Company Wants to Sell Untested Milk From Cloned Cows

From ABCNews Online
http://more.abcnews.go.com/sections/scitech/DailyNews/clonedmilk_010716.
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Got Cloned Milk?
Company Ready to Sell Milk of Cloned Cows But Is the Public Ready to
Buy?
By Jennifer Mitol

C H I C A G O, July 16 - It seems like science fiction, but it's already
a reality: milk from cloned cows, and it's coming to a grocery store
near you. Unless the federal government decides to intervene.

An experimental dairy farm in Wisconsin is producing some of the world's
first milk from a herd of 21 cloned cows, 17 of them from the same
original animal, all genetically identical. Infigen, the biotech company
that runs the farm, says its cows are normal and healthy, the milk looks
and tastes just like any other. The lack of any completed scientific
study on the milk's safety doesn't stop Infigen's president, Michael
Bishop, from pouring himself a glass. "It's delicious," he said.

Bishop is not concerned about what might be wrong with the milk. He
thinks it's perfectly normal and would like to start selling it as soon
as he can. "Scientifically, I have no basis to believe otherwise,"
Bishop said. "I don't like pouring all this milk down the drain."

To date there is nothing to stop him. The Food and Drug Administration
has asked biotech companies to voluntarily refrain from selling animal
products derived from clones, but there are no laws in place. The FDA is
waiting for the National Academy of Sciences to complete a review of the
safety of cloned animal products. The report is expected sometime in
January.

Hoping For Public Trust

Infigen has agreed to wait until the federal report comes out before
marketing its milk, but it's mostly a public relations move. Bishop has
learned from the widespread public mistrust of genetically engineered
foods.

Cloned animals are not considered genetically engineered (their DNA has
not been modified in any way, simply copied), and Infigen wants to make
sure the public understands the distinction. "We have to be diligent in
getting in front of consumer groups. We need to put together the data,
go out and tell them about this."

Infigen has commissioned two studies of its own, each to see if there
are, in fact, no differences between its cloned milk and milk from
"regular" cows. "We owe it to our consumers to show these products are
normal," said Bishop. "Let them see for themselves that there is nothing
to fear."

Too Little Known

Groups that monitor genetically engineered foods say they are also
concerned about cloned animal products, only because we know so little
about their safety.

"We don't know what the genetic ramifications would be and how it would
play out with products from the animals," said Joe Mendelson, legal
director for the Washington-based Center for Food Safety.

Mendelson said the lack of regulation is troublesome. "This is
definitely a loophole that we need to get a hold of."

A recent study found that only 2 percent to 5 percent of attempts to
clone animals actually succeed, and that the animals who are born often
develop serious health problems. Many appear normal, but harbor genes
that don't express themselves properly. While it's unclear what kind of
effect that may have on the animals, or on the people who eat their
products, some cloned animals, including Dolly the cloned sheep, have
shown strange symptoms like becoming abnormally obese.

Infigen claims their patented cloning technique is different. They boast
a 17 percent success rate and say their cows that actually come to term
are born are healthy. Bishop refuses to say what's different about his
company's process that allows such a high percentage of successful,
healthy births, as well as healthy adult cows. He only answers that he
doesn't know why everyone else has problems, he just knows Infigen
doesn't.

But for the milk, there is still the initial public relations war to
win. Bishop says he's not too worried about the FDA, it's the
milk-drinking, ice-cream-eating public that he says needs to know cloned
milk is no different from the "normal" stuff.

But Mendelson isn't so sure. He thinks Infigen might just want to keep
pouring its milk down the drain for a while longer. "I think as more
research is done, we find out there are likely subtle variations and
that the technology is not perfect."