Jake Young is a 
A long-awaited final report from the Food and Drug Administration concludes that foods from healthy cloned animals and their offspring are as safe as those from ordinary animals, effectively removing the last U.S. regulatory barrier to the marketing of meat and milk from cloned cattle, pigs and goats.The 968-page "final risk assessment," not yet released but obtained by The Washington Post, finds no evidence to support opponents' concerns that food from clones may harbor hidden risks.
But, recognizing that a majority of consumers are wary of food from clones -- and that cloning could undermine the wholesome image of American milk and meat -- the agency report includes hundreds of pages of raw data so that others can see how it came to its conclusions.
About time. This was the same nonsense that people were trying to do with genetically-engineered food, and there isn't a shred of evidence that those are harmful either.
On the other hand, opponents can take heart that I don't think we will be seeing cloned food in grocery stores any time soon: still too expensive. Cloning is not a process that we can mass-produce at the moment.
Life Science
Comments
heh, you probably already get "cloned food" from the supermarket
unless you've never bought an Idaho potato. or a Red Delicious apple. or a seedless Sunkist orange ...
(why people are so much more concerned about cloned animals than cloned plants, i'll never understand)
Posted by: skyotter | January 16, 2008 6:44 PM
Actually, that sort of plant cloning is a bad idea. Not because it harms the food we eat, but because it tends to lead to a loss of plant diversity and evolution of specialized parasites.
Look what's happened with garlic. Or potatoes - the does the Irish Famine ring a bell?
Posted by: Caledonian | January 16, 2008 9:12 PM
agreed. i'm, personally, against monocultures. i was only pointing out that "cloned food" is already quite common.
Posted by: skyotter | January 17, 2008 4:05 PM
Then it should be noted that cloned animal tissue isn't nearly as easily produced as cloned plant tissue, and in no way is it immediately obvious that it won't be harmful.
Posted by: Caledonian | January 17, 2008 8:13 PM
On 17th December 2007 Monsanto was found guilty of contempt of the South African Advertising Authority (ASA) for publishing false claims about the safety of GM foods.
In January,2007, Monsanto was fined 15,000 euros (US$19,000 ) in a French court for misleading the public about the environmental impact of herbicide Roundup.
A former chairman of Monsanto Agriculture France was found guilty of false advertising for presenting Roundup as biodegradable and claiming that it left the soil clean after use. Monsanto's French distributor Scotts France was also fined 15,000 euros.
In 2005 Monsanto was caught smuggling South African produced GM Bollgard cotton seed into Indonesia disguised as rice. Monsanto was fined for bribing Indonesian officials.
In 2006 Monsanto suppressed evidence of serious damage to the liver and kidneys of rats in their MON 863 GM maize trials until ordered to release this evidence by a German Court.
In June, 2007, a second peer-reviewed case involving another variation of Monsanto's GM maize, namely, NK 603, has been shown by studies to be potentially toxic to humans. NK 603 has been approved for food, feed, processing, and propagation in Europe and the Philippines The new research, carried out by the French scientific research institute CRIGEN, involves biotech firm Monsanto's NK 603 GMO corn (marketed commercially under the name Round-up Ready).
Rats that were fed GM maize showed significant differences in measurements, as well as significant weight differences compared to those fed with normal maize. Almost 70 statistically significant differences were observed and reported - 12 for hematology parameters, 18 for clinical chemistry parameters, nine for urine chemistry parameters, six for the organ weights (brain, heart, liver), 14 for body weights and body weight changes, and eight for food consumption. toxicity, The most alarming was the diminished brain size. Scientists warned that diminished brain size sent out a urgent danger warning for growing children fed `GM food.
Posted by: IssueTalk | January 18, 2008 1:49 PM