FDA approves cloned meat for human consumption

[SUBMAN1]

uhhh.... I'll pass thanks! I might go vegitarian if this product shows up in my local supermarket. I mean, what is wrong with meat made the old fasioned way anyway?

http://www.fda.gov/bbs/topics/NEWS/2008/NEW01776.html

-S

[seafarer]

I don't understand the whole controversy in the first place. What possible harm do people envision from eating meat from a cow born from a cloned parent (or eating the actual clone in the first place)? In the NYTimes, Stephen Sundlof, director of the F.D.A. Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition is quoted as saying:

“It is beyond our imagination to even have a theory for why the food is unsafe,”

And that's the point. There is no biological, nor rational basis for even hypothesizing that such meat would be any different to eat then any other meat. And especially since the meat producers are talking about selling the meat from the natural offspring of a cloned animal (since the clone is highly valuable as a breeder of whatever desirable characteristics that warrented cloning it in the first place - nobody is talking about slaughtering herds of clones, they'd go bankrupt doing that).

It seems to be a bunch of mindless hype from fundamental religious groups and others with ethical concerns, but no real understanding of what they are against.

[SUBMAN1]

Its genetic code has been changed, so in about 5 years, they will figure out that they accidently created and introduced into the human food chain some form of super form of the prion protein, and we will all die from BSE, or CJD disease or something. That is why I hold my reservations. THere is no reason to clone meat in my opinion.

-S

[seafarer]

Actually, no, their maternal genetic code has not been changed at all. And the adult clone is mated in the, usual, way. So the offspring are in fact genetically different by the mere fact that they are the product of a natural mating with the normal course of genetic mixing that any mammalian sexual being is the product of.

The clone itself does not have an "altered" genome - it has an exact duplicate of it's mother's adult genome. Cloning, by the process that the famous dolly was produced by, does not alter the genetic makeup. That's the very point - it preserves the genetic makeup of an animal with desired traits.

There are mechanisms that can allow the insertion (or deletion) of genetic material into a clone, but that is not the process that is being talked about by these food producers.

I think you are thinking of the process of say, making a cow (or pig or whatever) that produces some chemical that gets concentrated in their milk. Sure, those kinds of animals can be "made" too, and do use a form of cloning technology in their production. But that is not what the meat marketing producers are talking about.

As I say, there is a tremendous amount of mis-understanding about cloning, what it is, what it can be used for and so forth. But, just looking at the pure technology of cloning a mammal - that process DOES NOT alter the genetic material.

The process of altering the genetic material uses recombinant DNA technology, which then goes on to make a clone using the altered genome to propogate it.

Recombinant DNA technology is then dependent on making a clone to propogate the modified genome, but cloning can be done in the absence of any recombinant DNA manipulation.

[SUBMAN1]

Wrong! It has already been proven that Dolly wasn't a perfect clone and had major medical problems and died at an early age of 6 yrs old.

So whomever is buying into the fact that she was a perfect clone was only looking at her from a skin deep perspective. This means the techology is also not perfect and at some point, you will create something deadly and dangerous such as a prion protein and intruduce it to humans - nice.

-S

[antikristuseke]

Dolly did not die because it was a clone.
This from a wikipedia entry, allso checked the cited sources there.

Dolly did not die because of being a clone: an autopsy confirmed she had Ovine Pulmonary Adenocarcinoma (Jaagsiekte), a fairly common disease of sheep caused by the retrovirus JSRV. Roslin scientists stated that they did not think there was a connection with Dolly being a clone and that other sheep on the farm had similar ailments. Such lung diseases are a particular danger for sheep kept indoors and Dolly had to sleep indoors for security reasons. However, some believe the reason for Dolly's death was that she was actually born with a genetic age of 6 years, the same age the sheep from which she was cloned. One basis for this was that Dolly's telomeres were short, typically a result of the aging process.

[jumpy]

Yer, Dolly was cloned from a 6 year old sheep, ergo when the clone was born she was already 6 years old?

Common sense tells me that anything using tinkering with dna is most likely speculation. Let me explain.
Scientists say 'oh, this is junk dna, we don't need to worry about it.' they only say this because thay haven't figured out what it actually does yet.

Until you understand something completely, how can you say whether or not any part of it is redundant/useless or whatever?
When we figure out how dna works in its entirety for the 'thing' we are modifying (like foodstufs, be they animal or plants) then perhaps I'll be convinced that it's safe to eat, without causing my children to be born with two heads!

You only hvae to look at the result of well meaning scientists and their meddling with animal feed - 'I know! Lest grind up dead animals mix it with some other plant based stuff and turn them into cattle feed pellets!' Kill 2 birds with 1 stone: make money and more animal feed. What they didn't know was the result of feeding crushed spinal matter and the like back to animals which are evolved to eat plants - contamination of the food chain leading to transmittal of BSE in cattle to humans.
Score one for science.... not.

Originally Posted by seafarer

I don't understand the whole controversy in the first place. What possible harm do people envision from eating meat from a cow born from a cloned parent (or eating the actual clone in the first place)? In the NYTimes, Stephen Sundlof, director of the F.D.A. Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition is quoted as saying:

“It is beyond our imagination to even have a theory for why the food is unsafe,”

And that's the point. There is no biological, nor rational basis for even hypothesizing that such meat would be any different to eat then any other meat. And especially since the meat producers are talking about selling the meat from the natural offspring of a cloned animal (since the clone is highly valuable as a breeder of whatever desirable characteristics that warrented cloning it in the first place - nobody is talking about slaughtering herds of clones, they'd go bankrupt doing that).

It seems to be a bunch of mindless hype from fundamental religious groups and others with ethical concerns, but no real understanding of what they are against.

For the same reason, I never could understand the difference between an organic apple and any regular apple. Chemically, they're exactly the same. The only difference is the price. To certain people, "organic" is better, but you'd be hard-pressed to find the difference in the final product, i.e., one apple is the same as the other apple, no matter what you fertilized it with.

I had someone mentioned their distrust of microwave ovens some months ago, saying it might make the food radioactive. I had to explain the different ends of the EM spectrum to him, and the fact that there is no Radium anywhere in the oven.

Another guy called in to ask about an Atomic Watch (we sell watches where I work), asking if there was any danger of the radiation leaking from the watch. Of course, it's got a small radio receiver in it to receive time signals from the clock in Fort Collins, Colorado, but his impression was that since it was an "atomic watch", there must be some piece of U235 or U238 in there to power the watch.

Yes, we all got a good chuckle out of it after advising him that U235 wasn't used in watches - it had been discontinued in favor of several variations of isotopes of Plutonium. Yes, people like that breed.