What's the Beef?

Products from cloned animals are safe.

THIS MONTH, the Food and Drug Administration finally released its long-awaited, 968-page, hundreds-of-studies-deep, thousands-of-data-points-thick final assessment of the safety of products from cloned animals. It declared that products from cloned cattle, swine and goats and their progeny are no different from products from their conventionally bred counterparts.

The conclusions should have surprised few. Draft report after draft report and study after study have said the same thing: Food from cloned animals is safe. Each time similar results were declared , though, pleas from consumer groups and politicians prevented the FDA from finalizing its verdict on "frankenfoods."

The continued outcry and flimsy arguments that have greeted this thorough and transparent risk assessment show that part of the public still isn't ready for these findings. To avoid a misinformed backlash against the U.S. meat industry, the Agriculture Department has called for a continuation of the voluntary moratorium against putting clonal animal products on the market. In all likelihood, the moratorium isn't necessary, given that cloned animals are so expensive -- often costing around 15 times what naturally bred animals cost -- that they'll continue to be used for breeding instead of hamburger.

USDA officials have been cryptic about how long they expect it to take for domestic and foreign consumers to feel comfortable eating clonal animal products. Bruce Knight, the Agriculture Department's undersecretary for marketing and regulatory programs, said that it will probably take "months" before the market is ready. He declined to reveal what the department's plans are for aiding the industry's "transition," or when it will announce a timeline or strategy for this transition. USDA officials have said that they have ruled out conducting more studies, because the resistance to products from cloned animals is more visceral than scientific.

Public awareness campaigns would probably be a good start. One oft-cited proposal for reassuring the public -- mandatory labeling of clonal products -- would probably only cause more misapprehension about their safety. But that doesn't mean that regulators should rule out voluntary labeling. Some in the cloning industry have proposed a "supply-chain management program," which would track cloned animals through the food chain and allow companies that choose not to sell clonal food products to verifiably label themselves as such. The USDA would be a good candidate for overseeing such a program, just as it oversees labeling claims regarding organic foods. But the department's main focus should be on informing the public about the established scientific facts regarding cloned animals -- and discrediting those who continue to sow groundless fear.