Expert: Don’t Fear Food from Cloned Animals

Lots of people are worried about food manufactured from cloned animals, but Kristin Woods isn’t one of them.

Indeed, as far as she’s concerned, the notion of cloned food on supermarket shelves actually appeals to her.

Woods, an Alabama Cooperative Extension System regional agent specializing in food safety, was raised on a central Texas farm alongside horses, chickens, turkeys and goats — and the occasional snake, lizard and sundry other critters. Her passion for farming growing up was matched only by a keen interest in genetic technology acquired through her involvement in Future Farmers of America. It was an interest that ultimately led her to Canada, where she completed a graduate degree in biotechnology from the University of Guelph in Ontario.

Since then, she’s had a front-row seat as this infant technology has blossomed into what could become one of the most promising and far-reaching technologies of the 21st century. In fact, a major milestone in biotechnology was reached while Woods was completing her graduate degree — the birth of Dolly, the first cloned animal.

From then on, she says, biotechnology “has moved forward like a freight train.”

The first cloned cow followed in 1998. By 2001, biotechnology researchers were drawing closer to another milestone — food products derived from cloned animals, a scientific breakthrough that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration temporarily put on hold pending further study.

So why does Woods find the prospect of cloned food so exciting even while so many ordinary Americans shudder at the thought of such foods?

Partly because humans already are benefiting from genetic research in a variety of ways, she says. A case in point is the growing number of people whose quality of life has been enhanced significantly through genetically-enhanced drugs.

“Perhaps the most widely used result of this technology is safer human insulin,” Woods says.

In the 1970s, diabetic sufferers used porcine insulin — insulin derived from pigs. But because this wasn’t human insulin, there always was the risk of an allergic reaction.

Genetic research largely has solved this problem, Woods says.

“Today we’re able to make human insulin using genetic technologies, which greatly increases the safety of insulin injections," she says.

Woods even predicts the day will come when science will be able to create donor organs genetically identical to those being replaced. Scientists already are working on ways to do this without resorting to the controversial use of human embryos.

Similar technologies also have been used to produce antibiotics and therapeutic drugs to treat a variety of diseases, she says.

Now, seven years after applying the brakes on food products derived from cloned animals, the FDA has concluded that meat and milk from clones of cattle, swine and goats are as safe to eat as food from conventionally bred animals. This also includes offspring of clones from any species traditionally consumed as food, the FDA concluded.

But don’t expect to see beef from cloned cows on your dinner table any time in the near future, Woods stresses.

“The technology is still very expensive,” Woods says, adding that for the foreseeable future, efforts will focus on improving economically important traits in breeding stock. Only later will genetic technology be applied to the animals that we eat.

FDA also has requested that the food industry hold off on introducing the technology until a smooth transition can be worked out.

For now, though, Woods isn’t concerned about the prospect of cloned food in the future. While a label signifying that a certain food product is derived from a cloned animal may imply that it’s radically different from other products, it really isn’t, she says.

“In fact, what’s inside the package is identical to the food sitting next to it without the label,” she says.

Even so, Woods says the American public probably is in for a long debate on the merits of such foods, though she is convinced that these products not only are safe but also desirable.

Posted by Jim Langcuster at January 24, 2008 05:15 PM