UPDATE: "Cloned and Medium-Rare, Please"

Update, Jan. 15: According to wire reports in today's Oregonian, the FDA came to a decision that eating meat from cloned animals is safe. The "final risk assessment," which hasn't been released, but that was obtained by The Washington Post found no evidence to support concerns that food from clones may harbor hidden risks, according to the story.

It still seems to be a bit of a debate and I'm certain that this isn't the last we'll hear of the issue, both from a safety and moral standpoint.

Cheers,
JF

Could you eat a perfectly cooked, juicy piece of steak if you knew it had come from a cloned cow? Yes, genetically engineered livestock. It looks like the cloning of animals for faster production of milk and meat may soon be approved by the Food and Drug Administration, according to today's Wall Street Journal. And it isn't that cloning is new. It's been around for well over a decade and the cloning of livestock is very common internationally; however, the approval would allow the products of cloned livestock to be used for food. Multiple sides of the food industry are a bit wary, and who can blame them? Some say no viable testing has been done to prove that ingesting products from cloned animals is safe. And others say the government doesn't have proper proceedures in place yet to determine whether products sold at local and national grocers can be marked as coming from a cloned animal.

The article does state that even if the FDA does give clearance, consumers would likely not see food from cloned livestock for two to three years.

I will admit, I'm not an expert on cloning, but learning that the next filet mignon I order may have came from a cloned cow, it definitely causes my ears to perk up.

We will just have to wait and see if this is truly where our production of food is headed.

Cheers,

JF