Clones a "Gallery of Horrors"

Clonaid Claims birth of "first human clone

Clonaid announced birth of "first human clone"
on December 26th 2002. Eve was born by cesarean section after being created by Clonaid using a technique similar to that used to clone Dolly the sheep"Clonaid claims birth Link

Human Baby Clone Dr. Panayiotis Zavos

Physicians from the American Medical Association and scientists with the American
Association for the Advancement of Science have issued formal public statements
advising against human reproductive cloning. Currently, the U.S. Congress is
considering the passage of legislation that could ban human cloning. See the Policy and Legislation click links. Due to the inefficiency of animal cloning (only about 1 or 2 viable offspring
for every 100 experiments) and the lack of understanding about reproductive
cloning, many scientists and physicians strongly believe that it would
be unethical to attempt to clone humans. Not only do most attempts to
clone mammals fail, about 30% of clones born alive are affected with "large
offspring syndrome" and other debilitating conditions. Several cloned
animals have died prematurely from infections and other complications.
The same problems would be expected in human cloning. In addition, scientists
do not know how cloning could impact mental development. While factors
such as intellect and mood may not be as important for a cow or a mouse,
they are crucial for the development of healthy humans. With so many unknowns
concerning reproductive cloning, the attempt to clone humans at this time
is considered potentially dangerous and ethically irresponsible.

See the Cloning Ethics links for more information
about the human cloning debate.@

LIARS! see fact's :

Cloned Monkey Embryos Are a "Gallery of Horrors"@

FDA OKs meat, milk from most cloned animals

ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) -- Food from healthy clones of cattle, swine and goats is as safe as food from non-cloned animals, the Food and Drug Administration said in a report released Tuesday.Extensive evaluation of the available data has not identified any subtle hazards that might indicate food-consumption risks in healthy clones of cattle, swine, or goats," the 968-page "final risk assessment" concluded.

"Thus, edible products from healthy clones that meet existing requirements for meat and milk in commerce pose no increased food consumption risk(s) relative to comparable products from sexually-derived animals."

But the FDA said it needs more information to determine the safety of meat and milk from cloned sheep. The FDA also concluded that food from newborn cattle clones "may pose some very limited human food consumption risk."

The purpose of using cloned animals is to improve the overall value of a given herd by creating genetic copies of donor animals, resulting in a herd that produces higher-quality milk and meat.

For years, heated debate over the use of cloned animals for food production has stretched from Congress to cattle farms and dinner tables nationwide. Dr. Stephen Sundlof, director of the agency's Center of Food Safety and Applied Nutrition, acknowledged the controversy to reporters.

About half of the more than 30,500 comments from the public the FDA has received about the matter have dealt with labeling, he said.

But, he added, agency regulators cannot require cloned products be labeled as such if -- as they assert -- there is no material difference between them and food produced by conventional methods.

"There's really nothing for us to label," he said.

Consumers won't be able to figure it out for themselves, he said. No test exists that could distinguish meat from a cloned animal from other meat.

Either way, food products from cloned animals or their offspring would not reach store shelves for years, experts said.

But companies could label their clone-free products as such, Sundlof said. In addition, foods labeled "organic" would not contain cloned products. Tuesday's announcement followed the agency's December 2006 preliminary conclusion, reached after a four-year review, that milk and meat from cloned animals are safe for human consumption.

The agency was then to collect more safety data before issuing a final decision.

Last month, the Senate passed a measure intended to bar the FDA from approving the products until further study was conducted. The legislation, part of the Senate's $286 billion farm bill, also required the Agriculture Department to examine consumer acceptance of cloned meats.

On Tuesday, opponents of using cloned animals in food production expressed anger at the move.

"The FDA has acted recklessly and I am profoundly disappointed in their rush to approve cloned foods," Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Maryland, said in a written statement.

"Just because something was created in a lab doesn't mean we should have to eat it. If we discover a problem with cloned food after it is in our food supply and it's not labeled, the FDA won't be able to recall it like they did Vioxx -- the food will already be tainted."

Vioxx, a painkiller, was withdrawn from the market in 2004 after it was linked to a heightened risk of heart attack and stroke.

"We think the FDA should pay attention to what Congress is asking them to do," said J.D. Hanson, policy analyst for the Center for Food Safety. "It looks like they are releasing it to sidestep what Congress has asked them to do."

The National Farmers Union, in a written statement, said "consumers have the right to know if the food they feed their families comes from a cloned animal."

