Livestock animal cloning: This steak is giving me déjà vu

AuthorBlake M. Mensing
PositionJ.D. candidate, May 2010, at American University Washington College of Law and an M.A. candidate, May 2010, at American University School of International Service
Pages17-18
SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT LAW & POLICY17
Somatic cell nuclear transfer,1 more commonly known as
cloning, received international attention when scientists
introduced Dolly the Sheep, the f‌irst mammal ever suc-
cessfully cloned using an adult cell.2 In many American minds,
cloning evokes Frankensteinian images of mad scientists and
their quest to throw off the shackles of nature’s limitations.
In the real world, cloning probably only shares one trait with
the trials and tribulations of science f‌iction’s most memorable
characters: an enormously high rate of failure.3 The motivations
behind animal cloning are pur-
portedly to “maintain high
quality and healthy livestock
to supply our nutritional needs
and consumer demand,” and
to continue the genetic lines
of superior animals.4 Support-
ers of animal cloning are even
touting the potential benef‌it to
endangered species that clon-
ing offers.5 These claims belie
the danger that animal cloning
poses to the planet’s biodiver-
sity and to human health. This
article will examine the poten-
tial impact that widespread
livestock cloning could have
on agricultural biodiversity,
the status of cloned meat product regulation, a piece of proposed
legislation which would mandate labeling for packages contain-
ing cloned animal meat, and how these issues affect consumer
choice.
Biodiversity, or the variability among living organisms,6 is
a safety net that protects against the spread of diseases in the
wild and among livestock populations.7 Cloning is by def‌inition
an attempt to stick with one set of genes, considered desirable
by the purchaser of a clone or by breeders, by creating exact
copies of the source animal. This replication f‌lies in the face of
biodiversity and also raises a host of ethical issues.8 In Janu-
ary of 2008, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (“FDA”)
announced that it had completed its review of the health effects
of cloned meat and that cloned “meat and milk from clones of
cattle, swine, and goats, and the offspring of clones from any
species traditionally consumed as food, are as safe to eat as food
from conventionally bred animals.”9 The FDA is not requir-
ing products from cloned animals, or their offspring, to bear
any label differentiating the product from conventionally bred
meat because, the FDA states, there is no difference.10 This
LIVESTOCK ANIMAL CLONING:
THIS STEAK IS GIVING ME DÉJÀ VU
by Blake M. Mensing*
* Blak e M. M ensing is a J.D. candidate, May 2010, at Ameri can University
Washington College of Law and an M.A. candidate, M ay 2010, at American
University School of International Service.
article will not cover the many ethical implications of cloning
but instead will discuss the potential dangers posed by monoge-
netic herds and the implications of the FDA’s approval of cloned
meat for human consumption and the current lack of labeling
requirements.
The FDA ignored the potential impacts on biodiversity that
cloning could have if it becomes an oft-used cog in the indus-
trial agricultural machine. Critics are leveling accusations of sci-
entif‌ic insuff‌iciency at the FDA for the studies it used to reach
its conclusions on the safety of
cloned animal products.11 Specif‌i-
cally, the Center for Food Safety
has issued a petition seeking FDA
regulation of cloned animal prod-
ucts in part because of the lack
of scientif‌ic data on the potential
negative impacts on biodiversity
due to cloning.12 The Center for
Food Safety requested that the
FDA regulate cloned animals as a
“new animal drug,”13 which would
subject cloned meat products
to regula tion under the Fed eral
Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act.14
The major criticisms of the FDA
studies were that they were scien-
tif‌ically inconclusive and that they
were conducted with f‌inancial support from companies with a
vested intere st in the outcome.15 Di gging down into the actual
studies the FDA used in its assessment of cloned animal prod-
ucts reveals a stark def‌iciency.16 Furthermore, the Biotechnol-
ogy Industry Organization’s own public disclosure documents
reveal that the group spent $1.9 million on related lobbying in
the f‌irst quarter of 2008, which raises troubling suspicions about
the independence of the FDA’s risk assessment.17
Monocultures create an enhanced risk of disease because
the lack of genetic diversity, if that type of animal or plant is
susceptible to a disease, means that all animals in a herd could
potentially perish if exposed to that disease.18 Modern industrial
livestock operations use concentrated animal feeding operations
(“CAFO”)19 that conf‌ine animals in close proximity to increase
the eff‌iciency of the animals’ conversion of grains into saleable
meat products.20 If CAFOs started using cloned animals, which
Biodiversity’s layer of
protection against the
spread of diseases would
be eliminated if cloned
animals were introduced
into the industrial
livestock system.
SPRING 2010 18
Endnotes: Livestock Animal Cloning: This Steak is
Giving Me Déjà Vu continued on page 47
would be permissible today after the FDA’s approval of cloned
meat products for human consumption, the incredible number
of genetically identical animals being kept in close conf‌ine-
ment would leave that herd susceptible to the rapid spread of
diseases.21 Cloned animals, like today’s CAFO residents, would
require antibiotics in their feed to stave off disease.22 Biodiver-
sity’s layer of protection against the spread of diseases would be
eliminated if cloned animals were introduced into the industrial
livestock system.23
With all of the potential risks24 stemming from cloned meat
products, and the very real potential that these products will
be, or are,25 in the stream of commerce, the question becomes:
what has been done to protect the American public? Senator
Mikulski (D-MD) and Congresswoman DeLauro (D-CT) intro-
duced26 closely related bills, which were both called the Cloned
Food Labeling Act,27 to the House and Senate in 2008. The bill,
an amendment to the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act,
would have required that all meat products that originated from
a clone or its offspring would have had to bear a label, included
on the nutrition information section of the package, indicating
that “THIS PRODUCT IS FROM A CLONED ANIMAL OR
ITS PROGENY.”28 The Biotechnology Industry Organization
believes this label would mislead consumers because the FDA
has found that cloned meat products are no different than prod-
ucts from conventionally bred animals.29
The Cloned Food Labeling Act stalled in the U.S. Senate
Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, and was
not presented to the Senate for debate.30 Similarly, the House
version made it no further than its referral to the Subcom-
mittee on Specialty Crops, Rural Development, and Foreign
Agriculture.31 Congress’ failure to push these bills through for a
vote leaves consu mers uninformed and means that cloned foo d
could be passing unwilling lips.32 The Cloned Food Labeling
Act should be reintroduced in the House and the Senate because
consumers ought to have the right to decide whether to ingest
cloned animal products. Without a label, that choice is being
taken away.
