ViaGen in the News
Cloning has world of benefits
By Rod Smith, Feedstuffs
May 28, 2007
As FDA prepares a final rule on safety of food from animal clones and their offspring, the benefits for people around the world are becoming clear.
THE benefits that will be gained in animal cloning technology stretch across all kinds of production — from conventional to natural and organic — and around the world from Nebraska to Africa to China, according to a number of sources familiar with and involved in the technology.
As previously reported, cloning will allow producers to “copy” their best-performing livestock to improve the consistency and productivity of their herds, to insure against unexpected injuries and losses through multiplication or preservation strategies, to select for disease and pest resistance and hardiness and vigor and to improve the consistency and quality of meat and milk from their animals (Feedstuffs FoodLink, May 14 and 21).
Cloning will allow producers to extend lines and will allow scientists to preserve species.
Third in a series
These are especially important opportunities in developing and transitioning countries, according to Calestous Juma, who teaches international development ay Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, and Leah Wilkinson, director of industry relations and policy at ViaGen, leading specialist in animal cloning based in Austin, Texas.
In Africa, for instance, cloning can produce cattle that are not only bigger and more productive to increase food production for the continent but vigorous enough to resist fevers and insects, Juma said in a BBC News Viewpoint published earlier this year.
More productive and stronger cattle would also mean that fewer cattle could produce more food, reducing the ecological impact of cattle grazing, he said.
This would also be important for human health, nourishment and well-being, Wilkinson added during a Feedstuffs interview with her and other ViaGen executives last month.
Eager and open
ViaGen is eager to talk about these benefits, president Dr. Mark Walton said.
First, ViaGen and Cyagra, a company that’s also involved in animal cloning, maintain a web site at www.clonesafety.org that explains the cloning process and provides answers to common questions about the technology.
Second, “we do outreach,” Walton said, noting that the company is ready to make presentations to producer and consumer groups and welcomes people who want to come to ViaGen to talk and tour the laboratories there. “We are open and transparent, … and we continue to look for ways to do this,” he said.
He said it’s his experience that when he talks about applications of cloning technology, more hands go up in support of the technology at the end of his presentation than went up at the beginning.
There are animal and consumer activists who are opposed to cloning, but the technology also is well supported in the scientific community. Comments from both sides are currently in review at the Food & Drug Administration, which issued a draft risk assessment and preliminary rule last December that meat and milk from animal clones and their offspring are safe for human consumption (Feedstuffs, Jan. 1) and took public comment through May 3.
The Center for Food Safety, a nonprofit public interest group, formed a coalition of consumer, animal welfare and environmental groups and submitted more than 130,000 comments opposed to FDA’s rule. Others opposed to the rule include the Consumers Union, Consumer Federation of America, Food & Water Watch, Humane Society of the United States and Organic Consumers Assn.
However, more than 200 scientists signed a letter carried by the Federation of Animal Science Societies (FASS) in support of the rule, including Dr. Terry Etherton, chair of the department of animal and dairy science at Penn State University and a member of the National Academy of Sciences panel that evaluated the safety of meat and milk from clones and their offspring.
FASS chief executive officer Dr. Jerome Baker said FDA’s study behind the rule was “one of the most rigorous food safety studies ever conducted. The American people should be absolutely confident in FDA’s good work.”
FDA is not expected to issue its final rule until late this year.
(EDITOR’S NOTE: Part four of this series will cover commonly asked questions on cloning.)
Here’s the point
CLONING will benefit all kinds of producers all over the world, including conventional producers, of course, but also natural and organic producers who can benefit from an expanded influence of genetics that are high in health and productivity and support antibiotic- and hormone-free production systems as well as environmental and local sustainability, according to cloning specialists who have talked with Feedstuffs.
Cloning will especially help producers in developing areas of the world where herds need to be stronger to resist disease and insects and improve food sustainability, and its environmental footprint will be less intrusive on sensitive ecosystems, according to sources who are working to help developing nations.
To these ends, cloning will benefit people everywhere.
Cloning has wide scientific support. Indeed, the Federation of Animal Science Societies ran an advertisement in the May 2 Washington Post in which Dr. Terry Etherton said “the scientific evidence is absolutely, robustly clear” that meat and milk from clones and their offspring are safe to consume and that cloning will benefit people.
These are important messages for agriculture, suppliers and customers to take to consumers through communications outreaches and by referring them to www.FeedstuffsFoodLink.com.