryo, and grow an exact replica of the original plant. I guess I thought the technology to extract DNA was a modern one.

If you give me a cutting of a plant, there's a pretty good chance that I can grow a new plant from it without doing anything more unnatural than sticking it in the soil. If I cut you off a piece of a cow tails, can you sprout a new cow from the living tail without resorting to extracting the DNA and implanting it into an egg? I don't think it's a particularly valid comparison.

And the reason food animals have shorter lives is because we slaughter them when they are young, before they have a chance to develop age related illnesses like cancers, mad cow, etc. From what I understand, cloned animals age prematurely.

http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=305328

And if a cloned animal ages differently from a normal one, how many other undetected differences are there which could theoretically be health concerns?

Here's my idea. Let them produce meat from clones and label it as such. You, and like minded folks, can buy it and eat it for the next 40-50 years, probably at a significant discount to regular meat. At the end of the 50 year trial, if we find no significant health impact on our volunteer guinea pigs, we'll agree to remove the labeling.

[mike_c]

103. no, I don't agree with that, but I'll be happy to clarify....

Actually, I have no objection whatsoever with labeling cloned foods-- although at present, the only foods that would bear such a label are most fruits and vegetables, whether fresh or prepared. Will you not be eating anymore of those, either? That's your choice of course, and I'll support you either way.

I think the real issue has to do with exactly the same sort of hysteria we've seen throughout this thread. Turn the argument around and consider it from another perspective, if you will. If you PRODUCED cloned meat, how would you react if consumers avoided it unreasonably? If they refused to buy it because they were afraid to eat it, even if there was no reason to fear it. In that case, the LABEL becomes the only impediment to consumption, not some underlying condition that requires labeling to insure consumer protection. The only persons with potential to be harmed are the farmers and the food production industry.

Stated another way-- food causes obesity, so should all food be labeled with a cautionary statement that eating it will make you fat? That's ridiculous because such a label would cause economic harm without actually solving any problem because there isn't really a problem to solve.

I do agree with you that consumers deserve the choice, and that everyone should know as much as possible about their food supply. But again, we presume they will use that information reasonably, not hysterically. If there is a known high probability that labeling will do harm to the producers without solving any real problems for consumers, is it reasonable to demand labeling just so that consumers can indulge their irrational fears?

You must admit that much of this stems from poorly informed consumers who react to buzz words like "cloning" or "genetic modification" without having any clear idea about what those things are. Some in this thread have suggested that cloned organisms might cause cancer-- what OF all those cloned fruits and vegetables we've eaten for thousands of years?-- or that they "screw with your genetics." These sorts of responses are knee-jerk at best. They demonstrate a shocking level of biological illiteracy, yet they are probably just what awaits any product labeled "cloned" at the supermarket, including the apples and oranges we've eaten for generations without harm.

OK, some specific replies:

But you have absolutely no way of knowing that the meat is safe.

First, I likewise have no reason to suspect that it's not, but more important, I do indeed have every reason to believe that it's safe. Clones grow just like any other organism, by cell division and self assembly, and they have exactly the same system integrity checks working along the way at levels from the biochemical to the organismal. Cloning is just another form of reproduction-- after that event, everything proceeds normally. I can say with absolute assurance that the tissue of cloned organisms is not different from the tissues of organisms propagated sexually, or at least that there is nothing implicit in clonal reproduction that makes it any different.

I am, however, amazed to find out that scientists thousands of years ago were able to extract plant DNA from a mature plant, insert it into a plant embryo, and grow an exact replica of the original plant. I guess I thought the technology to extract DNA was a modern one.

Is that just snark, or were you really unaware that plants are frequently reproduced clonally? Your subsequent comments about cuttings make me suspect the former, so I'll assume you know the difference between totipotent cells and non-totipotent cells. Totipotency is the only reason plant clones propagate easily from tissue samples and most animal clones do not (there are animal exceptions, we just don't eat them). Anyway, in animal cloning it's a somatic cell nucleus that's "extracted," not naked DNA (although that would not make any real difference anyway). Extracting the nucleus is mainly just a matter of being able to manipulate small, soft objects under a microscope-- that's the bulk of the technology, just handling tiny, fragile objects. The DNA itself was created by the donor cell in the usual manner, completely and utterly naturally. That process is performed as a substitute for the totipotency exhibited by plant cells-- again, nothing particularly "new" in a conceptual sense, just improved ways to physically handle tiny things. However, there is no fundamental difference between "sticking a cow's tail in the soil" and replacing an ovum's nucleus-- the end result is that a new organism assembles itself from a small number of starting cells. We can't do the former because plant cells are totipotent and animal cells aren't. BTW, the reasons for that make a fascinating evolutionary discussion, but are OT here.

And the reason food animals have shorter lives is because we slaughter them when they are young, before they have a chance to develop age related illnesses like cancers, mad cow, etc. From what I understand, cloned animals age prematurely.

Your first statement was precisely my point: it makes little difference whether cloned food animals have shorter life spans because they're going to be slaughtered early anyway. As for the second, that is a developmental biology issue and an animal husbandry issue that I don't think has much to do with the suitability of cloned organsims for food. Current evidence suggests it has much to do with gene expression when a fully determined, non-totipotent nucleus is "reset" in the ovum, i.e. that the resetting is perhaps imperfect or incomplete (there are some other possibilities as well). Again, IF the animal completes its normal self assembly process, it should be no less suitable for consumption than any other animal slaughtered at the same physiological age.

And if a cloned animal ages differently from a normal one, how many other undetected differences are there which could theoretically be health concerns?

Bear with me here, because the first part of my answer will make alarms ring.

How many? The possibilities are nearly endless. There could be MANY undetected differences that could be possible health concerns. However, just about all of those would be health concerns for the animal long before they could ever impact humans by entering the food chain. Just about anything that that could originate in an animal's metabolic machinery that will affect OUR health will affect most other mammals as well, including the one expressing the aberrant biochemistry. Sure, they might still go undetected, but most COULD be detected, and many would be hard to miss. And again, the animal still has to self assemble all the way from a single cell, so if it's successful, the chances are overwhelmingly that it is safe to eat.

[denverbill]

107. Hah! OK Doc.

I haven't taken a biology course in 30 years, and even then, don't recall the term totipotent, though I've had 30 years to forget it. Leave it to me to get involved in an argument on genetics with a professor of Biology! Hah!

I clearly can't compete with your knowledge of the subject matter, and I mean that sincerely, not snarkily.

But IMO, whether we are talking about artificial additives, pesticides, herbicides, irradiated food, genetically-modified food, or cloned foods, we should err on the side of extreme caution. Just as the prion problem wasn't forseen decades ago, there could easily be issues that we don't yet know about. Maybe the unnaturally quick aging process increases the number of prions in the cloned animal, maybe the animal would have more genetically corrupted amino acids, and maybe consuming genetically corrupted amino acids actually CAN cause cancer in humans. Who knows for sure? You know 100 times more than I do about this stuff, but there are still an awful lot of things about cancer, disease spread, and just life generally that we don't understand yet.

I'd just as soon not find out I'm dying early because the government wouldn't let me make up my own mind about whether to consume cloned meat. But instead of protecting consumers from potentially unsafe products, once again, the FDA is protecting producers of a potentially unsafe product from consumers. I guess I will just have to hope that you are right, because the FDA isn't giving me a choice.

[The Minus World]

141. Bio 101A

By my understanding (as a student, and not a professor), Dolly's shortened lifespan was attributed to telomere loss. Telomeres are noncoding regions of simple repeated DNA sequences found at the end of chromosomes, which shorten after successive cell divisions and effectively give cells a lifespan.

As far as "genetically corrupted amino acids" go, amino acids are molecules--monomers which constitute the primary structure of proteins. Try as you might, but by definition you cannot "genetically corrupt" a molecule. Just like you cannot "rearrange" a single letter. We are talking several orders of magnitude difference here, and the reason that some scientifically-educated individuals on this site continue to gnaw on you so eagerly probably has much to do with you making comments like these.

Genetic mutations may cause alterations in gene product, producing a protein which is unlikely to function in its intended manner, but this is meaningless to the consumer since a.) the metabolic machinery of the animal would have long since shut down after death, and b.) when you digest such macromolecules, the very process of digestion degrades them into their monomers, regardless of whether you've eaten the intended or the unintended gene product. This is why you eat to begin with--to acquire the building blocks your body requires to function. You're not incorporating the ingested animal's DNA into your own genome.

