The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has announced it will continue to ask producers and breeders not to introduce food from animal clones into the food supply.
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The agency has assessed such foods as safe, but continues to address the associated risks.
The FDA has issued three documents on the safety of animal cloning – a draft risk assessment, a proposed risk management plan and a draft guidance for industry.
Its draft risk assessment reportedly found that meat and milk from clones of adult cattle, pigs and goats, and their offspring, are as safe to eat as food from conventionally bred animals. The assessment was peer-reviewed by a group of independent scientific experts in cloning and animal health.
Due to limited data on sheep clones, in the draft guidance FDA recommends that sheep clones not be used for human food.
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By GlobalData“Based on FDA’s analysis of hundreds of peer-reviewed publications and other studies on the health and food composition of clones and their offspring, the draft risk assessment has determined that meat and milk from clones and their offspring are as safe as food we eat every day,” said Stephen Sundlof, director of FDA’s Center for Veterinary Medicine. “Cloning poses no unique risks to animal health when compared to other assisted reproductive technologies currently in use in US agriculture.”
The proposed risk management plan addressed risks to animal health and potential remaining uncertainties associated with feed and food from animal clones and their offspring.
The proposed plan outlined measures that FDA might take to address the risks that cloning poses to animals involved in the cloning process, including a set of care standards for animals involved in the cloning process.
“Because the release of the draft risk assessment and proposed risk management plan marks the beginning of our interaction with the public on these issues, we are continuing to ask producers of clones and livestock breeders to voluntarily refrain from introducing food products from these animals into commerce so that we will have the opportunity to consider the public’s comments and to issue any final documents as warranted,” said Sundlof.
The draft guidance for industry addresses the use of food and feed products derived from clones and their offspring, directed at clone producers, livestock breeders, and farmers and ranchers purchasing clones. It includes the agency’s current thinking on the use of clones and their offspring in human food or animal feed.
In the draft guidance, FDA does not recommend any special measures relating to human food use of offspring of clones of any species. The FDA said that because of their cost and rarity, clones would be used mainly to pass on naturally occurring, desirable traits such as disease resistance and higher quality meat to production herds.
