Approving food from cloned animals will create another food-labeling nightmare and the same aggressive litigation that usually blocks any attempt to tell consumers where their food comes from.Who blocks any attempt by food companies to inform their clients?
January 07, 2007
Animal cloning and food labeling
Because it supports the nanny state, treats consumers as idiots, hates individual freedom, fears change, believes that "society" can make decisions, and distrusts human capacity to solve future problems I disagree with this editorial in The New York Times on animal cloning (found via Another Blasted Weblog). And I find this bit awkward:
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I accept what you are saying about the nanny state, consumer choice and so on, but what about the fundamental question: "Why clone at all?"
ReplyDeleteIs it simply that you think because we can, we should?
I think pharming -- using animals to produce useful therapeutic compounds -- has a great future, and I personally think it wouldn't matter much if any by-products from those enterprises were to be eaten. But that would be a pretty minor income source for the pharming companies.
Cloning for production of meat, milk etc is another matter entirely, and one that I oppose mostly because it leads to further narrowing of the gene pool and, thus, susceptibility to diseases. The companies indulging in this may have their reasons, but they never include indemnifying the farmers.
The question is not "why clone at all?" but "why forbidding it?"
ReplyDeleteEach farmer should decide whether to use cloned animals or not, depending on their price, their susceptibility to diseases, their demand by final consumers, and so on. Farmers already make that sort of decisions about plants.
"Who blocks any attempt by food companies to inform their clients?"
ReplyDeleteMonsanto did
(http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0708-10.htm)
and this will be used as a precedent for whoever capitalizes on cloned animals.
While I think its just a little freakish as a grower, as a consumer I want to know for sure what processes are involved in my food.
Rich, Monsanto and Oakhurst settled the matter out of court.
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