[TroglodyteScholar]

125. "The only persons with potential to be harmed are the farmers and the food production industry."

I didn't take the time to read your entire thesis there, but this very important line relies on the shaky premise that there is no chance cloned meat could turn out to be unhealthy or dangerous.

If you already have your mind made up, it's very easy to tell us who the only people harmed will be, and for what terribly silly reasons--in this case, consumers' AWFULLY UNREASONABLE desire to be informed of the origin of their meat products.

[mike_c]

127. as you said, you didn't take the time to read it...

...before you commented.

[TroglodyteScholar]

136. Why read further...

...when the post began on such an egregiously biased note?

But hey, restating that I didn't read the rest of the post helped you avoid explaining your use of an unproven assumption. Bravo.

[mike_c]

137. OK, if you HAD read it you would have known...

...that that "egregiously biased note" was contextual--

(what if consumers) refused to buy it because they were afraid to eat it, even if there was no reason to fear it? In that case, the LABEL becomes the only impediment to consumption, not some underlying condition that requires labeling to insure consumer protection. The only persons with potential to be harmed (in that case) are the farmers and the food production industry.

--snip--

I do agree with you that consumers deserve the choice, and that everyone should know as much as possible about their food supply. But again, we presume they will use that information reasonably, not hysterically. If there is a known high probability that labeling will do harm to the producers without solving any real problems for consumers, is it reasonable to demand labeling just so that consumers can indulge irrational fears?

Yes, my comment was biased-- it was biased by the scenario it was discussing. The point I was striving to illustrate is the sentence in bold. I've included the parentheses to make the context clear in the excerpt.

[Zhade]

182. "a shocking level of biological illiteracy" INDEED.

It's astonishing how terrible science education is in this country - there are actually people who think it's a religion, or based on faith.

I weep for this nation when such ignorance holds sway even among liberal-minded people.

[AdHocSolver]

196. If you aren't given the opportunity to NOT buy cloned or GM food, your are no more than a guinea pig

If producers are allowed to withhold information from the consumer about whether the consumer is buying cloned meat, or genetically modified plants or animals, or milk from cows treated with rBGH then that consumer does not have a free market choice. It makes NO difference whether the consumer is making an intelligent choice or an irrational choice in not wanting to eat cloned or GM food.

It has to be the BUYER's decision on whether to eat the stuff or not. It is not, nor should it be, the consumer's concern with how much profit the producer will or will not make. A free market assumes that the buyer has all the relevant information to make an INFORMED decision when making a purchasing decision. If a consumer does NOT want to eat cloned meat, for whatever reason, if the producer denies that consumer the knowledge about the goods he is selling, that constitutes FRAUD.

The entire purpose of NOT labeling food properly is to protect producers from liability should something bad happen to the consumer later on.

This whole issue puts the lie to the idea that we have free markets. The markets are rigged to protect corporate profits from the legitimate concerns of consumers.

An example in another context is the problem of certain Firestone tires that were known to fail catastrophically for over a year before the company stopped selling them. Even the government knew about it, but failed to force a recall during that time.

[NashVegas]

114. Once Again, You Are Misleading People

we've been eating cloned fruits and vegetables for thousands of years, with no apparent harm. Why would cloned animals be any different?

When you can cut off a sheep's leg and it will regrow into a whole sheep after a couple of weeks in a glass of water ...

when a simple gardener can splice & inject genes in the back shed ...

you may not be misleading people.

[mike_c]

120. oh come on-- clonal reproduction has nothing to do with "splicing and injecting genes..."

You're confusing recombinant genetic engineering with clonal reproduction, which is just another form of reproduction. That's an example of the misinformed hysteria that I'm talking about. As for the rest, lots of animals do in fact reproduce clonally, e.g. by parthenogenesis-- we just don't normally eat the ones that do. Sheep don't-- you're right about that, but they CAN.

[Zhade]

181. Thank you for ACTUALLY KNOWING WHAT YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT.

I am so tired of people too ignorant of science to understand it slamming it.

[Vanje]

32. Screw with your genetics? Only if you mate with it

And then its the next generations genetics, and only if you somehow manage to produce viable offspring from screwing your cloned meat.
Not really very likely to screw with your genetics.

[ixion]

62. hmmmm... if that were true, there would be no cancer

something causes the genetic blueprint to corrupt, and in most cases, it's not mating.

[mike_c]

67. generally that's not the case....

Cancers CAN be caused by genetic damage in localized tissues, e.g. by radiation damage, but the majority of cancers are probably better understood as degenerative diseases or or as inherited (i.e. genetic) regulatory predispositions. The mechanisms of cell cycle regulation and multicellular "cooperation" are pretty complex-- there are LOTS of ways they can be circumvented. Most cancers probably don't have anything to do with "genetic damage" per se, but rather with degeneration of cell cycle regulation, cell-cell communication, metabolic regulation, or, if genetic damage is involved, DNA replication and repair mechanisms.

[ixion]

94. cancer can be caused by all sorts of things...many of the chemicals we encounter these days

for example. Asbestos being one of the most well known. We don't mate with asbestos, but that doesn't stop it from killing us.

All I'm saying is that we should know damn well what the long term effects of genetic modifications are before introducing them into our food supply.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

76. So now you're saying cloned meat causes cancer?

:rofl:

[ixion]

92. no, I'm saying changes to the RNA/DNA amino acid chains

can be caused by all sorts of things. I'm saying we don't know what the long term effects of genetic modifications are, and that we shouldn't just dismiss them.

But laugh it up anyway.

[mike_c]

105. with all due respect ,you're showing some biological illiteracy....

"RNA/DNA amino acid chains?"

This is one of the things I was talking about in #103 above.

[ixion]

153. yeah, you're right... I meant "enzymes"

my bad. That's what I get for quick posts without a quick fact check first. :hi:

[AikidoSoul]

44. You won't have a choice. It won't be stated on the label here in the U.S.

because this country doesn't go for "truth in labeling" like they do in Europe.

[D23MIURG23]

71. Biologically Its the equivalent of eating an identical twin.

You may already drink cloned coffee and not even know it.

[mike_c]

88. I can assure you that you do indeed drink cloned coffee...

...as well as eating cloned fruits and vegetables. Coffee is propagated from cuttings taken from successful plants. Most of our house plants are clones, too.

[NashVegas]

116. More Misleading Information!

Cuttings are regenerations of the original organism - which plants have a special ability to do and most animals do not.

Why do you keep spreading this lie?

[mike_c]

126. lie? it's freshman biology, my friend....

"Cuttings are regenerations of the original organism...." That's CLONES, Crisco. Reproduction by fragmentation is CLONING.

http://encarta.msn.com/dictionary_/clone.html

clone < klōn >


noun (plural clones)
Definition:

1. genetics genetically identical organism: a plant, animal, or other organism that is genetically identical to its parent, having developed by vegetative reproduction from a bulb, cutting, or other part, or, in experimental conditions, from a single cell

2. genetics group of genetically identical progeny: a collection of organisms, cells, or molecular segments that are genetically identical direct descendants of a single parent by asexual reproduction, e.g. plant cuttings or grafts

[NashVegas]

132. What Food Animals Have the Ability to Spontaneously Regenerate?

Free of human technological assistance?

[mike_c]

135. crustaceans for a start....

Look it up.

[D23MIURG23]

139. There isn't a biological distinction is the point.

Its artificial reproduction propagated at the somatic level. It happens to be easier to do in plants than animals, but that doesn't make it any more or less sinister, or imply that it didn't take research to figure out how to do it.

[NashVegas]

115. That Made a Lot of Money For the Cloning Company

As with all things in the GM/GE food business, the #1 beneficiaries are the boards of directors, CEOs and stockholders.

[D23MIURG23]

140. What's your point?

Is all corporate profit a bad thing?

The fact is you don't have any legitimate greivance against cloning food animals save for the fact that it makes you insecure on some vague undefined level.

Maybe that extra money for the "cloning" (biological or farming, pick one) company, will translate into more jobs in biology, which will then translate into more people pursuing biology as a carrer, which will in turn lessen the number of moronic assholes who think creation myths trump evolution and believe that a blastula of undifferentiated cells is a human life.

Would that be a bad thing?

[NashVegas]

152. Ah, Yes

The fact is you don't have any legitimate greivance against cloning food animals save for the fact that it makes you insecure on some vague undefined level.

