Ignorance "engineers" a costly quagmire Duplication vs. Fabrication To many of my readers' continuing surprise, I heartily endorse the production of meats from cloned livestock… That's because I know the difference between "cloning" and "genetic engineering." This is a distinction that eludes a lot of folks, especially (but not surprisingly) those who are making the decisions about what we can and can't eat, and how those things are classified and labeled: Politicians. Just to recap for any confused readers (or politicians), cloning is the genetic duplication of an animal - in the livestock world, usually one that has been deemed by those who raised it as being of exceptional quality. This means that cloning is a perfectly natural way of ensuring uniform excellence of our table fare… Genetic engineering, on the other hand, is when we humans monkey around with the genetic make-up of an animal by "hybridizing" it with others on the molecular (DNA) level - like when we take some gene for phosphorescence out of some deep-sea snail and fabricate a species of rabbits that glow in the dark for our own amusement (oh yes, it has been done)… One of these things is like photocopying something nature has made nearly perfect to ensure that those traits are preserved, the other is "playing God" with life itself. One we have no reason to fear - the other we have reason for tremendous caution. My main concern with the genetic engineering of livestock and other edible critters is that it will inevitably lead to the PATENTING of genetic designs. Think about it: Some breeder will hybridize a cow with a salmon to create a high-Omega-3 "Super-steak" - and then, because of the repeatability of cloning, will have a patent-able product. Nature itself will become nothing but brand names if we aren't careful… But I digress: We were talking about the fuzziness of this distinction among those who are making the rules. New legislation introduced by Senator Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.) is aimed at forcing the meat and dairy industries to label products that come from cloned animals with the words: "This product is from a cloned animal or its progeny." So what's the harm in this, you're asking? Well, on paper (which is all the further politicians consider anything), it may seem like a disclosure label is an easy thing to incorporate into the marketing of any natural food product… But consider how hard it would be at the "farm" level to keep cloned and natural-born animals segregated 100% of the time? Animals have minds and hormones of their own. What if one of the cloned bulls got in with the non-cloned cows? Would all their little offspring have to be killed since they were sired by a clone? And what about legal traceability and compliance? You just know that there would have to be some huge new wing of the USDA created to make sure the clones and the naturals aren't mixing up or making hanky-panky. That's really the goal of all new laws, you know - expanding the size and scope of government… How do you think all of these headaches will affect prices? For once, I agree with the FDA: They say such labels are needless, because neither man nor science cannot distinguish a difference between cloned meats and non-cloned meats. Besides, there's already a label in place that covers this. All one needs to look for is the round, green "USDA Organic" seal - none of this meat is allowed to come from cloned sources… This is really too bad, for the best of both worlds would be to "hybridize" the organic foods and cloned foods philosophies. The end result would be meats that are as consistently excellent as nature can make them - but raised without all the food additives, hormones, and antibiotics we're pumping into ordinary livestock. | 
