Originally published April 22 2005
Cloning makes for effective cattle breeding, new report says
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
U.S. experts say cattle cloning may be the wave of the future for the international agriculture industry. A recent report from the University of Connecticut says milk and meat from cloned cows is safe for human consumption, and probably even better than that which comes from traditionally bred animals. This finding may prove to be a boon for the industry which may soon begin cloning only its best animals. Of course, this "mad scientist" approach to exploiting live animals to feed humans is just the latest in a long history of animal abuses perpetrated by the cattle and dairy industries. Has anyone wondered whether the cows wish to be involved in these experiment? There are some serious ethical questions here, and it goes beyond basic animal rights -- we're talking about playing God with animals for the purpose of feeding a world that still hasn't figured out that red meat and dairy products are actually bad for you. Eating red meat greatly increases the risk of colorectal cancer and, for processed meat, pancreatic cancer. The sodium nitrite ingredient in red meat is also toxic to the liver.
Read Grocery Warning to learn more about the health dangers of consuming red meat.
Cattle-cloning scientists at the University of Connecticut say milk and meat from cloned animals are safe for human consumption.
The FDA has been waiting for additional evidence on the safety of meat and milk from cloned cows since a National Academy of Sciences report (.pdf) said last year that while the food would not likely make anyone sick, more research should be performed.
Cloning cattle can eliminate the genetic gamble that comes with more traditional methods of reproduction, proponents say.
Ranchers will choose the animals that produce the best meat and the most milk, as well as those that resist disease and reproduce more efficiently.
"For the United States agricultural industry, (cloning) can reduce the number of cows necessary for milking," said Jerry Yang, an animal science professor at the University of Connecticut and a co-author of the study, which appears in the April 11 online issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Yang's research found that cloned cattle produced better-quality meat and more milk than those conceived through selective breeding.
He also said that cloning could be a boon for developing countries where cows produce four to six times less meat and milk than those in the United States, where genetic breeding is more advanced.
ViaGen and other animal-cloning companies for several years have been feeding the FDA health data on their bovine clones.
The 2004 NAS report said methods for testing cloned meat and milk safety were insufficient for determining potential health effects associated with unintended compositional changes in the products.
The researchers compared the meat and milk from the clones to that of animals of similar age, genetics and breed created through natural reproduction.
They studied the protein, fat, white blood cells and other variables routinely assessed by the dairy industry, which revealed no significant differences in the milk.
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