Maybe that extra money for the "cloning" (biological or farming, pick one) company, will translate into more jobs in biology, which will then translate into more people pursuing biology as a carrer

When it comes to my food, I'll trust indie, open-source farmers before I'll trust patent-loving corporate biologists & boards & stockholders. Nothing vague about loathing the people who would take 10s of thousands of years of public domain knowledge, dump it, and tie the production of a life's necessity into the hands of a few wealth-seekers.

[D23MIURG23]

154. Thats certainly your prerogative.

I'm only arguing that there isn't any scientific reason why cloned food shouldn't be available. There are plenty of reasons not to eat mass farmed or processed foods in the first place.

But for the record I doubt that cloning will make traditional farming practices obsolete any time soon.

[sentelle]

173. right

Uh, meat reproduced in a lab? Uh, no thanks. I'll take thousands of years of traditional farming and husbandry to a few years in a lab, thank you.

My food already has a label on it. Its called 'organic'.

[Xithras]

91. Unless the food is radioactive or contains mutagenic compounds, your DNA is safe.

You don't integrate the food you eat into your body anyway. Your body ingests NUTRIENTS from the foot you eat, which your body then transforms into the parts it needs. The rest ends up in your toilet.

[ixion]

95. anything we put into our body can affect it...

asbestos is a great example of this.

[Xithras]

102. Any foreign body permanently embedded into the body is bad.

Asbestos actually isn't harmful from a chemical standpoint. The problem with asbestos is that the tiny fibers lodge themselves in your lungs where they inflame the tissue. Permanently inflamed tissue can become cancerous.

But we're not talking about permanently embedding meat here, or leaving anything behind. We're talking nutrients, and there is no difference between the nutrients found in cloned meat and naturally bred meat. It's possible that genetic mutations could cause the AMOUNTS or TYPES of nutrients in the meats to change, but the nutrients themselves aren't going to be impacted by the method used to bring the cow into the world.

[Evoman]

142. LOL...unless your charring the cloned meat, barbecue style, it won't

cause cancer. No more than any meat, anyways.

[Codeine]

172. That's insane.

The genes of what you eat will not impact your genes. It gets digested. Good grief.

[rayofreason]

174. What you wrote is unscientific nonsense

Specifically "... if there's a genetic issue with the cloned meat your eating, it could (possibly) screw with your genetics..."

I have no idea what you mean by a "genetic issue", but your statement reeks of sympathetic magic.

Some things you eat contain chemicals that are carcinogens, i.e., they promote the development of cancer cells, which are cells that have gone bad and reproduce out of control. However, carcinogens have no direct relationship to the genetic makeup of what you eat. If you grill meat you burn the outside, that burnt (tasty) part has some carcinogenic properties. Boil your meat and you avoid that. And all red meat can become carcinogenic in your lower intestine. leading to colon cancer. (see http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/abstract/293/2/172).

The only way that cloned meat could be more carcinogenic than regular meat is if the chemical structure of cloned meat were different in such a way that through cooking it would produce more carcinogenic materials, and this would be observable in tests. However, if the protein structure of the clone were much different that the progenitor, then it is likely that the clone would not be viable, so the point is moot. In any case there is no mechanism that the genetic structure of the food you eat can directly affect your own genetic structure.

[Cant trust em]

97. Why do we need to clone animals in the first place

Is there some breakdown in the natural reproductive process?

[NashVegas]

117. Because Some People Think They Have a Great Way to Get Rich Off of Cloning

Why does anything get rammed down our throats these days?

[Thor_MN]

131. Because Beau the bull was damn delicious...

His mother and father are long gone and even if we did store eggs and sperm from from them, we couldn't get an exact copy of Beau again.

What rancher wouldn't want 10,000 copies of that perfect animal? Of course, the motive is money. You get that once in a lifetime animal and start cranking out the copies. Less time and money spent on animals that produce low grade meat or milk.

Long term, if nothing but clones were being made, it would probably be bad for the species, but in the meantime, more prime beef and less of what you get at the discount grocery stores.

[Cant trust em]

155. mmmmm....beauburgers

[fed-up]

4. f*ck the FDA-"The agency hasn't recommended any special labeling for such products." nt

[TexasBushwhacker]

180. That's my main "beef"

There is enough concern in the general population that I feel we have a right to know whether our meat or dairy products come from cloned animals, just like I think we have a right to know if they use artificial hormones or antibiotics and the country of origin. We're putting in our body. We have a right to know the contents.

[2beToby]

5. I've heard a lot of people worry a whole lot about cloned meat

Is there some evidence out there that points to some sort of danger, or are people just worried about danger since it hasn't been around long enough to properly test it?

I'm actually pretty thrilled about the whole thing. I'm hoping we'll soon learn how to grow "meat." If we could develop a simple, fast way to clone muscle tissue, I'd be right in line. No worries about animals being mistreated. I still get some kind of non-veggie burger. Of course, I'd want it to be safe, but I'm not sure why to believe it wouldn't be.

What piece of the puzzle am I missing?

[flashl]

12. A reasoned response ...

ceemeister

Yes in principle a clone is no different than a manually produced identical twin. But the opponents of animal cloning for food aren't simply naive. There is a potential concern: Although a clone should be, essentially, a genetic twin of the donor animal, it doesn't always turn out that way.

Until the process is perfected, it is very common for clones to have genetic abnormalities and birth defects. A viable clone is actually very hard to produce. (Some clones don't even share the mitochondrial DNA of their donors.) The question is whether these abnormalities could affect the quality of the food, and I must admit this is a good question and one that must be addressed, even if cloned animals are only used for breeding purposes.

[mike_c]

16. but that has no impact on their suitability as food....

It does mean that the animals produced clonally are less likely to survive or express desirable food traits (rapid weight gain, etc). That makes the technology less attractive than the old fashioned way to make new baby animals, but it doesn't make them harmful to eat, or unpalatable, or whatever.

[flashl]

19. Why not plain old artificial insemination?

[mike_c]

22. yup-- that's one reason that I seriously doubt that clonal technology...

...will make any serious inroads into animal food products any time soon. ALL mammalian clones currently spend time in utero, so cloning is not a viable mass production method. That uterine bottleneck makes cloning no more efficient than sexual reproduction but it's still WAY more difficult and expensive. A food beast would have to have massively appealing characteristics to make it worth cloning. I just don't see it happening on any significant scale any time soon. Not with current tech.

That said, I don't think there is anything implicitly wrong with cloned animal foods-- I just don't think its a particularly viable technology at present.

[2beToby]

24. Why can't

we just grow muscle tissue? We grow skin, they've grown an ear and other stuff. Why bother with a whole animal? It's not like hoof is a major seller at the super market. Why can't we "clone" and grow the things we eat? No one worries about a skin graft screwing with their body on a molecular scale.

[mike_c]

37. At present we can't do that for a variety of reasons....

I'm not going to review them all here because it's a bit OT and would get real professorial real fast :-), but the major stumbling blocks have to do with the finite lifetimes of animal cell lines. Keeping them going requires (at present) fusing them with cancer cell lines or constant replacement from stem cell stocks-- and a whole host of as yet unsolved problems with nudging them to become the sort of cells we want, form the tissues we want, etc. We're just not there yet. Current clonal technology still requires that animals self assemble in utero.

But we're working toward exactly what you're proposing, and I agree with you about farming muscle tissue-- it could be a real boon to food production and would be WAY nicer to animals than what we do today. Its still over the horizon, though.

[2beToby]

38. oh okay, thanks for the info!

If I ever make a million dollars, I'll know what industry to invest in. =-)

[flashl]

29. Spot on ...

This is why I am curious, why go forward mainly with the urging from ONE group who are eager to have FDA’s stamp of approval.

[mike_c]

39. I think clonal tech will be viable for animal tissue production one day...

...and the possibility exists that someone will raise a cow or a pig that is just hugely attractive to consumers, making clones something they're willing to pay for, but otherwise I'm not sure what they're thinking. Maybe it's agribiz trying to anticipate and secure future markets.

[Dumak]

69. Oh Goodie ...

Those human meat steaks are going to taste awfully good.

[mike_c]

85. lol-- when you think about it...

...the economic impetus for developing cloned tissues is going to come from biomedical urgency long before it comes from competition to produce food. So yes, what WILL we do with all that surplus human muscle tissue grown for transplant but not used before its shelf life expires...?

[kirby]

30. You sound so certain....

You make a leap of 'faith' that a cloned animal will be identical in DNA. I guess by definition it is, but what about the ones that don't work? Yes some may die, but what about others that survive? What if some mutation in the DNA occurs (perhaps due to lab error, contamination, or sabotage) that does not cause the animal to die or be 'obviously' deformed (such as 2 heads). Why wouldn't that contamination cause problem we wont be able to detect.

