Hating Progress with a Passion

By Alan Caruba

The same day, January 15th, that the Food and Drug Administration announced its finding that food derived from cloned cattle, pigs and goats is safe to consume, Friends of the Earth issued a statement that it would gather signatures on a petition to put a stop to it.

“Tell grocers you aren’t buying it! Tell them you’ll stop shopping at stores that can’t promise not to sell such products.” Since food labels will not identify meat from a cloned animal, this is simply an impossible request. There simply is no need to do so.

It is also typical of the scare mongering that is the bread and butter (no pun intended) of groups like FOA. The Consumer Federation of America opposed it as did the Humane Society of the United States.

“We found nothing in the food that could potentially be hazardous. The food in every respect is indistinguishable from food from any other animal,” said FDA food safety chief, Dr. Stephen Sundlof. “It is beyond our imagination to even find a theory that would cause the food to be unsafe.”

The FDA spent six years tracking the safety of cloning. European regulators issued a draft report the previous week that reached the same conclusion. The U.S. National Academy of Sciences found no cause for concern.

This did not deter the FOA from claiming that “Cloned animals have a much higher rate of genetic abnormalities than animals that reproduce naturally.” If this was true it is doubtful the FDA would have issued its statement. An international group of scientists will issue guidelines later this year on how to clone safely and with minimal risk to the animals.

This is not about science, however. It is about the relentless war on progress that is common to environmental groups and others seeking to fatten their coffers by scaring people who will not take the time to learn the facts.

As the Associated Press story on the FDA announcement noted, “By its very definition, a successfully cloned animal should be no different from the original animal whose DNA was used to create it.” Indeed, the FDA concluded that cloned animals that are born healthy are no different than their non-cloned counterparts and go on to reproduce normally as well.

The same motivation that drives this latest opposition to cloned food stocks was seen earlier in the opposition to irradiation, probably the best way to kill any bacteria in meat products ever invented. The term may scare some people, but the process protects them.

The FDA and international approval means future generations will have sufficient meat products to eat thanks to the remarkable technology of cloning. After the mysteries of DNA were ultimately decoded, it was a natural next step to take.

Americans have to literally train themselves to resist the claims of environmental groups and, of course, those made by animal rights loonies. According to the Center for Consumer Freedom, the Virginia-based People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals recently disclosed that its employees killed more than 97 percent of the dogs, cats, and other pets they took in during 2006. The Center has asked the State of Virginia to declare PETA to be a slaughterhouse.

The environmental and animal rights groups routinely engage in misinformation and disinformation.

Their ultimate motivation is a hatred for humanity and for any progress that serves it.