Bridges Trade BioRes • Volume 5 • Number 12 • 24th June 2005

Food from Cloned Animals on the Way to US Supermarkets?

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A study assessing the safety of meat and milk products from cloned farm animals for human food consumption, undertaken by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), could soon lead to a lifting of the US moratorium on the commercial use of such products. During the annual conference of the Biotechnology Industry Organization BIO 2005, held in Philadelphia from the 19 to 22 June, FDA officials said that a four-year-long risk assessment they had undertaken showed that cloned animals and their offspring were as safe for human consumption as conventional animals. The World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) at its recent General Session decided to undertake further investigations on the need for standards on the use of cloned animals (see BRIDGES Trade BioRes, 10 June 2005). Based on data provided by private companies involved in livestock cloning in the US, the FDA study has not yet been published, but will be finalised in the near future. Cloned animals are likely to be used in the short-term for breeding and expanding the gene pool in the livestock industry rather than directly for food production, but representatives from the livestock industry indicated that meat and milk from cloned animals or their offspring could be on sale as early as 2006 if the moratorium was lifted. In a statement made by the FDA on 22 June, Norris Alderson, FDA Associate Commissioner for Science, confirms the work on the study but states that it would be “premature to discuss our findings or to make any final determinations due to the complexity of the issue”.

The FDA statement is available at http://www.fda.gov/bbs/topics/NEWS/2005/NEW01188.html

ICTSD reporting; “US poised to rule that meat and milk from cloned animals is safe for humans,” FT, 23 June 2005.