This cloning business bothers me because even though I respect science, I think sometimes we are too arrogant to think we know everything. Unintended consequences is what bothers me.

[2beToby]

42. Cloned animals may not be identical yet

but hopefully we'll solve that soon. I'm not too worried about deformities, so long as they don't effect consumption. I'd eat a cow with two heads. I agree that we may be yet to understand the effects of eating cloned food. The FDA is a bit ahead of itself (we all know they suck). But I bet the future of cloned meat will be worthwhile when we've learned what we need to know.

As far a contamination, I hear your fears. I have a fear of water contamination myself. It just seems so easy to contaminate a water source... and it often seems they already have. I admit, I still use public water sources, constantly.

I can't imagine forcing people to eat food they don't want to eat, but I really can't wait for this stuff to be viable. I am hoping someone puts a whole lot of money into cloning technology sometime soon.

[kirby]

63. FDA allows this with NO labelling

"I can't imagine forcing people to eat food they don't want to eat, but I really can't wait for this stuff to be viable"

Isn't that what the FDA just did though? The corporate interests thought people would see a label that said 'Cloned' Beef and due to 'ignorance' not buy it. Consumer thought they have the right to know what they ingest. The Corporate side won.

[2beToby]

68. I completely agree that the FDA is garbage

I'm for labeling, and I was even more pissed off when Bush jumped in and STOPPED smaller companies from labeling their beef mad-cow tested. My comment and question though, was more about why people are worried about cloned foods. I've since gotten a lot of replies and a much better idea on what exactly people are worried about, but I've been with you since the beginning on the fact that the FDA is often wrong, and sometimes intentionally misleading.

Despite my confidence, I don't believe people should be forced, due to lack of information, to eat cloned foods. And by all means, if you know anyone who sets up a protest petition against the FDA and their ridiculous "guidelines" that isn't also anti-cloning or pro all-natural foods, send it my way. Hell, maybe I'll write something up and see how it sounds.

I'll do some research to figure out who exactly would I could send a letter to. Probably won't accomplish much, but at least the message would be there.

[mike_c]

49. I talked about that a little up thread....

Yes, by definition clones have identical genomes, but there are still LOTS of variables to account for. You mentioned one-- mutation. Remember though, to affect the whole clone mutations would have to occur very early in development.

That's a complex subject. First, the DNA copy mechanism is remarkably good at preventing mutations, so the likelihood is low to begin with. Second, the overwhelming majority of mutations either occur in non-coding portions of the DNA, where they have no impact at all on the animal, or they're fatal and would prevent most animals from entering the food supply. Third, unless the mutation affected palatability, it's hard to imagine why it would be an issue *from a food suitability perspective*. I emphasize that last point because that's what this thread is about, rather than about appropriate animal husbandry. Fourth, the outcome of development, the animal phenotype, is the result of the INTERACTION between the genes and the environment, including the cytoplasmic environment of the donor ovum, the uterus of the host mother, and everything else the animal and its DNA encounter during its lifetime.

Finally, there is a much greater likelihood that the developmental issues we see in some cloned animals today have more to do with gene expression problems than with mutations. After all, cloning mammals involves placing determined somatic cell nuclei into eggs, where the cytoplasmic environment effectively restarts developmental gene expression (this is over simplified, but a pretty good model for what happens, I think). There are a LOT of unknowns in that process-- we treat it essentially as a black box at present.

But in the end, an animal with two heads or with any number of other genetic anomalies is still just meat when its muscles and other organs are cut up for food. We harvest PARTS, and unless they're underdeveloped, they're just fine no matter what their genetic provenance.

[kirby]

66. Poison?

"Third, unless the mutation affected palatability, it's hard to imagine why it would be an issue *from a food suitability perspective*"

Couldn't a mutation, if it occurred, cause the cloned meat to be toxic/poison to humans?

Who is going to ensure the safety of this food supply? By definition, for it to be a clone, the entire DNA would need to be compared with the original. Will we fall into the 'thats too costly to check every cloned animal' and just assume the output of the cloning process resulted in an true/exact clone. Or a mentality of 'Well that section of DNA, we dont know much about, but its not criticial, so we will ignore its mutation'.

It seems this science is still in it infancy, yet the FDA has already given a green light to using the technique and not even require labeling.

[mike_c]

73. I almost included that possibility, but...

...since we're mainly talking about mammalian tissue, and the SOURCE of such poisons would have to be normal mammalian metabolic paths (since the proposed causes are genetic), in virtually every instance I can imagine the toxin would be toxic to the food animal as well, and would be included in the fatal mutation outcome.

Who is going to ensure the safety of this food supply? By definition, for it to be a clone, the entire DNA would need to be compared with the original. Will we fall into the 'thats too costly to check every cloned animal' and just assume the output of the cloning process resulted in an true/exact clone. Or a mentality of 'Well that section of DNA, we dont know much about, but its not criticial, so we will ignore its mutation'.

There is currently no "cloning process" that duplicates an animal's DNA, so there is no need to check its accuracy. Cloning a mammal involves replacing a haploid egg nucleus with a diploid somatic nucleus-- the nucleus from a normal body cell-- so thr somatic cell's own DNA replication and repair mechanism has checked it and approved. There is still some vanishingly small possibility of mutation, of course, as there is in all cells following DNA replication, but the nuclear repair mechanism is FAR more accurate than anything we could do in its stead today, and as has been pointed out up thread, mutation is almost never a concern anyway because it's nearly always either non-coding or fatal.

It seems this science is still in it infancy, yet the FDA has already given a green light to using the technique and not even require labeling.

No one has yet demonstrated any compelling reason not too, other than hysteria and unreasoned fear, IMO. It's not like no one has TRIED to find reasons why cloned organisms are unsafe to eat, and we've been eating cloned plant tissue for thousands of years, so why not?

[Evoman]

149. Great post.

A lot better than my shitty one below. Of course, it's 3 am here an I'm tired :)

[Vanje]

46. A.I. use is widespread in meat and dairy production.

Embryo transfer is fairly common in dairy cattle.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

77. Fair question.

I heard a farmer talking about this a few months ago. I can't remember the details, but the cloning was more efficient, more practical, and more cost effective in some cases.

[flashl]

83. IIRC, I have read several articles suggesting that cloning cost more

If that's true, how do we get to cost efficiency?

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

87. Again, I'm not remembering the details...

but I think of it along the lines of studding is too random, and you can only get so much semen out of one bull, but with cloning you know you're getting quality every time and you can produce as many fertilized ova as you want.

Again, I could be getting it all wrong.

But this whole thing wouldn't be an issue if their weren't farmers who wanted to do it, and farmers ain't stupid.

[mike_c]

86. it's hard to imagine what those cases might be....

The only one I can think of offhand is maintaining a incredibly valuable pure lineage after an animal is dead. But it's still hard to imagine what the economic threshold for such a thing might be-- for consumption, mind you.

[NashVegas]

118. Even That's Been Debunked, Now

There was a BBC article I posted a few weeks ago, on race horse studies from specific champion lines. Conclusion: nurture over nature.

[Evoman]

150. What sort of cases?

I mean, even if the cow was damn tasty, it's not like your never gonna get another tasty one.

Seems like a waste of money and time to me. Just take your best cows and just let 'em get it on.

[2beToby]

23. Thanks for that post

Definitely a reasonable response. I'm thinking the FDA's approval was premature (I've come down to the conclusion that the FDA is pretty much always wrong the first time). But I am very much looking forward to when we have perfected cloning.

[fed-up]

14. cloned animals die at a younger age than normal-not nice to fool mother nature

http://www.mindfully.org/GE/Cloned-Cows-Die.htm

Cloned cows die at Chico State University

AP 2apr01

`It is not uncommon for cloned animals to have problems with their immune systems,'' Crabb said.
CHICO, CA -- Two of three cloned heifers at the California State University, Chico, farm have died and the third may be in trouble, said farm officials.

One of the three calves died at the farm last week. Another died over the weekend at the University of California, Davis, which has also participated in the cloning experiment.

The three heifers were born March 9 to two surrogate cows. A total of 28 cloned embryos were implanted into 14 surrogate Hereford cows. The three calves were the only ones to survive.

Charles Crabb, dean of the university's college of agriculture, said the cows probably died from a bacteria buildup in their stomachs.

``It is not uncommon for cloned animals to have problems with their immune systems,'' Crabb said.

