Food from cloned animals safe to eat: FDA

The issue could make waves for exporters of U.S. farm goods, who have run into problems when prohibited genetically engineered crops made their way into the food supply.

Opinion polls suggest shoppers would be wary. More than half of consumers in a recent survey by the International Food Information Council said they were unlikely to buy food made from cloned animals, no matter what the government says.

"It's important that FDA is the barometer for making decisions on the basis of safety, health and nutrition," said Dave Schmidt, the council's president. "Then it's essentially how the marketplace will react."

While affected industries welcomed government reassurances about food safety, they remain keenly aware that supermarket decisions of consumers keep them in business.

"FDA should be cautious about allowing meat and milk from cloned animals to be introduced into the marketplace if most consumers are unwilling to accept the technology," the American Meat Institute said in a statement.

Cost is another factor.

"Cloning, I would think, would be too expensive for it to compete in the mainstream marketplace," said Len Steiner, owner of Steiner Consulting Group, a food industry consultancy.

Groups like the Consumer Federation of America called the FDA's step premature, saying it has not sufficiently vetted the technology's safety or ethical and religious issues.

"All those concerns are really being swept under the rug," said Joe Mendelson, legal director at the Center for Food Safety, which opposes some biotechnology.

(Additional reporting by Susan Heavey in Washington and Bob Burgdorfer in Chicago)