Food and Drug Administration Decision on Cloned Animal Meat and Dairy Products - Literature review Example

FDA’s Decision on Cloned Animal Meat and Dairy Products Total Number of Words 510 Introduction As of 2008, there is an estimated 600 cloned animals throughout the United States. (Pifer & Willingham, 2008) Aiming to increase the available food supply in the global markets, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued a public document on its official website reporting that cloned animal meat and milk including the “cloned adult cattle, pigs, and goats as well as their offspring” can be eaten without any health complications back on December 2006 (U.S. FDA, 2006). In relation to the health and safety of the people with regards to the consumption of cloned animal meat products, debate as to whether or not the FDA should reconsider its decision to legally allow the selling of cloned animal meat throughout the U.S. market arises. With regards to the people who against FDA’s decision on cloned animal meat, a large number of people including the U.S. Senate and Congress made some necessary legal actions to stop the FDA from publicly announcing that it is safe to consider cloned animal meat and dairy products for human food consumption and suggest that there should be more studies that has to be conducted to ensure the health and safety of the people. Upon analyzing the point-of-view of selected author(s) of peer-reviewed journals and the journalist of a news report with regards to the cloning of animals for food purposes, valid clinical reasons behind the need to consider FDA’s approval on cloned animal meat will be provided to persuade the readers on why we should give support with such a major decision on food products. Thesis Statement “FDA should continuously promote the importance of cloned animal meat products as part of our existing food supply.” Reasons behind the Need to Consider FDA’s Approval on Cloned Animal Meat The study behind the health and safety of cloned animal products is not new to genetic engineering experts who have spent almost two decades studying the possibile health impact of cloned animal meat and dairy products on human beings. (Juskevich & Guyer, 1990) Given that the cloning technology used in the production of cloned animal meat and milk is new to millions of peoplea round the world, it is unavoidable that many people would go against the decision made by the FDA with regards to the approval of selected cloned animal meat and milk products. The pilot study that was conducted by Tian et al. (2005)i revealed that there is really no significant different between the composition of meat and milk that comes from somatic animal clones and the ones that come from the traditional meat and milk supply that are available in the market today. Likewise, the same information was recently reported by Kondro (2008) and Walker et al. (2007)ii who made a comparison with regards to the meat composition of cloned pig’s offspring and the conventionally raised pigs. Upon analyzing the test results that was conducted by Tian et al. (2005) and Walker et al. (2007), given that the meat composition of cloned animals is just the same with the meat composition of a conventionally raised animals mean that cloned animals are indeed safe for human food consumption. In case there is a significant change in the chemical composition of meat taken from the two different sources, people should start doubting that the intake of cloned animal meat can trigger a new set of health-related diseases that has no found cure or treatment as of today. However, both research studies which aimed to detect any form of dissimilarities between the meat composition of cloned animals and the conventionally raised animals found nothing in significicant to cause the public to be alarmed of potential harm from eating cloned animal meat and dairy products. Aside from the promising result that was concluded in the study of Tian et al. (2005) and Walker et al. (2007), a group of FDA scientists who were in-charge of re-evaluating the study results that was submitted by several pharmaceutical companies pertaining to the possible health impact of using the recombinant bovine growth hormone (rbGH) that are present in dairy cattle was also reported to be safe for human consumption (Juskevich & Guyer, 1990). According to Pifer and Willingham (2008)iii, “the main purpose of using cloned animals is to improve the overall value of a given herd by creating genetic copies of donor animals to produce higher quality milk and meat.” I strongly agree that the use of genetic engineering process, it is possible for scientists to be able to select good animal genes and avoid the bad ones. By doing so, scientists will be able to avoid genes that are significantly associated with the development of animal diseases. Since what we eat greatly affects our physical health and overall well-being, allowing the scientists to increase their success rate in terms of being able to remove animal genes that can cause a wide-range of human diseases. As a result, it is possible for the future generation of the American society to gain some health benefits associated with the FDA’s decision to approve the marketing of cloned animal meat and milk products. With regards to the potential health benefits that can be derived out of consuming cloned animal meat and milk products, the study that was conducted by Juskevich and Guyer (1990)iv revealed that the cloned cattles that are treated with recombinant bovine growth hormone (rbGH) increases the insuln-like growth factor-I (IGF-I) in milk of cloned cows has IGF-I content which is similar to the normal range of IGF-I that is present in a human breast milk. In other words, it is possible us to consider the milk of cloned cows as a good substitute for human breast milk for infants in case the mother chooses not to breast feed their infants or is unable or is medically not allowed to breast feed their babies due to health complications related to HIV among others. Conclusion FDA’s approval on the marketing of cloned animal meat and dairy products has been a very controversial issue within the U.S. society for many years. Millions of people around the world do not have scientific knowledge with regards to the existence of cloned animal meat and diary products. For this reason, a lot of them are againsts FDA’s major decision of legally allowing cloned animals and diary products to spread within the domestic and international markets. To minimize the external pressures on FDA’s decision, the local agency should consider encouraging more qualified people to conduct peer-reviewed research studies to gradually convince the people with regards to the health and safety of the people who would decide to consume cloned animal meat and dairy products. Based on the three gathered peer-reviewed research studies, the composition of cloned anial meat and milk products and the ones that come from a conventionally grown meat and milk supply does not have any significant difference in its chemical composition. In fact, milk that comes from cloned cows are more promising for infants because of its IGF-I content which can only be found in human breast milk. *** End *** Read More