Editorial: What’s in a clone?

Tuesday, Jan. 2, 2007 | 7:13 a.m.

The Food and Drug Administration announced last week that milk and meat from cloned animals is safe to eat and "indistinguishable" from those of animals bred using conventional methods, taking the United States one step closer to allowing the sale of such food.

The FDA began studying the risks of food from cloned animals shortly after placing a voluntary moratorium on the sales of such items in 2001. The results of those studies now enter a 90-day public comment period, after which sales of products from cloned animals could begin.

A draft of the FDA Center for Veterinary Medicine's report, which is to be published this week, says that none of the agency's studies show "any remarkable nutritionally or toxicologically important differences" in the meat and milk from cloned animals.

But these products are different. They come from animals that were created in a laboratory to be exact replicas of existing beasts.

Cloning carries with it ethical concerns that do not exist in the conventional process of breeding animals. Cloning creates animals by design, through a process that has a higher-than-average risk of producing birth defects.

Some consumers may not want to purchase such products, but they will not have the option of knowing whether their meat and milk come from cloned animals. The FDA isn't planning to require that the information be noted on food labels. And that is just wrong.

Many people do care about the ethics involved in the production of their food, and consumers who are opposed to cloning should have the option of avoiding products gleaned from cloned animals.

Americans need to know what they are putting into their mouths, and it is the federal government's job to make sure that they are told.