Despite the lack of labeling requirements, unsuspecting con-
sumers currently have one option if they want to avoid cloned
food. The United States Department of Agriculture’s “USDA
Organic” label does not and will not permit products bearing
that label to contain any cloned animal products.33 Consumer
choice is an important issue and if the Cloned Food Labeling
Act is not reintroduced and enacted, the USDA Organic label
may be the only option for consumers looking to avoid cloned
meat. While the cost of a single clone is already quite high at
$10,000-20,000,34 the FDA has overlooked the social and envi-
ronmental costs in its approval of cloned animal products.
Livestock cloning poses a risk to agricultural biodiversity and
the FDA’s approval of cloned animal products for human con-
sumption was based on insuff‌icient scientif‌ic evidence. The Cloned
Food Labeling Act would provide consumers with the information
needed to avoid cloned animal products if they so desired. If left
without a choice, American consumers may be subjected to meat
products that are at the very least ethically distasteful, and at worst,
are products that denigrate the precautionary principle beyond all
recognition. Members of Congress, if presented with a reintro-
duced Cloned Food Labeling Act, should vote to enact this law
because freedom of choice should always receive the support of
elected off‌icials for the benef‌it of society.
1 ScienceDaily.com, Science Reference, Somatic cell nuclear transfer, http://
www.sciencedaily.com/articles/s/somatic_cell_nuclear_transfer.htm (last
visited Apr. 4, 2010) (describing how a somatic cell, a body cell other than a
sperm or egg cell, has its nucleus removed and implanted into a recently emp-
tied egg cell, which reprograms the implanted nucleus, and is then electrically
shocked to induce it to divide).
2 ScienceDaily.com, Science Reference, Dolly the Sheep, http://www.science-
daily.com/articles/d/dolly_the_sheep .htm (last visited Apr. 4, 2010) (noting
that while there were other successfully cloned mammals, Dolly was unique
precisely because she was the f‌irst mammal to be cloned using somatic cell
nuclear transfer).
3 Foodanimalconcerns.org, The Comments of Food Animal Concerns
Trust to U.S. Food and Drug Administration Center for Veterinary Medi-
cine, http://www.foodanimalconcerns.org/PDF/FACT_cloning_comments_
04%5B1%5D.07_f‌inal.pdf (citing Panarace, et al., How healthy are clones and
their progeny: 5 years of f‌ield experience, 67 Theriogenology 142, 142–51
(2007), which noted that cloning has a historical failure rate of approximately
90%).
4 Bio.org, Biotechnology Industry Organization Fact Sheet, Animal Cloning,
http://www.bio.org/foodag/animals/ factsheet.asp (last visited Apr. 4, 2010)
(lauding the benef‌its of animal cloning and claiming that it is really a form of
animal husbandry that echoes the tradition of using artif‌icial means to produce
the strongest characteristics in livestock) [hereinafter BIO Fact Sheet].
5 See id. (suggesting that cloning endangered species is a way to protect them,
while ignoring the obvious role that industrialized agriculture has on driving
many species to the brink of extinction).
Endnotes: Livestock Animal Cloning: This Steak is Giving Me Déjà Vu
6 See, e.g., Convention on Biological Diversity art. 2, June 5, 1992, 1760
U.N.T.S. 79 (def‌ining biodiversity as: “[T]he variability among living organ-
isms from all sources including, inter alia, terrestrial, marine and other aquatic
ecosystems and the ecological complexes of which they are part; this includes
diversity within species, between species and of ecosystems”). See generally,
Center for International Environmental Law, http://www.ciel.org/Biodiversity/
WhatIsBiodiversity.html (last visited Apr. 23, 2010) (listing the benef‌its of bio-
diversity, including the provision of food security).
7 Debora MacKenzie, Disease runs riot as species disappear, NEW
SCIENTIST, July 1, 2009, available at http://www.news.practicechange.
net/?p=564#more-564 (discussing a report that shows an inverse relationship
between biodiversity and disease rates).
8 See Endanimalcloning.org, Ethics, http://www.endanimalcloning.org/ethics.shtml
(last visited Apr. 5, 2010) (citing sources that list a host of ethical issues raised by
cloning including the conception of livestock as commodities and not living, sen-
tient beings, the unnatural process involved, and the concern of animal welfare).
9 Press Release, U.S. Food and Drug Admin., FDA Issues Documents on the
Safety of Food from Animal Clones (Jan. 15, 2008) available at http://www.
fda.gov/NewsEvents/Newsroom/PressAnnouncements/ 2008/ucm116836.
htm (announcing the release of a risk assessment, which found no difference
between the meat or milk from cloned animals and their progeny and conven-
tionally conceived animals, a risk management plan, and a guidance document
for industry use).

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