I won’t eat cloned food, nor will I feed it to my children, who are not Guinea Pigs. I have nothing against technology. My second, miraculous child would not be here if not for the gift of modern science. However, testing thus far on cloned animals isn’t rigorous enough to warrant mass, unlabeled release into the food supply. And who did the testing? The companies selling the technology, as far as I’ve been able to tell.
Why are cloned animals so likely to die prior to complete gestation, or soon thereafter? And what could the birth defect predilection, obscured deeply within the genes of a future Dolly, do to my children’s own genetic integrity? Last year, Science magazine printed an article in which two of the biggest guns at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) discussed the impact of environmental factors (what we eat, chemical exposure, etc.) on human disease. They basically said that genes aren’t the whole story: what washes over and interweaves with our DNA throughout our life has an impact about which science understands relatively little.
Then there is the basic Constitutional issue of my right to know what I’m eating. The FDA has deemed cloned meat and milk “safe” so that they require no tracking of processes or labeling of cloned foods (or the offspring thereof). If the clones are so “safe,” why do cloning corporations not want us to know we’re eating meat/milk that’s been cloned? A label, at the very least, should be our tax-paying prerogative.
Given the recent salvo of drugs recalled due to their previously undiscovered/
That our DNA may not define our fate is an idea I can accept. That the FDA may define our fate—without long-term testing or acknowledging our legal preferences—
Kelly Corbet
Chief of Belief
Smart Foods Healthy Kids
www.smartfoodshealthykids.com