Another concern is possible economic fallout. "People will start consuming less dairy and meat" if they are not sure of the products' safety, predicted Michael Hansen, a senior scientist with Consumers Union. His group calls for more study and clear labeling.

Perhaps in an effort to placate critics, Tuesday's report included hundreds of pages of raw data in the risk assessment.

Some consumer groups said they were pleased with the report. "There are still unanswered questions about the use of cloned animals in the food supply, but the Food and Drug Administration has satisfactorily answered the safety question," the Center for Science in the Public Interest said in a written statement. "While the safety of any food cannot be proven with absolute certainty, consumers should have confidence that meat and milk from cloned animals and their offspring will be safe."

Experts say it is unlikely actual clones would be used in food production. A cloned cow costs $15,000 to $20,000 to create. More likely, experts said, the offspring of cloned animals would be used.

Bruce Knight, the U.S. Department of Agriculture's undersecretary for marketing and regulatory programs, said only about 600 cloned animals exist in the United States, about 570 of which are cattle. He said the agency is urging providers to extend a voluntary moratorium on the use of the meat or milk from cloned animals during the transition, a period he would not specify.

Mark Walton, president of ViaGen, which uses cloning technologies, said his company will comply with the request, but he played down the scope of the matter. "The number of cloned animals in the barn yard today is minuscule compared to the size of the total livestock population," said Walton. "In addition, clones are to be used as breeding animals, not for consumption. Because of a supply chain management system that allows tracking of cloned livestock, consumers are unlikely to ever eat these animals." A spokeswoman for the National Cattlemen's Beef Association, Karen Batra, predicted, "It will be many, many years" before the technology becomes mainstream.

She further predicted that its adoption would not be accompanied by a hike in prices. "There comes a point where consumers will find another form of meat," she said.

Don't Miss

• 
  FDA: Final report on risks of cloned--animal food products


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  FDA: More on cloning

Is cloned meat safe?

Overview...Soon, the food you put on your dinner table may be from cloned animals and chances are, you won't even know it. The Food and Drug Administration announced in January 2008 that's it OK to sell meat and milk from cloned cattle, pigs and goats. What does this mean to the consumer? Is cloned meat safe? How does it differ from regular animal products?
Questions and answers

Why is it going to be difficult to tell if you're buying cloned products?

Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN chief medical correspondent: Because they won't be labeled. Meat from cloned animals looks just like meat from traditionally bred animals. If it's prepared the same way and sold without labels, the average consumer will have no idea he or she is eating cloned meat.

Even though the FDA has deemed cloned foods safe, a lot of people still question the ethics of cloning animals as well as the safety issue. When the FDA held focus groups, one-third of those asked said they wanted nothing to do with cloned products. Without FDA labels, it's going to be nearly impossible to tell whether you are buying cloned products.

Why aren't they requiring the products to be labeled? And what can consumers do if they don't want cloned food?

Gupta: FDA and officials from the USDA said in January that it was not up to them to require labeling -- it was only for them to decide, scientifically, if cloned food was safe. They have based their decisions on data from a National Academy of Sciences study done in 2002, as well as from a peer-reviewed group of independent scientific experts on cloning that found the FDA's methods to evaluate the data were adequate. The FDA said that since it found cloned products to be safe, there is no reason to label them differently. Agency officials said if companies with products from non-cloned animals want to label them as such, they can. But that gets expensive. When asked what consumers should do if they are hesitant to buy meat and milk after cloned products enter the marketplace, the USDA said people can buy organic. But organic food costs more money as well.

It may look the same, but does it taste any different?

Gupta: The FDA has put a voluntary moratorium on the market, asking farmers who raise cloned animals not to sell cloned products. So there isn't much cloned meat or milk out there right now. Last year the Los Angeles Times got hold of some cloned beef and had a local chef cook it up into steaks and burgers and asked scientists and food experts to taste it. We spoke to two of those tasters, Dr. Barry Glassner from the University of Southern California and Greg Jaffe of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, and both said there was very little difference.
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Jaffe found the meat to be fine, a little tough, because it had been frozen. But he said taste, texture and color were the same as regular meat. Glassner liked the taste very much. He said it tasted great, exactly like regular beef. During the taste test, they didn't know which was which when they were tasting it.

When might cloned food be on the market?

Gupta: These products will come from offspring of cloned animals, and there are about 600 cloned breeding animals in this country, so it will take time to breed them and get the food out to consumers. Neither federal agency would commit to a timetable, but it will be a couple of years before cloned food appears on our grocery store shelves