Is it safe to consume milk and meat from cloned cattle?
The Food Standards Agency (FSA) will investigate reports that milk from a cloned cow's offspring has reached Britain's supermarket shelves.
BBC News looks deeper at the reports and at the issues surrounding produce from cloned animals.
Animal cloning has been around for years The New York Times has reported that a British dairy farmer, who wished to remain anonymous, was selling milk from a cow bred from a clone.
He did not want to disclose his identity, the newspaper said, because "the British public regarded cloning as so distasteful that buyers would stop taking his milk…[and] he did not want to be required to get rid of a valuable cow." The paper also reports that the farmer was selling embryos from the same cow to breeders in Canada.
“Start Quote
End Quote Corinne Lepage European ParliamentThis technique raises serious issues about animal welfare, reduction of biodiversity, as well as ethical concerns ”
However, not everyone is convinced that the story is true. Professor Grahame Bulfield, former director of the Roslin Institute, where Dolly the Sheep was cloned, said: "Given that the farmer wishes to remain 'anonymous', it is very difficult to evaluate this story so it should be taken with a pinch of salt. I don't know of any cloned animals in the UK so I would be very suspicious."
What is a clone?A clone is a genetic copy of an animal. Scientists say that clones are similar to identical twins, but born at different times.
Animal cloning has been around for more than two decades. The first mammal cloned from the cell of an adult animal was Dolly the sheep, born in 1996. She died in February 2003.
Most cloning nowadays is done using somatic cell nuclear transfer:
- Scientists remove the gene-containing nucleus from an egg taken from a female animal
- They then add to the egg the nucleus of a cell from an animal they wish to clone
- The egg cell begins to form into an embryo in the laboratory
- The embryo is then implanted in the uterus of a host animal which carries it to term and delivers it like her own offspring
According to the Genetic Science Learning Centre of the University of Utah, the success rate ranges from 0.1% to 3%. That means that only one to 30 clones are made for every 1,000 attempts.
Is it safe to consume milk and meat from cloned animals and their offspring?According to a research paper done by scientists in the US and Japan in 2005, milk and meat from cloned cattle appear safe for consumption.
Hundreds of cloned animals exist today, but many clones die shortly after birth The team, led by Jerry Yang from the University of Connecticut, compared the produce from two beef and four dairy clones with that from normal animals of similar age and breed.
The scientists found that the cloned cow meat was slightly higher in fat and fatty acids, but still within beef industry standards. Other than that, there were no significant differences, and produce from cloned cattle was said to be safe to eat and drink.
Dr Brendan Curran, a geneticist from the School of Biological and Chemical Sciences at Queen Mary, University of London, said cloning was "an extension of the process by which identical twins arise in nature".
"Therefore if you have a healthy cow that is producing milk, it will produce healthy milk. I would argue that once the animal has been certified by veterinary surgeons as a fit animal, I can't see how it would be in any way dangerous."
The US' Food and Drug Administration has a similar opinion.
It has concluded, based on the results of a number of studies, that "meat and milk from clones of cattle, swine (pigs), 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".
What does the European Union think of the sale of foods from cloned cattle?In July, the European Parliament called for a ban on the sale of dairy products and meat from cloned animals.
“Start Quote
End Quote Professor Robin Lovell-Badge National Institute for Medical ResearchThere is no genetic modification... they are just normal animals, and I do not understand the EU position on this”
The governments of the 27 EU member states will finalise the rules of the bill with EU legislators in September.
"Although no safety concerns have been identified so far with meat produced from cloned animals, this technique raises serious issues about animal welfare, reduction of biodiversity, as well as ethical concerns," said Corinne Lepage, a French member of the European Parliament.
In the UK, milk and meat from cloned animals are considered "novel foods" and need to be authorised by the Food Standard Agency (FSA) before being sold.
"It is the responsibility of food business operators to ensure food that they place on the market is in compliance with the law. As the UK authority responsible for accepting Novel Food applications, the agency has not received any applications relating to cloning and no authorisations have been made," said the FSA in an e-mail to BBC News.
"The agency will, of course, investigate any reports of unauthorised novel foods entering the food chain."
Professor Robin Lovell-Badge, head of stem cell biology and developmental genetics at the National Institute for Medical Research (NIMR), said he did not understand the EU's concerns.
"There is no genetic modification. It was for this reason that the FDA has approved consumption of milk and beef from the offspring of cloned cattle - they are just normal animals, and I do not understand the EU position on this," he said.
"Obviously the FSA have their rules and need to look into what has happened, but it is more likely to be the milk of kindness than a horror story."
Are cloned animals generally normal and healthy?It has been shown that animals conceived through an assisted reproductive technique have a higher risk of neo-natal death.
Those clones that do survive are often much bigger at birth than animals born in a natural way. They can have abnormally large organs, which can lead to a number of problems, including breathing and blood flow. This is known as "Large Offspring Syndrome" (LOS).
But Dr Curran from the school of biological and chemical sciences at Queen Mary, University of London, does not agree.
"I could see an argument for the animal welfare people being concerned, but since these procedures have to be done under very strict conditions and in a compassionate way for the animal, this also shouldn't be a problem," he said.
"After the animal has been born and grows to be an adult, it reproduces normally and does everything normally."
