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HG

Cloned animals - would you eat them??

FT article today - the US FDA are about to declare that meat & milk from cloned animals are safe for human consumption, thus giving the thumbs up to 'commercial exploitation of cloning...'.

Apparently a 4-yr study has shown that cloned animals and their young are as safe to eat as conventionally bred animals, and that it's also acceptable from an animal welfare perspective (although it also states that cloned animals are likely to suffer birth defects/health problems when young, but after 50 days are as healthy as non-cloned). Shocked

So, they're planning to use clones more to improve breeds rather than become meat themselves...

Don't eat much meat myself, but what do others feel about this??
tawny owl

I think it depends more on how you feel about eating meat. If you are a meat-eater (I am), then as long as the animals are healthy and well looked after, I'm not sure it entirely matters how they're bred. However, I'm sure there will be hysterical articles implying that if you eat one of these horrible Frankenstein animals, you'll turn into some weird hybrid or something (didn't Anne McCaffrey have some story similar to that?), which is total nonsense. You don't see people walking round with carrots growing out of their heads or lettuces out of their ears, do you?
Behemoth

Wouldn't eat it in the principle that I don't like the commercial pressures and 'reasons' to introduce GM in general. If it was being done free in an altruisitc wich to improve the lot of the world's subsistence farmers etc I may think differently. Agree with the post above, we eat and digest other species chemical components DNA all the time, in food safety terms I think it's a red herring.
Jonnyboy

I won't eat it, for a few main reasons.

Firstly, and as mentioned, the process currently involves a high failure rate, abnormal cell growth and birth defects.

Secondly, It seems unlikely that the long term effects/health implications have been studied in any huge detail. Cloning is still too young a science.

Thirdly, I don't see the point in it. Nature has a perfectly reasonable method for ensuring reproduction with it's own quality control included.

Fourthly, On principle I don't agree with animals being used as a commodity, it is another step towards industrial farming rather than one towards stewardship.
jema

It is very hard to think of this outside of the context of increased exploitation of animals Sad But I suppose there is no real reason why this has to be the case, though I suppose one might wonder about long term genetic implications Confused
cab

Like all new applications of all new technologies, my answer is 'depends'.

If the animal husbandry standards are good, and I'm happy with the way the science has been done (cloning isn't necessarily bad, it isn't necessarily dangerous, and it isn't necessarily contrary to my ethics) then I'll eat it. If not, I won't. I'll apply the same standards here I'd apply anywhere.
monkey1973

I'm with jonnyboy on this. Too early to tell the possible implications so I'll stay well clear.
Jb

I wouldn't eat cloned animals. Not because I think there would be any health or animal welfare implications but because I wouldn't want to support, or be seen to support, what I suspect is an unnecessary practice.
cab

Lightbulbs are unnecessary, you can get light from candles and gas mantles. And, of course, mobile phone ringtones are unnecessary (no, they REALLY are)... You see, some new developments look lilke they might be good, but they aren't, others look good and really turn out to be.

Cloning technology for the preservation of advantageous traits in many species is well established; every time you take a cutting, you're cloning. It's feasible that such technology could be very useful for increasing yields from ethically reared animals, for eliminating genetic disorders that make some breeds of animals (even older breeds) less viable or healthy, reducing costs of said practices thus lowering price or increasing profits, etc. I have no ethical problems with any of that. And providing the practice is done in such a way that I can view and evaluate the science and practices for myself, I'll make my mind up application by application, which is the rational thing to do.
monkey1973

cab wrote:
Cloning technology for the preservation of advantageous traits in many species is well established; every time you take a cutting, you're cloning.


But you don't cut a cow's leg off and grow another cow. The practice is surely a good deal more complex than that and presumably involves a lot of trial and error on our part. At what point will we know we have got it spot on?
Gertie

I totally agree with the points raised by young Johnnyboy!
cab

monkey1973 wrote:

But you don't cut a cow's leg off and grow another cow.


No, you take a tissue sample and add in a set of chromosomes from an adult into a new embryonic cell, culture that for a while and add it to a parent.