The two animals that have died came from the same surrogate mother. The third animal is feverish and has been moved to UC Davis, Crabb said.

The animals were part of a cloning experiment done by Cyagra, a Kansas-based biotechnology firm. The cows were at Chico State to see how they would perform in a typical farm setting.

The heifers were only three-weeks old when they were shown to the public for the first time in mid-March



http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn3393

...snip
The type of lung disease Dolly developed is most common in older sheep. And in January 2002, it was revealed that Dolly had developed arthritis prematurely. She was cloned using a cell taken from a healthy six-year-old sheep, and was born on 5 July 1996 at the Roslin Institute, Edinburgh, Scotland.

..snip

Some cloned mammals, including Dolly, have shorter telomeres than other animals of the same age. Telomeres are pieces of DNA that protect the ends of chromosomes. They shorten as cells divide and are therefore considered a measure of ageing in cells.

The only study of cloned mammals that have lived long enough to determine any effect on lifespan revealed that the mice involved died prematurely. The research was conducted at the National Institute of Infectious Diseases in Tokyo, Japan, and published in February 2002. Other cloned animals appear normal and healthy, for example the 24 calf clones created by US cloning company Advanced Cell Technology, but these have yet to live long enough to draw any conclusions.

On 2 February 2003, Australia's first cloned sheep died unexpectedly at the age of two years and 10 months. The cause of death is unknown and the carcass was quickly cremated, as it was decomposing.

[Lance_Boyle]

17. Food animals die at a younger age anyway, to become food.

So what?

[2beToby]

21. Definitely something to be weary about until we figure out

what's causing the early deaths. But I think given time, we will have cloning down pat. I agree that the FDA approval has come too soon.

[The Minus World]

143. That piece would be

hysteria, or perhaps the scientific illiteracy which propagates it.

[devilgrrl]

8. If this isn't a case for vegetarianism, I don't what is...

:puke:

[Lance_Boyle]

18. Better watch out for cloned plants, too, right?

Wait... we've been eating those for generations with no apparent harm. I wonder if those decades of experience might inform our judgment of cloned meat? Nah - hysterical FUD is by far the better option.

[Name removed]

34. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Lance_Boyle]

45. logical, informative reply

:eyes:

[devilgrrl]

54. glad you like it...

:hi:

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

89. So your issue's not the cloning...

it's the slaughtering. Right?

OK.

[devilgrrl]

93. Yes, that's my deal.

:shrug:

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

96. Alright then.

So we can just go ahead and dismiss your silly objections.

[devilgrrl]

99. Oh, so you don't like my objections?

Well, too fuckin' bad.

:popcorn:

[Name removed]

100. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Name removed]

106. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Name removed]

108. Deleted sub-thread

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Zhade]

183. Better stop eating veggies, then - otherwise you're a hypocrite.

Countless plants are slaughtered to feed humans every day. Oh, they can't feel it, but you're no less guilty of robbing them of life than someone eating a steak.

[Vanje]

35. People have been eating cloned plants for centuries.

Ever rooted grape cuttings?
Grafted an apple branch?
Planted a cutting of peppermint or spearmint?

Plants are easy to clone.
Animals , not so much. It would be a very inefficient way to produce farm animals.

[devilgrrl]

53. Inefficient as well as gross.

And screw anyone who doesn't like my opinion! :nuke:

[NashVegas]

119. Go Cut Off a Cow's Head And Put It In Water, See If a Cow Grows Back

We'll both make billions.

[mike_c]

124. you've been harping about this all over this thread....

Animal cells are not totipotent and plant cells are, but there is no functional difference between cloning plants and animals whatsoever. Cloning is just another way to reproduce diploid individuals. Most animals-- not all-- can only do that via their gametes, but they CAN do it that way. Some do it themselves (e.g. parthenogenesis), others retain the mechanism but don't use it. Animal cloning simply uses that existing mechanism by replacing a gamete nucleus with a diploid somatic nucleus. It's not even genetic engineering, just assisted reproduction.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

79. Except many fruits and vegetables are just clones of each other.

Bananas, for instance. All clones.

[mike_c]

109. isn't "clones of each other" a bit redundant...?

:rofl:

[NashVegas]

122. This Whole False Argument Is Redundant

Not very nice of you all, to pretend there's no difference between a cloned animal and plant cuttings.

[mike_c]

128. you've spread this drivel all over this thread....

You don't know what you're talking about. You've provided lots of examples of exactly the sort of ignorant and ill-informed hysteria mentioned earlier in this thread.

[NashVegas]

129. I Have Responded to Your (and Others') Misleading Pro-Cloning Arguments

Nothing more or less.

[mike_c]

130. responded WRONGLY, with misunderstandings-- it's clear that...

...you don't even understand what cloning is, yet you fear and loathe it. Your ignorance of basic biology is staggering. Yet you're all over this thread "responding."

[NashVegas]

133. If I'm So Ignorant

How come no one can explain why it's possible to regrow a whole, functioning cow or sheep from a part that's been cut off and left to sit in water for a week or two?

Answer: because it's not.

Conclusion: cloned food animals are vastly different from plant cuttings and anyone who says otherwise is either very ignorant or, by now, purposefully misleading.

[mike_c]

134. learn some biology, Crisco-- your ravings will make more sense...

'bye. :hi:

[Tumbulu]

161. You are very rude

Crisco has not raved. You have and you have also misled others who are perhaps not trained as scientists.

Please stop it. And also please stop accusing anyone who dares to correct your posts as hysterical.

If something is going to be claimed to be safe, it simply must be tested.

We all know that the cloning of farm animals is the result of breakthrough advances in a very new technology. It is not plant propagation. We cannot assume safety from plant propagation. Testing is required before any safety claims can be made.

[mike_c]

162. rude? Crisco called me a liar...

...and he doesn't know what he's talking about.

[NashVegas]

163. You Accuse Me of Being Ignorant ...

Yet you can't even be bothered to look at someone's profile to get a correct gender. Why should anyone take it on faith you're correct in your arguments supporting GM / GE food on our tables?

Perhaps I was wrong and you weren't intentionally using misleading comparisons ... perhaps you just took that on faith, as well.

[mike_c]

164. ah-- sorry-- I think it was the old bat-boy avatar...

...or is my memory completely breaking down? That's what I remembered, anyway. A male avatar.

Correction duly noted.

[NashVegas]

168. Heheheh

You seen TahitiNut's avatar lately?

You ever seen TN's home page?

:toast:

[Zhade]

184. He already DESTROYED that flimsy argument.

"Is that just snark, or were you really unaware that plants are frequently reproduced clonally? Your subsequent comments about cuttings make me suspect the former, so I'll assume you know the difference between totipotent cells and non-totipotent cells. Totipotency is the only reason plant clones propagate easily from tissue samples and most animal clones do not (there are animal exceptions, we just don't eat them)."

You should learn some basic biology.

[NashVegas]

188. You Should Try Seeing the Forest Through the Trees

I know enough about biology to understand that the process from which cuttings are taken from plants, which can then regrow mostly unassisted via parthenogenesis, is vastly different from replacing embryo nuclei in mammals, and to understand that anyone who says different in the attempt to persuade others' opinions is selling snake oil.

[Zhade]

189. No, you clearly DON'T know enough biology.

NT!

[NashVegas]

193. I Don't Know Enough About Biology For What? To Make a Cloned Animal? No Shit

That's the point of it all right there.

Bio-industry standing on the shoulders of millenniums of knowledge, filing for patents on methods they push through Washington to be deemed acceptable, with the intention of replacing traditional, open source methods with the patent process.

Say, do those clones come with terminator genes?

[customerserviceguy]

171. I've read all your posts, Mike

and I see that you've tried to engage nonscientific minds with reason and logic. Unfortunately, there are a lot of Luddites on this board, who think they live only a few steps above the diet of cave people. Fortunately, in the developed nations, and many of the undeveloped ones, we've gone far beyond that.

Even though your words seem like they fall on deaf ears, I salute you for your effort to bring science into this discussion. Some threads read like FReeptard topics involving evolution, if you ever go there, you'll see what I mean. Some people refuse to give up irrational beliefs, no matter how much fact you show them.

[AdHocSolver]

197. Many of the developed nations of Europe BAN genetically modified foods...

or, at least, require them to be labeled as such.

At any rate, the safety or lack thereof, of cloned or genetically modified foods is irrelevant.

Consumers have a right to know the origin of what they eat. That is why foods are labeled. I have a right to decide not to buy cloned meat, even if it is perfectly safe, and I am irrational about it. If a producer of food misrepresents the food as not being cloned or GMed, by not labeling it as such, that is fraud.

