US biotech firms launch tracking system for cloned livestock
With the government set to allow food from cloned animals onto the market — and consumers not yet convinced it’s safe — meat and dairy producers are promoting an industry-led system to track cloned livestock.
The Biotechnology Industry Association (BIO), which represents leading cloning companies, said the system would allow food companies to track cloned livestock throughout the food processing chain and address market concerns.
The tracking system was launched one year after the US Food and Drug Administration said in a draft risk assessment that meat and milk from cloned animals were safe for human consumption, bringing such products closer to supermarket shelves.
BIO, which represents 1,100 companies and cloning organizations in 32 countries, urged the FDA to release a final risk assessment on the safety of food products from cloned animals.
“Our industry believes the tracking program will help to identify animal clones and address market concerns when the voluntary moratorium on the use of cloning for commercial food production is lifted,” Sharon Bomer Lauritsen, BIO’s executive vice president for food and agriculture, said in a statement.
“BIO believes that when cloning technology is available for commercial food production, this tracking system will help promote a wider variety of choices in the world’s food supply and support smooth trade transactions in the agricultural community,” she said.
ViaGen Inc., a leading cloning company, said the tracking system was developed over the last year with the help of representatives of the beef, dairy and pork industries, as well as producers, processors, grocers and food service providers.
Under the system, each cloned animal will get a unique ID that will be entered into a registry that can be checked by the livestock auction market or packers and processors.
Once a cloned animal is delivered, the owner must commit to properly market the meat or milk produced from it.
“Because so few clones currently exist, putting this system into place immediately virtually ensures that processors will be able to identify food from a cloned animal if that’s their goal,” said ViaGen President Mark Walton.