Rather like taking a tissue sample from a plant, dropping the end in hormone rooting powder with fungicide, rotting that in pompost (a massively un-natural medium for growing plants) or water (even odder), and potting up before planting out. That ain't natural, you know.

Quote:

The practice is surely a good deal more complex than that and presumably involves a lot of trial and error on our part. At what point will we know we have got it spot on?


Well, it is and it isn't more complex. In essence, in terms of what's happening, it's simpler. In terms of actually doing it it's way more complex.

When will we know if we've got it spot on? Why do we have to have it spot on, and what do you mean by 'spot on' anyway? I'm not sure I agree that such a question is meaningful. Are you referring to animal welfare, safety, edibility, or what?
monkey1973

cab wrote:
When will we know if we've got it spot on? Why do we have to have it spot on, and what do you mean by 'spot on' anyway? I'm not sure I agree that such a question is meaningful. Are you referring to animal welfare, safety, edibility, or what?


Clearly, I do not have an understanding of the science behind cloning and I agree that my question regarding "getting it spot on" doesn't have an answer but that's kinda why I asked it. When mucking about in this manner, at what point do we decide that it's safe, and how do we ever really know it is. We can't possibly know that, can we?

It may not be a good comparison but it was previously deemed acceptable practice to feed cows back to cows and looked where that ended up.
monkey1973

cab wrote:
Rather like taking a tissue sample from a plant, dropping the end in hormone rooting powder with fungicide, rotting that in pompost (a massively un-natural medium for growing plants) or water (even odder), and potting up before planting out. That ain't natural, you know.


No aspect of cloning is natural be it with plants or mammals (at least not when we're doing the cloning).
Nick

cab wrote:
rotting that in pompost


Clearly the greatest and most appropriate typos you've ever made Cab, me old fellow. Smile
tahir

NickHowe wrote:
cab wrote:
rotting that in pompost


Clearly the greatest and most appropriate typos you've ever made Cab, me old fellow. Smile


Laughing

And what's your view on this being as you're another one of those scientific types, eh Mr Howe?
Nick

Honestly?

I don't think we should be cloning animals to populate the food chain. We've seen a massive reduction in species/strains numbers in crops, so that we've eliminated a huge amount of natural variation, that gives protection against a huge amount of natural predation/disease/damage. To combat this we're trying to GM crops. Wouldn't we have been better off having a range of strains? To add to Cab's metaphor, yes, lightbulbs are better than gas mantles and candles, but ask yourself if that's going to be true if we only had lightbulbs? And the elecricity runs out? I can only see it as benefitting the industrial farmers, rather than helping out the mass of smaller scale farmers, here or abroad.

Is cloning animals bad? Well, not totally. It gives rise the (potentially far-fetched) possibility that we could bring back extinct species (that we may or may not have wiped out), or help species where there are such small breeding pools that natural survival isn't going to happen.

Would I eat cloned meat? Probably not, simply because of my ethical concerns above. I'd consider it safe, but I'd not be happy eating it.

That said, you know, if you fancy doing some on your small, ethical farm, I'll happily sell you the kit for DIY cloning. (Prof Winston uses our stuff, as do the guys at Newcastle, and Dolly the sheep was from our gear too!) After all, a sales target is a sales target. Wink I believe RobR was going to make a GenePacker100 Dexter at some stage...

I'm not particularly vocal or motivated about it, but you did ask. I shall refuse to be drawn into a heated debate, however, as it's not a major issue for me.
tahir

Thanks for that Nick, I reckon you speak for the vast majority of us, natural variation is a beautiful thing.

You can go and watch the highlights of the first day of the first test now Wink
Nick

Cricket.

45 minutes of action crammed into 5 days. The *ONLY* way to enjoy cricket is on 198 longwave.
tahir

NickHowe wrote:
The *ONLY* way to enjoy cricket is on 198 longwave.


