Info about Clones
Clones
It became obvious in 2001 that animal clones might become a commercial project that would improve the quality of herds. Because of the unknown, the FDA asked meat producers to keep animals clones and their offspring off of the market as food. The FDA has since done extensive research on clones into the safety of using the cloned animals and their young for food and whether it places the animals at a health risk.
In January of 2008, the FDA released a report that stated that meat and milk from clones of pigs, goats, and cows were just as safe as any other food that we eat in our every day lives. What does this mean for commercial livestock growers?
There were three documents released by the FDA about animal clones on the 28th of December in 2006. The public was invited to comment on these documents and there was to be a ninety day comment period. However, due to public request the comment period was extended for sixty more days. The opportunity to make comments ended on the 3rd of June in 2007. The documents included Draft Risk Assessment, Proposed Risk Management Plan, and Draft Guidance for Industry.
The comments that were received by the FDA Division of Dockets Management were recorded according to the time that they were received. After they were put into the system, they were sent to the Center for Veterinary Medicine. Every comment was review by a member of the staff. Once the comments were all reviewed, they were divided into two groups: general comments , which expressed opinions about cloning, and substantive comments that were usually longer and included suggestions or recommendations. There were many very good recommendations taken from these comments, and they have been put into a more current version of the cloning documents.
The FDA expressed appreciation to all of the people that took the time to comment.
There were approximately 31,000 comments received. About half of them were just form letters, but around 13,000 of them were written to support the views of some agencies. The messages either supported or opposed the idea of cloning. Many of the letters had more than one signature. There were over 100,000 total signatures. However, there were only around one hundred of the comments that provided detailed opinions or recommendations that involve the general cloning of animals.
Lots of the comments both in general and substantive regarded ethical issues that were involved in the cloning of animals. Some of the comments strongly urged the FDA to take these issues into account. Most of the concerns of an ethical nature were due to negative health affects in some of the clones and the surrogate mothers. However, another group was concerned that use of agricultural cloning would lead to human cloning. The FDA determines that ethical issues were not their responsibility and they were only charged to report scientific findings. They determined that they did not have the authority to determine ethical issues