Why Cloned Food Should Be Unacceptable to the FDA and the U.S.
By: John E. Peck, executive director, Family Farm Defenders
(a version of this article was printed in the Jan. 10, 2007 edition of Country Today)
Last I knew, the mission of the FDA was to protect the public’s health by assuring the safety of our nation’s food supply. The FDA’s purpose is NOT to facilitate the dumping of dubious food products onto people’s dinner plates for the sake of corporate profit. That is why I found it so disturbing to see the recent Country Today editorial by Scott Schultz (1/3/07), basically lauding the FDA for its decision that byproducts from cloned livestock are safe for human consumption.
There are many reasons to be opposed to the FDA’s decision that go beyond the ethical debate about cloning itself. First of all, the FDA’s decision relies upon the discredited pseudo-science of “substantial equivalence.” Dairy farmers and milk drinkers may recall that the FDA first unveiled this shoddy notion back in 1993 when it railroaded through approval of recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone (rBGH). Of course, now we know from a real scientific study (May 2006 Journal of Reproductive Medicine) that milk induced through genetic engineering is NOT the same as natural milk. But, because of the FDA’s irresponsible rubberstamping, U.S. consumers are now suffering reproductive problems from having ingested rBGH dairy products for years with elevated levels of Insulin Like Growth Factor – 1 (IGF-1).
Statements by government officials and biotech apologists that cloned animals are “simply genetic twins” are also patently misleading. There have been numerous studies showing that cloned animals suffer higher than normal morbidity and deformity rates. Basic science – let alone common sense - would suggest that this is symptomatic of other physiological problems and might not make a very healthy meal. Worse yet, cloned animals are proposed for the production of industrial enzymes, pharmaceuticals, and other genetically engineered (GE) substances – aka biopharming. Yet, the longterm scientific studies have not been done to disprove concerns that these residues will find their way into cloned meat/milk and then into people’s mouths. It is bad enough having to worry about Mad Cow being served up with a hamburger, let alone GE spider webs.
Another criticism with the FDA’s decision is that it undermines one of the fundamental principles of economic efficiency and marketplace competition, by failing to require labeling. Consumers can not make rational informed choices when they are denied the right to know about their food. By frustrating consumer sovereignty for the sake of corporate secrecy, the FDA is failing to serve the public interest. Worse yet, if one were to learn from the sordid history of rBGH, this federal approval of cloned food will give the green light to powerful corporations and their proxies to sue and/or fine smaller producers for daring to use the First Amendment and label their products as “clone-free.” So much for the free market idea.
Once again , it seems the FDA is over eager to become an accomplice in the corporate forcefeeding of questionable byproducts to an unwitting populace. Whether it is genetic engineering, biopharming, nanotechnology, irradiation, or cloning, it is hard to escape the thought that U.S farmers and consumers are now guinea pigs caught up in some massive agribusiness experiment that the rest of the world is wise enough to watch from a safe distance.
