In a recently released "draft risk assessment" report, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) found that food products derived from cloned animals and their offspring are likely to be as safe to eat as food from their non-clone counterparts. Despite the findings, the FDA's current voluntary moratorium on releasing cloned animals to the marketplace will remain in effect.
According to a FDA press release, the draft risk assessment corroborates similar findings by the National Academy of Sciences (NAS). These scientific findings, says the FDA, also showed that healthy adult clones are virtually indistinguishable from their conventional counterparts. Most of the data available address cattle, pig, and goat clones.
The process of determining the food safety of cloned animals began two years ago, when FDA commissioned the NAS to consider scientific information on animal biotechnology. The NAS concluded that although food from animal clones posed only a low level of food safety concern, it would be prudent to have more data in order to minimize further safety concerns. FDA decided that before it could address any policy issues on animal cloning, it needed to conduct a risk assessment, followed by development of commensurate risk management options, in an open and transparent process.
During numerous public hearings on the issue, FDA stressed that the risk assessment methodology and all of the information used in performing the risk assessment would be publicly available.
Ethics will not be overlooked
While this latest risk assessment does not touch on the many ethical issues of animal cloning, FDA says those issues are not being overlooked. The risk assessment was intended only to address the safety of food from animal clones and the risks to animal clones. According to the FDA, future public hearings will address all facets of the cloning issue.
Voluntary moratorium on clone sales to remain
During the ongoing public hearing process, the FDA's stance on releasing products made from animal clones into the marketplace remains unchanged: "these products should not be released into the food supply. FDA has made no policy decision that these products may be sold. A risk management options paper dealing with such questions will follow the assessment currently underway.
"Until such time as FDA makes any final decisions on cloned animals, the agency will continue to request that producers withhold these products from the market, with the full expectation that firms will comply with this request as they have willingly done in the past."
The latest risk assessment offers no recommendations about the potential need for rules about marketing food from animal clones. Preparation of a final risk assessment, risk management options, and final rules and regulations for the sale of food from cloned animals will come only after several more months of public hearings.
