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Campaigners' horror at cloned food on supermarket shelves
Campaigners have reacted in horror after it was suggested that meat and milk from cloned animals could end up for sale on supermarket shelves.
Campaigners' horror at cloned food on supermarket shelves Photo: GETTY
By Myra Butterworth, Personal Finance Correspondent 1:13PM GMT 26 Nov 2010
They said there is “insufficient” research into the impact of cloned food on human health, and warned it is “impossible” to say whether genetic weakness is being bred into the food supply.
They also highlighted the damage to animals during the process of cloning, suggesting that cloned animals and their surrogate mothers suffer health problems and abnormalities.
The strongest indication yet that the controversial farming practice could be accepted officially came after the Government’s leading food scientist ruled that meat and milk from cloned cows is safe to eat.
Andrew Wadge, the chief scientist at the Food Standards Agency, said an independent study had shown that there was no difference between ordinary cattle and cloned cattle. His comments paved the way for milk and meat to be made available in British shops.
Emma Hockridge, head of policy at the Soil Association, said: “This issue serves to highlight the way in which our food and farming systems have become increasingly divorced from what nature intended. “Industrialising the farming and food chain, and treating animals as little more than factory commodities, raises serious questions about both the ethics and the resilience of our present systems for feeding ourselves.
Cloning is generally pursued to aid the intensive production of livestock to produce ever-higher milk yields, regardless of the impact that this has on the animal’s well-being.” Peter Stevenson, Chief Policy Advisor, Compassion in World Farming, said: “Cloned meat and milk may be safe to eat - in truth it may be too early to tell - but for the animals involved, it's a welfare disaster.
Many clones die in the early stages of life from heart failure, breathing difficulties and defective immune systems. “People increasingly recognize that we need to move to a more sustainable farming which respects animals as sentient beings - cloning is taking us in completely the wrong direction to a high tech agriculture that perpetuates factory farming.”
The FSA will discuss the issue at a board meeting next month. Licences have nearly always been granted following “safe” rulings by the advisory committee, according to insiders.
