CATTLE CLONING

Cloned Cows' Milk, Beef Up to Standard

Milk and meat from cloned cattle are almost identical in composition to the milk and meat from conventionally bred cattle, according to the first comprehensive assessment of the nutritional value of food from clones. The new findings, by researchers in Connecticut and Japan, bolster industry assertions that food products from clones should be allowed on the market. But other experts criticized the report as incomplete and said that, in any case, social and economic factors argue against the sale of clonal food. The National Academy of Sciences in 2002 concluded that meat and milk from cloned cattle were unlikely to pose human health concerns, but it warned that there were few studies on which to base its conclusion. A year later, a Food and Drug Administration advisory committee leaned the same way, but several members expressed reservations and even more voiced concerns about the clones' health and welfare. The new study, described in this week's issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, compared the chemical composition of milk from clones of a 13-year-old, high-producing Holstein cow with milk from conventional Holsteins raised identically. Tests on more than 1,000 samples found no significant differences in levels of protein, fat, lactose, antibodies and other parameters routinely monitored by the dairy industry. The team also studied clones of the offspring of a prizewinning Japanese bull famed for his superior marbling -- the blend of fat and muscle that contributes so much to a steak's quality. Of more than 100 measures, more than 90 percent were virtually identical for the clones and conventional animals. Of the dozen tests on which clones scored differently, most showed they had higher levels of fats or fatty acids in various cuts -- traits valued by many consumers, the researchers reported. That reflects the high fat levels in the bull that sired the cloned animal -- one of the reasons that semen from that bull has been used to produce more than 165,000 offspring by standard in vitro fertilization methods....

Cloned Cows Yummy and Safe

Companies like ViaGen, a subsidiary of Exeter Life Sciences in Austin, Texas, and Cyagra, which offer livestock-cloning services to ranchers for replicating their most elite sires and dams, have also been waiting for several years for a final say from the FDA. Cloning cattle can eliminate the genetic gamble that comes with more traditional methods of reproduction, proponents say. Ranchers will choose the animals that produce the best meat and the most milk, as well as those that resist disease and reproduce more efficiently. "For the United States agricultural industry, (cloning) can reduce the number of cows necessary for milking," said Jerry Yang, an animal science professor at the University of Connecticut and a co-author of the study, which appears in the April 11 online issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. "They can have a pleasant environment and produce even more milk." Yang's research found that cloned cattle produced better-quality meat and more milk than those conceived through selective breeding. He also said that cloning could be a boon for developing countries where cows produce four to six times less meat and milk than those in the United States, where genetic breeding is more advanced. "If you use cloning technologies to copy the cows in developing countries, you can save them 50 years of breeding," Yang said....

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