Cloned meat okay to eat.

int

int

int

Soldato
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11844141

About time someone came forward talking some sense.
I'm surprised the media were allowed to put the recent 'offspring of a cloned cow" even in such a bad light, especially as this was meat from the offspring, so technically not a cloned animal.

I'm glad to see the facts have been put right, what does everyone else think of this?
 
All they have said is they believed the food was unlikely to present any risk. There will be many who will say that this isn't very conclusive so this will run for a while yet.
 
Coming from someone who has actually done some 'cloning', I still be weary of chowing down on this, outside of the UK at least.

Genetic engineering has incredible potential, but the way it has been used commercially so recklessly is just ridiculous. GM foods were being farmed to eat less than one year after the succesful transformation in the US to protect against viruses. Ten years later, they realised the theory behind how they thought it worked was totally wrong. So people had been eating crops that they had no idea how they worked, which is just frightening really.

Or how about monsanto making grass seeds for golf courses that are resistant to all practically all herbicides? Great for the golf courses. Rather crap for the poor farmer who has a load of easily dispersable and persistant grass causing havoc amonst his crops with the only way of getting rid of it being to chemically nuke his field.

There are loads of examples of this, such as putting in full sequences of DNA for antibiotic resistance and leaving them in there (in some US crops they are still there!), using full sequences of viral genes rather than fragments... a whole load of unnecessry risk.

The science is great, the application of it has pretty much been dubious in the commercial sector. If the application of it is sensible, then it will be great. Thankfully, the UK has always had a great stance on GM products and cloned food. Regardless, I can't help but remain sceptical.
 
Nitefly said:
[..]
The science is great, the application of it has pretty much been dubious in the commercial sector. If the application of it is sensible, then it will be great. Thankfully, the UK has always had a great stance on GM products and cloned food. Regardless, I can't help but remain sceptical.
Click to expand...

This is what really bothers me behind genetic engineering in general. If it was left in the hands of scientists with proper procedures in place, it wouldn't bother me. When it becomes a product, it bothers me. The motives and methods change completely, from thorough investigation in controlled circumstances until something is understood to profit now and to hell with everything else, must get it to market before anyone else does so we'll do the minimum testing and sell it as soon as it works. Which inevitably leads to the things you gave examples of - needless risks that aren't even understood until it's too late and to a very narrow focus that ignores the impact outside the targeted market. Then there's the potential for exploitation, e.g. locking poor farmers into requiring a company's products and pricing them to the limit, effectively making the farmers indentured servants of the company.

Genetic engineering is far too powerful and wide-reaching to be left in the hands of commercial interests.
 
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