One sometimes forgets how much of an effect science has on our daily lives. In the world of cloning, it is sometimes difficult to comprehend the magnitude of new discoveries and the changes that our lives undergo as a result. For example, did you know that it is possible that you have eaten meat from a cloned cow? On January 8th, 2007, Nature Biotechnology, an online scientific journal, published a study, conducted by Xiangzhong Yang and associates, about the use and production of cloned cattle, and other mammals. Research on the cloning of animals has been taking place for years, specifically with research on cloning cattle having been conducted for over twenty years. These cattle are being cloned in one of two ways, either by embryonic cell nuclear transfer (ECNT), or by somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT). The only difference between the two is that SCNT uses adult somatic cells and ECNT uses embryonic cells- but the technology used in both procedures is identical.
In effect, embryo cloning by embryonic cell separation is simply a higher tech version of selective breeding. Selective breeding in animal agriculture has been used for years to increase the reproduction of high-grade specimen. The only difference is that instead of mating a steer and a female cow together that are likely to breed daughters that produces lots of milk, the embryo from a female cow that produces a lot of milk would be split into two, three, or four separate embryos that all produce high milk producing cows.
This article is important because it addresses a couple key issues relating to animal cloning and the resulting products. Number one, it addresses the fact that in general, the majority of the public is unaware that they could have consumed cloned meat. The article states that, “Most of these ECNT cloned cattle were valuable breeding animals that almost certainly produced thousands of progeny.” To those who greatly oppose embryonic research, and who also buy meat at the average supermarket, this could prove a major ethical problem. Any of us who eat meat could have eaten meat from a cloned animal, or one of their offspring. There is currently no differentiation in identification for meat that is from a cloned or non-cloned animal. As a result of this, although studies show that, “there are no reports on health-good or bad-of humans who have consumed meat or milk from these cloned animals,” there is not a reliable system in place to track the real reactions humans have to cloned animal meat and milk.
However, the second important part of this article is that it reaffirms what was held to be the standard when it comes to the products of cloned animals- “”More than 1000 commonly used parameters, including amino acid composition, fatty acid composition, proportion of meat and fat, organ weight and organ histopathology…fit the food industry normal ranges and did not differ significantly from meat and milk from naturally reproduced cattle.” That is, although the meat hasn’t been tracked, there is a great amount of evidence to support the idea that meat from cloned animals is not harmful to humans.
This article also briefly addresses some of the worries that both animal rights advocates and human safety advocates are concerned with. For one, sometimes with SCNT and ECNT calves and lambs suffer from “large offspring syndrome,” which is when animals are too large at birth. In addition, “other symptoms, such as placental abnormalities, edema, large umbilicus or perinatal deaths” can occur. Breeding animals that are more likely to suffer from these conditions can be viewed as inhumane. Is it ethically and morally sound to continue this research when it increases the likelihood that more animals will suffer from various abnormalities and pain? Do the ends justify the means?
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