FDA: Milk and meat from cloned animals safe

Milk and meat from cloned animals is safe for Americans to eat and, for now, is unlikely to need special labeling, the Food and Drug Administration announced this morning.

But the agency has told producers that no products from cloned goats, pigs or cattle will immediately rush to market, as it maintains a moratorium on their sale until April, as the FDA sifts through comments about its decision.

The long-delayed declaration follows heavy lobbying by the agricultural industry, which is fearful of international buyers boycotting all American livestock, not just the cloned pigs and cattle. A recent poll suggests Americans share those qualms, a group of powerful Senators pointed out to the agency in a letter sent earlier this month.

Lifting the FDA's voluntary moratorium could result in a 15 percent drop in purchases of US dairy products, Senator Patrick Leahy, Democrat of Vermont, wrote the Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt.

"This could lead to catastrophic income loss for US dairy farmers and cause devastating ripple effects throughout our nation's schools and communities," the Senators wrote on Dec. 11. "Clearly, consumers are not clamoring for this new food technology."

What remains unclear is whether answers given to pollsters translates to reduced milk consumption.

"The word 'cloning' itself is a real pejorative," Chris Galen, a spokesman for the National Milk Producers Federation, which represents producers responsible for two-thirds of the nation's supply, said today. "It conjures up a lot of unsettling images. The word itself becomes a lightning rod."

Since October 2003, the FDA has considered eating cloned animals safe, citing a report commissioned by the National Academy of Sciences. Federal researchers tracked 400 animals - more than half clones - and found their meat and health was virtually identical to traditional cattle raised the same way. The finding, to be published in the Jan. 1 issue of the journal Theriogenology, adding that cloned meat and milk are so similar to conventional foods that they shouldn't be labeled differently.

That doesn't reassure Greg Wiles, 40, a Maryland producer with nearly two dozen cloned milking cows. As Wiles has waited for the FDA to decide the issue, he's tossed thousands of gallons of butterfat-rich milk down the drain.

If the FDA gives its blessing, the cash-strapped farmer intends to sell the milk - though he worries about milk from one underweight clone whose attempts to give birth ended in the death of both calves.
(By Diedtre Henderson, Globe staff)