Hindu's do not eat meat or any animal product. A few years ago, a Hindu family ate some french fries at a major fast food chain which they were told was cooked in vegetable oil. It turns out that the fries were soaked in meat extract for flavoring, but this was a "secret" ingredient. They sued and the fast food chain settled out of court.

The only reason for not labeling food properly is to protect corporations from law suits. It can only cause harm to unknowing consumers. This is not "free market" economics when the consumer is at the mercy of the corporations.

Most of this post skirts the real issue. It is not about whether the food is safe to eat or not. It is about whether a consumer has a right to know what he is buying or his right can be trumped by corporate fraud.

[Javaman]

11. The only problem with the cloned meat is:

you are hungry 20 minutes later even though you still feel full.

[Lorien]

15. Meh, they know that NOTHING they can do to animals will stop people

from scarfing down their beloved burgers and bacon. It could be cloned, diseased and radioactive and people would still salivate over it (not far from that now, actually).

[flvegan]

26. Of course, the choice to just not eat this shit still exists.

But then, "it tastes good" trumps common sense time and again.

[Evoman]

148. You have a moral objection.

And that's cool. Being a veg really is admirable to me (although I am not one myself). But cloned animals are no more "shit" that non-cloned animals.

[Rose Rosetree]

178. A planetary choice, not just personal taste

What are the consequences for the people you love, and for strangers who are, after all, still human?

Energetically cloned animals are radically different than tinkered-with plants. Cloned animals do not have auras, which is the scariest thing I personally have seen as a professional aura reader and healer. Eating them is the equivalent of putting something totally alien --not just distasteful--inside your body.

Really, we don't know the results, do we? I predict that the consequence is becoming more dead inside with every mouthful. I don't mean poisoned-type dead, I mean half-alive, numb, incurious, and aurically diminished.

[OneBlueSky]

27. a little soylent green around the corner? . . .

frankenfoods are not healthy for children and other living things . . .

[AllyCat]

28. Gross. Buy organic and local n/t

[stubtoe]

31. Many fruits and nuts are clones and have been for generations

Pears, apples, bananas, grapes, blueberries, boysenberries, citrus, dates, figs, peaches, cherries, olives....

Walnuts, pistachios, hazelnuts, hops, mint, almond, pecan, strawberries...

Been eating them all for years - maybe I've gotten a little nutty or fruity, but otherwise no ill effects.

[Lance_Boyle]

50. Shhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

Your logic might un-frighten the FUDies - can't have that.

[Tumbulu]

52. cloning plants is something that we humans have had some experience with

And there have been many hundreds of generations of eaters to decide if it is safe or not.

Why are new technologies in the area of food considered innocent until proven guilty by mass health problems? What ever happened to testing?

[Rose Rosetree]

177. I couldn't agree more, Tumbulu

Cloned animals have no aura. Eating this is radical eating. It is like bringing science fiction into everyday life.

I've been thinking about this topic a lot and have concluded (for now) that this issue is on a par with global warning, only potentially easier to change, if many of us act now.

To help you, and your friends, consider the broader implications of this untested experiment, I have posted a quiz here:

http://web.tickle.com/net/caq/quiz.html?id=13443952

Try it! Or don't! But either way, please, invite everyone you know to take action by contacting the politicians who represent you at the federal level. Make noise. Only martyrs go quietly!

[NashVegas]

123. Again - When You Can Cut Off A Cow's Head, Stick It In Water & Grow a New One ...

Get back to me.

[mike_c]

165. this just shows how little you know about biology....

When you learn WHY this is an utterly meaningless obfuscation, get back to us.

[Zhade]

185. Once again, this nonsensical argument has been utterly defeated upthread.

"Is that just snark, or were you really unaware that plants are frequently reproduced clonally? Your subsequent comments about cuttings make me suspect the former, so I'll assume you know the difference between totipotent cells and non-totipotent cells. Totipotency is the only reason plant clones propagate easily from tissue samples and most animal clones do not (there are animal exceptions, we just don't eat them)."

[cascadiance]

36. Just last night on Letterman they "joked" about glow in the dark cloned meat...

Perhaps it won't be a joke not too long in the future... Perhaps we really will see glow in the dark food at supermarkets!

[baby_mouse]

40. eur!

won't be eating that...

[JBoy]

41. Just wait for it

Once they approve cloned meat for human consumption, they will make it illegal for suppliers to label their products as NOT containing cloned meat.

[AikidoSoul]

110. You've got it right N/T

[Divine Discontent]

43. I've the pro and neg

and yes I see, that if perfected (Ann Coulter is salivating), this could be a way to stop world hunger. It just feels like were going to get some horribly irreversible mutation popping up from this. just because we can, should we? I would think this science needs 20 more years of perfection, but I guess the profit projections are rolling in - and there's no stopping wealth - err - progress!

[Vanje]

48. I dont see animal cloning doing anything for world hunger

Its an extrememly inefficient production method.

[winter999]

64. Yes, today, you're right...

But what about tomorrow. Once they can automate the process, there's nothing to stop hundreds of factories pumping out assembly-line meat. Remember, once upon a time, only the most very wealthy in the world could afford cars, plane trips, etc. Automation brings out-of-reach goods to the common man.

[Evoman]

147. The thing is, winter...

it's never going to be that easy. Not easier than just mating the damn cows. You still need surrogate mothers and you still need to feed the damn things. Your not just building a cow...that's not how it works.

[NashVegas]

192. In Factory Farming

I wonder if the cows might be too stressed out for the natural way?

[Evoman]

146. Not really.

Having cows and bulls doing the nasty is a lot more efficient than cloning, and that hasn't solved world hunger.

[Divine Discontent]

47. but no full stem cell research, no no, can't have that! n/t

[iamthebandfanman]

55. duh, its okay to play God when it comes to animals

dontcha know ?

[2beToby]

70. I don't believe anyone is playing God unless

they start demanding you to kill other living, breathing humans in their name. Pretty much what a vast majority of popular religions have supported at one time or another.

When people are manipulating cells I call it playing scientist, and I'm a-okay with that.

[iamthebandfanman]

111. well

youd win an election with the caananites with that campaign talk, wouldnt ya ? haha

[2beToby]

112. who knows

apparently Huck thinks we should be a theocracy, seems like anything is possible these days.

[Divine Discontent]

74. lol

[happyslug]

51. This has been the big push for cloning since the 1970s

In the 1970s efforts to further mechanized the butchering process failed do to the fact each animal is different, and it was impossible to develop an automatic way to butcher them. Cloning appeared to be the solution to this problem, i.e. a clone is exactly like any other clone so the differences are minor if any. Thus it will be easier to automate the butchering process, each animal will be exactly the same. Thus to eliminate the Human element needed to probably to butcher an animal the FDA has been pushing Cloning for at least 30 years. This is to reduce the cost to industry more than anything else and the result of a very long process.

[mike_c]

57. cloning does NOT produce animals that are "exactly the same...."

This is a myth propagated by the press and others who don't have much biology background. Cloning produces organisms with identical genomes, but the expression of those genomes-- the organism's phenome, its physical body, its metabolism, and so on-- results from interactions between that genome and its environment, including its intracellular biochemical environment. There are just too many variables in play to produce identical organisms.

Do you have fruit trees? If you do, recall that all of the fruit on a given tree is genetically identical (only the seeds inside the fruit differ), and that all trees of a given variety are clones and therefore genetically identical as well, yet no two fruits are every identical in appearance, weight, shape, color, etc.

[happyslug]

104. I just reported why the FDA is for Cloning, it eliminates ONE set of Variables.

If you can raise the animals in minimize the other variables it will produce more uniform bodies for any automated system. Thus cloning has been a goal for FDA since the 1970s in its duty to "help" commercial activities. Cloning along with raising the animals in identical cages (so they can NOT move, eliminating THAT source of variation) may produce more uniform bones and meat. All I reported was this has been an FDA project since at least the 1970s. a "Goal" for the FDA. Whether this will work out is another question, but Cloning continues to be a goal for the FDA NOT to improve food itself, but to further automate the processing of such animals.

[Rose Rosetree]

175. Who Cares About Frankenburgers?

For the last few days, I've been sounding the alarm about the
FDA's legalization of cloned cows, pigs and goats. My paper,
The Washington Post, carried this story on Wednesday, January
16, placing the article on page three, underneath the
"way more important story" that the local Red Cross
office would cut some staff.