Never, ever done that, even though I'm a R4 addict. TV only for me.
Nick

Look, the test match is 5 days long. I can't afford 5 days off work like you, you workshy fop. Some of us still have to work for a living. Therefore, when sitting on the M6 at 90, watching the TV is deemed foolish by the rozzers. The radio is the only recourse. You should try and broaden your horizons. Course, if I could clone me, I could drive and watch...
tahir

NickHowe wrote:
you workshy fop


Got me in one Laughing
cab

monkey1973 wrote:

Clearly, I do not have an understanding of the science behind cloning and I agree that my question regarding "getting it spot on" doesn't have an answer but that's kinda why I asked it. When mucking about in this manner, at what point do we decide that it's safe, and how do we ever really know it is. We can't possibly know that, can we?

It may not be a good comparison but it was previously deemed acceptable practice to feed cows back to cows and looked where that ended up.


That's a perfect example; it's one in which I personally was aghast. It wasn't transparent, it wasn't well thought out (ask ANY microbiologist), it wasn't in the consumers interest in terms of quality, barely was it worthwhile in terms of cost, and in respect of animal welfare it was insane... But more important than any of that. oral transmission of BES and nvCJD by means other than syringing masses of material down an animals throat in a very artificial way has never, ever been demonstrated.

For all manner of reasons, the practice wouldn't have passed the tests that I personally lay down before buying meat; it still isn't convincingly dangerous, though.

As for how safe cloned animal products have to be... Well, for me there has to be for me to be happy to eat them, there has to be at least a theoretical reason why they oughtn't be. We're eating genes in food all of the time; it doesn't really matter what we eat, we take in DNA in staggering quantities with every single mouthfull. If we're eating something cloned, if the parent was safe to eat, then the progeny are safe to eat; they are genetically identical, so if the animal has not been raised in an environment that would make it unsafe to eat, then we can eat it.
cab

monkey1973 wrote:

No aspect of cloning is natural be it with plants or mammals (at least not when we're doing the cloning).


That was precisely my point. I'm trying to move away from any concept of 'natural' as a moral construct, because I think that's stupid.
Andy B

NO, because by eating it i would be supporting it.
cab

NickHowe wrote:

I don't think we should be cloning animals to populate the food chain. We've seen a massive reduction in species/strains numbers in crops, so that we've eliminated a huge amount of natural variation, that gives protection against a huge amount of natural predation/disease/damage. To combat this we're trying to GM crops. Wouldn't we have been better off having a range of strains? To add to Cab's metaphor, yes, lightbulbs are better than gas mantles and candles, but ask yourself if that's going to be true if we only had lightbulbs? And the elecricity runs out? I can only see it as benefitting the industrial farmers, rather than helping out the mass of smaller scale farmers, here or abroad.


This is why I'd always say we should evaluate every potential application on its own merits. If a proposed cloned animal has benefit, great, if it doesn't, well, back to the drawing board. Same goes for GM plant crops.

Quote:

Is cloning animals bad? Well, not totally. It gives rise the (potentially far-fetched) possibility that we could bring back extinct species (that we may or may not have wiped out), or help species where there are such small breeding pools that natural survival isn't going to happen.

Would I eat cloned meat? Probably not, simply because of my ethical concerns above. I'd consider it safe, but I'd not be happy eating it.


Lets suppose, for a moment, that the last few herds of Gloucester cattle were wiped out in another outbreak of foot and mouth. Lets say there's only one bull left, and he's past his prime. Suppose someone suggested cloning him, thus saving this excellent beef breed. Would you eat his grand children? I would.

Quote:
That said, you know, if you fancy doing some on your small, ethical farm, I'll happily sell you the kit for DIY cloning. (Prof Winston uses our stuff, as do the guys at Newcastle, and Dolly the sheep was from our gear too!) After all, a sales target is a sales target. Wink I believe RobR was going to make a GenePacker100 Dexter at some stage...

I'm not particularly vocal or motivated about it, but you did ask. I shall refuse to be drawn into a heated debate, however, as it's not a major issue for me.


Heck, I don't see this being a heated debate here at the moment; The most enthusiastic pro-cloning person here is me, and my own stance isn't so very far from yours (yours, if I may summarise, is a qualified no, mine is a qualified yes).
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