News from NOFA/Massachusetts
Organic Farmers Disturbed by Approval of Cloned Animals for Use in Food Production
by Jack Kittredge for NOFA/Mass
January, 2007
The Northeast Organic Farming Association/Massachusetts Chapter, Inc. (NOFA/Mass) is distressed that the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) appears poised to approve the use of cloned animals for the production of milk and meat. We are further disturbed that, despite polls suggesting a majority of consumers would not buy food produced by cloning, these products will be offered to the public without being labeled as produced by cloning. We are concerned about this because cloning inflicts needless pain and suffering upon the animals, imposes health risks on the human consumer, diminishes livestock biodiversity, and represents the failure of a key regulatory body to protect the public instead of private interests.
Reproductive cloning is a very new technology. It involves taking a single adult cell from an animal and transferring the genetic material from that cell's nucleus into a donor adult egg cell from which the nucleus has been removed. That reconstructed egg is stimulated with chemicals or electricity to induce cell division and is then transferred to the uterus of a female host where it may develop until birth.
The first cloned mammal was "Dolly", created from a Finn Dorset sheep's mammary gland cell in 1997 at the Roslin Institute in Scotland. That feat, while heralded as a major scientific breakthrough, came at great cost. She was the only success of 276 tries. The other clones died at various stages of the process. Dolly herself suffered badly from arthritis at an early age, developed lung cancer and finally had to be put down after reaching about half of a normal Finn Dorset sheep's lifespan.
Cruelty to Animals
Dolly's case is typical. An enormous number of cloned embryos fail for every one that survives. The process of removing the egg's nucleus, inserting the nucleus from an adult cell, and reprogramming that nucleus to stop functioning as an adult cell and return to an earlier state is very traumatic. It is unethical to engage in a process that creates so much suffering and untimely death among so many animals without an overriding human need. Private gain through greater milk production in a subsidized, over-supplied market does not meet that standard.
Human Health Risks
Reproductive cloning is a very new technology and is still poorly understood. A clone is not an exact copy of the animal from whom the nucleus was taken for several reasons. Many important cell functions are performed by mitochondria, whose strands of DNA reside outside the nucleus and whose genetic source is the egg donor, not the nucleus donor. In addition, a cascade of complex chemical signals turns on and off various cellular expressions during embryonic development, and this process heavily influences many traits of the resulting animal. That clones are not exact copies is clear from the failure of even the successes to live the same healthy, long lives as the animals they are cloned from. Given this uncertainty and the very short time period during which clones have even been available to study, it is irresponsible to determine that cloned animals pose no significant risk to the food supply.
Livestock Biodiversity
Biodiversity is one of the keys to robust food security. In situations where it does not exist (e.g., Irish potato famine, 1970 US corn blight) disease can sweep through a particular species and destroy the entire crop over a large area. Repeated cross breeding, and now cloning, leaves a smaller and smaller gene pool. When this is done for narrow production gains requiring optimal farming conditions, an unexpected disease or environmental or technical change leaves us exposed to disaster. Livestock biodiversity is as important as crop biodiversity in maintaining food security and promoting dependable regional farms.
Regulatory Failure
To announce that cloned animals constitute no health threat to the consumer, when that is not at all clear yet, is a failure of scientific honesty by the FDA. To announce that cloned animal products can enter the food supply without being labeled as such is an even greater betrayal of the public trust. Just as it has done with genetically modified food, the FDA is attempting to prevent informed consumers from making choices to avoid what they perceive as risks to their or their family's health. The only interests served by such a decision are those of the sponsors of this technology - agricultural businesses which wish to narrow the genetic base of food production and then to patent and own the seeds and embryos from which food comes. An informed and vigilant public, our only real defense against such interests, is crippled when they cannot determine by clear labeling which of the choices offered to them in the supermarket are tainted by such technologies.
Creating a Strong, Local, Organic Food System
Given the FDA's apparent direction, the consumer is left with only one way to avoid genetically modified or cloned food products. Local, organic food is not produced this way. Organic regulations prevent recombinant cloning and require organic parentage of most livestock. Farmers markets, farm stands, farm share-owning and other arrangements enable consumer and farmer to meet face-to-face, talk about farming methods, and share their concerns. Increasingly, consumers in search of safe, nutritious food grown by natural means they understand are going organic and returning to local farms as the best way to create an alternative, robust and informed food system in this country.
To take action to express opposition to the FDA's recent decisions, see:
www.democracyinaction.org/dia/organizationsORG/oca/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=6433
This page was last modified on March 24, 2008 at 8:05:23 AM.
|