Who cares about having cloned meat enter the food supply…
unlabeled? Who is protesting? 

Not my newspaper, where all I've seen since was one short
letter to the editor. England, now there people have been
protesting about our decision. Americans, gee, why would we
bother?

In the European Union, you won't find some of our beloved and
questionable preservatives, like BHA and BHT. You won't be
able to buy milk from cows who have been crazed by doping them
to produce unnatural quantities of milk. Europeans get it.
Evidently good quality and common sense matter more than
greed.

Maybe the cause is their collective memory, dating back to the
Roman empire. One reason it fell, historians say, was the
style of plumbing. Lead in the pipes, who cares?

NO AURA IN CLONED ANIMALS, ALSO NO BIG DEAL?

If you read auras, read the auras of Dolly, the cloned sheep
and Scuppy, the cloned dog. (Both are easy to find on Google
and easier to find at my blog, www.rose-rosetree.com/blog.

I believe the technical term for what you'll get is
"Yeeeccccchhhhhh." You certainly won't find an aura.
That's the point. Cloned animals are machines. Is eating
machines good for a person energetically? Unless we protest,
we'll find out soon enough.

Uniformity will be the least of our problems.

[karlrschneider]

58. And here come the hordes of tinfoilers...........

:eyes:

[michaz]

59. Good bye meat and dairy! n/t

[Rose Rosetree]

176. But think outside the (lunch)box, my friend

Since I started having conversations on this topic, many people have told me, in effect, "No big deal." They don't eat meat themselves. They never drink milk. They're appalled at all the cruelty foisted on our steroid-doped, hormone-doped non-organic cows. They don't see cloning as very different.

Well, they're wrong. A doped-up, miserable cow doesn't have a really inspiring aura. At least it is energetically alive. Frankenburgers and Frankenmilk might just as well be imported from Mars. Energetically, they are completely bizarre.

My friend Neville Johnson saw cloned cows one day while driving on a country road in Virginia. First he saw one calf with a cute little white patch on her face. Then Neville looked up and saw the rest of the herd, every single animal carrying that quirky little white patch. His comment was: "Once people eat animals like this, or drink their milk, we're going to see neurological diseases that make Parkinson's look like a picnic."

Please, don't just change your eating habits. Don't just hold polite debates with your friends. Supplement anything else you are or aren't doing by contacting your senators and representative NOW. At my blog, I have a link to all these govt. types, plus a sample letter that you can improve. (That's http://www.rose-rosetree.com ) However you do it, protest this atrocity!

[KamaAina]

61. Gives a whole new meaning to the concept of a "double cheeseburger", doesn't it?

:puke: :puke: :puke:

[conspirator]

151. LOL

[Historic NY]

65. Hmmmmmm honey my steak always tastes the same....n/t.

[ooglymoogly]

75. It is inevitable

[lovuian]

78. We don't know what the results of eating a cloned animal is

after 50 or 60 years but we know what its like to eat chicken or a cow for over centuries

[balantz]

80. "I'll take some more untested, mass-produced animal product with my global warming, please!"

[thereismore]

82. Cloned animals die younger and have arthritis and other problems. Are they sick?

Should we eat sick animals? We might start developing funny inflammatory diseases.

[Evoman]

145. Not exactly.

It's probably because of shortened telomeres, though it hasn't been shown conclusively.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telomere

[humbled_opinion]

84. I am weaning myself off of

Meat especially beef and pork... I'm still ok with Chicken and fish oh its gonna be hard to give up the chicken.... but the more crap I read like this the more likely I am to do it... Plus there is no way I can affort organic... I wish the government would subsidize those of us that wish to eat organic but have fixed incomes or certain income levels... don't just feed me cheese and peanut butter... and cereal...

[Mountainman]

101. I gave up all meat 12 years ago. You can get a lot of veggie meats like chick patties and

sausage and ground meat made from soy and other things. I get veggie meat balls from Trader Joe's and put them in spaghetti and no one is the wiser. I have veggie sausage patties and except for the missing salt you can't tell the difference. Right now I'm eating a veggie salami sandwich with mustard. I don't miss meat at all.

[chasitynola]

98. It is amazing to me

that the FDA can approve this insane usage of cloned animals and still have very beneficial drugs for the public tied up for years...decades...forever....

[Xenotime]

138. This could help the environment

[Evoman]

144. Man, the only thing this thread has taught me is that more people need to take biology classes.

Let me hit you with the truth: eating cloned meat is the same damn thing as eating non-cloned meat. Same thing. No difference. None.

Let me also put it to you this way: if some farmer had a cow that gave birth to some tasty twin cows, would you think about eating one cow, and then be disgusted at the thought of eating it's twin? If you replied no, then there is no reason for you to not to eat cloned meat.

The only difference between cloned meat and non-cloned meat is that the cloned animal has DNA with less telomeric sequence at it's end (an even that isn't always the case). Though the resulting animal will certainly not be identical (except from a DNA standpoint), the chances that it will be some freaky mutant is minimal. Even if it was, it makes absolutely NO DIFFERENCE to your (the consumer's) body. None.

I will also repeat something that was stated above. You ready? CLONING is not the same thing as RECOMBINANT TECHNOLOGY. All that splicing and modifying your afraid of? Not an issue. While I would share certain reservations about recombinant tecnology (no doubt a whole lot less than some of the hysterical people in this thread, however), a clone is not going to hurt you. Unless it kicks you in the nuts.

Now then, moral objections are a different beast altogether. If you have misgivings about treating animals no differntly than we treat plants or other "products", that's fine. Don't eat the cloned meat. Maybe don't eat any meat. I'm not a veg, but I completely understand your concerns. But if you believe that cloned meat is going to give you a third arm, cancer, or mutant babies, then you are being ignorant and need to hit the biology books.

And don't barbeque or heavily process your meat....that WILL give you cancer, clone or no clone.

[ironrooster]

157. hold on there !

1)If cloned animals suffer more from illnesses associated w/premature aging (shortened telomeres or not...) what about BSE which has been associated with older cattle?

2)Where is the data on percentages of clones that are healthy compared to those animals w/immune disorders?

You can say it's just meat - but that doesn't make it the case. I don't think you need to be so dismissive of others concerns.

[mike_c]

160. setting aside the matter of prions for a second...

...you cannot "catch" genetic (metabolic) disorders from meat. They're not communicable. Most would not alter food quality at all, and any that did would defeat the whole purpose, which is to produce high quality copies of desirable genomes. If you cloned T-Bone the beauteous bull but got offspring that were skinny and tough, or too sickly to gain biomass, the whole question would be moot, wouldn't it?

Prions-- well, I'm not sure what to say about that. As I understand it, BSE is a potential problem in the human food supply primarily because diseased cows are in the animal food supply. Older, diseased animals introduce it into younger animals bound for the slaughter house when they're used to supplement the diet of the younger animals. It makes no difference whether the diseased animals were produced sexually or asexually-- the key to keeping BSE in check is to not feed cow proteins to other cows.

[kestrel91316]

156. Why I oppose cloning livestock for our food supply:

I don't give a damn whether or not it is "safe" for me to eat. I'm quite sure it is. It's just muscle flesh, for pete's sake. Do they really think we are stupid enough not to understand that?

The safety brouhaha is all just a smokescreen to distract the MSM and the sheeple from the REAL ISSUES here: the dominance of megacorporations over family and diversified farming operations, and the loss of biodiversity in our livestock.

We DON'T need any more monocultures, and a herd of clones is about as extreme a form of monoculture as you can get. Talk about a biological and economic catastrophe just waiting to happen!

I don't want ONE CENT of my consumer dollars going to support this sort of "more-profits-before-all-else" corporate folly.

[mike_c]

159. personally, I think it's really unlikely that cloning will be economically...

...viable for mass production of food any time soon. Each zygote produced asexually-- at significant expense-- still has to be gestated normally in a host animal's uterus, where it competes with baby animals produced the old fashioned way at much less cost. I can see cloning used for some other purposes, mainly to preserve some exceptionally valuable blood lines or even just heirloom varieties (I'd clone condors or mountain gorillas in a skinny minute), but not to produce meat-- for consumption-- not unless that meat is DAMNED special!

[kestrel91316]

167. Cloning as a means of preserving rare genetic lines from

extinction is where it should be done - NOT so corporate agribusinesspersons can get even richer from their factory "farms".

But yes, I tend to agree that at some point they will realize it's not economically viable, and the consumers DON'T WANT IT.

[Zhade]

186. "Do they really think we are stupid enough not to understand that?"

