Restrictions Sought On Sales Of Consumable Clones
Pastor Dale Morgan
Restrictions Sought On Sales Of Consumable Clones*
Apr 13th, 2007 8:29 AM
Harrison Sheppard
SACRAMENTO - Facing the possibility of food from cloned animals ending
up on supermarket shelves within a few years, consumer groups and
lawmakers are sounding the alarm about potential dangers and looking to
put new restrictions on the sale of such products in California.
There are several bills pending in the Legislature that would place new
regulations on food created as a result of cloning or genetic engineering.
One such bill, SB 63, by Sen. Carole Migden, D-San Francisco, would
require meat and milk produced from cloned animals to carry a label
identifying it as having a cloned origin. The bill received its first
legislative hearing Wednesday in the Senate Health Committee, where it
passed on a 6-4 vote.
"Consumers want to know what they're feeding their children," Migden
said. "We don't like the notion of fake food. We ought to know that our
food is fresh and authentic. And we certainly don't want to wrestle with
moral issues when we're grocery shopping."
Migden appeared at a press conference Wednesday with a West Marin
organic food producer, who said cloned food represents a threat to his
livelihood.
Albert Straus, president of Straus Family Creamery in Marshall, said
cloning threatens the nation's food supply and is an economic threat to
his farm and other organic farmers. If cloned animals are not labeled,
he said, they could be used in breeding his dairy cows, rendering them
not organic under federal law.
He said cloning remains "untested" and "unnatural."
"Today we're facing a major crisis," Straus said. "Cloning is
endangering the American food supply. I've been a dairy farmer all my
life and I stand here today because cloning poses a threat to the future
of my farm."
Industry representatives oppose cloned food labels, saying they would
unnecessarily frighten consumers when studies have indicated food from
cloned animals poses no added risk.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration in December issued a preliminary
opinion indicating that food from cloned animals is safe to eat.
The FDA has not yet formally approved the use of cloned animals for
food, though it also does not have specific regulations banning it. The
agency instead has called for a voluntary moratorium from the food
industry as the issue continues to be studied.
The farm industry has said it generally does not expect cloned animals
to directly be used in food. Instead, the expensive technology would be
used in breeding, and the offspring of clones would then be used in food.
But Migden, consumer groups and other critics of the process think it
could be only a year or two before cloned food ends up on the shelves of
stores across the country. They believe that if they cannot ban the
practice altogether, at least they can give consumers the knowledge to
decide for themselves whether to purchase such products.
Food producers are resistant to the idea of labels, saying it will panic
consumers.
"The reason that we are concerned with labeling is it creates
unnecessary fear in consumers' minds," said Noelle Cremers, a
representative of the California Farm Bureau Federation. "Until the
industry has an opportunity to educate why we want to use this
technology and the value of the technology, we don't feel that consumers
just having a warning label will help them.
"We think the market is the correct place to have that, not a mandatory
requirement. If consumers demand it, let companies voluntarily choose to
label."
Sen. Sam Aanestad, R-Grass Valley, called the labeling proposal a
"hysterical reaction" based on no evidence of danger.
"I have spent nine years now in this Legislature trying to convince this
body that emotional knee-jerk reactions to pseudo-science like this bill
represents, and putting a ban on something before the testing is done,
is not the way we should be doing public policy," Aanestad said. "There
is no risk. The FDA has said that."
But supporters of the label said it should be a matter of consumer
choice and education. Migden noted that the FDA has been wrong before in
finding certain drugs to be safe and then later recalling them after
consumers reported problems.
A separate bill has also been introduced to address food that is
genetically engineered, a process that is different from cloning.
AB 541, by Assemblyman Jared Huffman, D-San Rafael, allows farmers who
do not use genetic engineering to seek damages in court if their crops
accidentally become contaminated by genetically-engineered crops. Such
contamination can harm the farmers' business if they specifically sell
to consumers who are looking for nongenetically engineered food, Huffman
argues.
Similarly, the bill also seeks to protect farmers who grow crops that
have been accidentally contaminated by genetically-engineered crops,
because such farmers have been sued in the past for patent infringement.
The biotechnology industry and groups representing cattlemen and some
segments of the agricultural industry oppose Huffman's bill, saying it
could expose manufacturers to inappropriate liability and endanger
methods used to produce crops that are more resistant to disease and pests.
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