They might, if they read some of the laughable ignorance of biological science on this thread!

[yewberry]

158. The question for me is, who stands to gain?

Cloning animals is more expensive and less efficient than the 'old-fashioned' method. Cloned animals still have to be implanted into a uterus to develop, so it's not like there's some kind of magic involved the development.

At the same time, it's not good news for animals. I know there are people who don't think that animal treatment (or mistreatment) is a real concern when we talk about "food animals," but there are reasons to be concerned. More animals potentially undergoing underregulated procedures and a variety of birth defects that might not otherwise occur aren't exactly things to look forward to from the standpoint of the individual animals. Also, the further commodification of the lives of animals adds yet another emotional barrier between people and the animals they eat. There's a temptation to see cloned animals as less worthy of compassion or consideration because they're cloned.

So, what's the deal? Will groups find a way to trademark an animal's genes somehow? Who wins in this scenario? It won't be small farmers, who can't afford the expense of this kind of production. It won't be consumers, who've expressed discomfort with the idea. It won't be animals.

Someone stands to make money here, and that's what I would like to understand.

[inMD]

166. I have no problem eating cloned meat

but it costs more to clone than breed naturally or even artificial insemanation, so I don't see it as part of the food supply for a while.

But, I question the logic of cloning only a few genetic lines of animals (while other lines are used only for food supply, not breeeding, thus those lines are ended).

First, cloned animals still have to be raised and they may breed themselves, and it is this in-breeding that could damage the food supply. I've had a friend point out that we could clone only females to prevent this. I consider that to be a dangerous prospect to limit a species to one sex.

Second, wouldn't it be desireable to have the highest genetic variety for natural selection that occurs with environmental changes...cloning limits genetic variety.

It seems our knowledge in genetics and evolution are ignored when it comes to applications of other advances in science.

[Rose Rosetree]

170. The Scary Aura of Cloned Beef

In my line of work, I read plenty of scary auras, people who
are crazy or cruel or downright evil. But nothing scares me
more than the aura of cloned beef and milk.

Tuesday, the FDA announced that cloned beef is fine, just
fine. "Meat and milk from cattle, swine and goat clones
are as safe as food we eat every day," announced the
Director of the FDA's Center for Food Safety and Applied
Nutrition, concluding a six-year study. 

Clearly that study was conducted by people who don't know, or
care, about half of life. That would be the more interesting
half, the half that isn't material but spiritual.

So the FDA, in its partial wisdom, concludes that clones are
just fine, and indistinguishable from real animals.
Absolutely... if you don't have a soul. Because if you read
the aura of any cloned animal, you will find a machine.  

Trees, plants, flowers, puppies, people – all living things
have vibrancy encoded right in their energy fields. They have
auras. Not so with clones. 

I know, because I have read a photograph of Dolly, pictured
above. She was the first cloned animal reported in the news.
It was one of the most frightening experiences I've ever had
as an aura reader, like entering into a science fiction world
where, to the superficial eye, machine could seem identical to
real.

I know that clones don't have auras because here, in Loudoun
County, Virginia, you can drive by farms with cloned herds,
looking like peas in a pod. Only, to any aura reader, they
look more like staples in a staple gun. Clones are machines,
not animals. 

What happens when you chow down on something that is not
alive, never was alive, and has no energy, chi, prana, life
force value at all? "Hey, let's find out," says the
FDA, in effect. "Let's do a huge, unscientific experiment
by finding out what happens to a whole nation. Soul, no soul,
in our food, who cares?"

Well, I care. And you might, too. Anyone who reads aura has
great advantage as a consumer for choosing the produce with a
fresher aura. (I explain how to do this, among other consumer
techniques, in my international bestseller Aura Reading
Through All Your Senses.) Food with a strong aura makes you
feel more alive. Irradiated food, like those convenient juice
boxes, is energetically dead. And so is cloned food. Eating
this is like putting a black hole into your body.

When you eat vegetables, grains, milk or meat, you're eating
components of consciousness, not only nutrients. Using a
cloned steer to breed cattle is unbelievably foolish. Foisting
unlabeled products on the public should be considered
criminal. 

Contact your senator and representative now. Tell them
"No" to cloned meat. No, it must not be made
available without labeling. 

It's too late to have input into a corrupt FDA. Cloned food is
now legal. But at least the USDA, which controls labeling of
food, has requested a "voluntary moratorium" on
selling this food. That's a start.

Insist that this "food" be strictly monitored and
labeled. Then let the marketplace decide. Wise Americans don't
want to eat this anti-matter, nor do foreigners who eat our
exported food. The British have already protested. When will
we?

Don't wait until Judgment Day to tell the quick from the dead.
Not when it's a matter of the food you put into your body. 

P.S. You're invited to see comments and related posts at my
blog, "Deeper Perception Made Practical,"
http://www.rose-rosetree.com/blog

[Rose Rosetree]

179. Hear Me Discuss This Topic on Radio Shows and Call In

Hi there, fellow Democrats and Undergrounders:

I'm passionately involved in our conversation about cloned
animals because, as a professional aura reader (author,
teacher, blah blah, on the topic), I was freaked out beyond
compare when I read this news. How come? I read auras from
photos, teach students to do the same, and I can tell you that
cloned animals do NOT have auras. They are energetically dead.

In my work with different forms of deeper perception, I have
had the privilege of doing a number of media interviews. I'm
actually approaching #800, in my 38-year career of being a
teacher of personal development.

Today I did one in England, Wales, and Scotland, a phoner. The
following ones are coming up soon, and many do take calls from
listeners, so please meet me over the airways and make your
views known!

Tuesday, Jan. 22, 3:10p CST, 4:10p EST 
Steve Fast's show over WJBC in Bloomington, Illinois
Listen locally.
http://www.jwbc.com

Thursday, Jan. 24, 9 – 11 p.m, EST
"The Cari Stone Show"
(I'm still getting details about how to tune in easily. Unless
you're among the first 50 callers, you must pay a nominal fee
to listen, but Cari has 95,000 listeners.)

Saturday, Feb. 9, after 9 p.m., one or two hours, time to be
announced
"Journeys with Rebecca"
Rebecca Jernigan's lively talk show is here:
www.journeyswithrebecca.com

Monday, Feb. 11, from 11 am to Noon Pacific time, 
"Lights On, with Nancy Lee"
Listen online at http://www. Healthy Life.net
Show archives are also available at
www.healthylife.net/RadioShow/archiveLON.htm 

Friday, Feb. 22, 10:06 a.m. EST
"Conscious Talk Radio"
Rob Spears and Brenda Michaels, 
Listen online or over syndicated radio affiliates
www.ConsciousTalk.net 

Sunday, Feb. 24, 11:30-12:30 EST
"The E-Z Help Show" with Big Bob 
Listen online at http://ezhelp.org

For updates about any of these, and more listings as they come
up, check out my blog, www.rose-rosetree.com/blog.

Note that all these broadcasters, whose shows I have been on
before, are powerful change agents in this country. Their
shows are great. From what I know of them, each one could be
considered members of the Democratic Underground. We are
mighty!

[alfredo]

187. Tony Auth

[humus]

190. get real

Biotechnology, variety patenting, and other agribusiness innovations
are intended not to help farmers or consumers but to extend and
prolong corporate control of the food economy; they will increase the
cost of food, both economically and ecologically.
Wendell Berry

What we have before us, if we want our communities to survive, is the
building of an adversary economy, a system of local or community
economies within, and to protect against, the would-be global economy.
Wendell Berry

Nothing is more pleasing or heartening than a plate of nourishing,
tasty, beautiful food artfully and lovingly prepared. Anything less
is unhealthy, as well as a desecration.
Wendell Berry

To put the bounty and the health of our land,
our only commonwealth, into the hands of people
who do not live on it and share its fate
will always be an error.
For whatever determines the fortune of the land
determines also the fortune of the people.
If history teaches anything, it teaches that.
--Wendell Berry

Until we end our violence against the earth- a matter ignored by most pacifists, as the issue of military violence is ignored by most conservationists-how can we hope to end our violence against each other? The earth, which we all have in common, is our deepest bond, and our behavior toward it cannot help but be an earnest of our consideration for each other and for our descendants.

"a people who are entirely lacking in economic self-determination,
either personal or local, and who are therefore entirely passive in
dealing with the suppliers of all their goods and services, including
political goods and services, cannot be governed democratically--or
not for long."
Wendell Berry

[genieroze]

191. Kewl, Frankenfood. eom