GM Files: Dolly on Your Dinner Table in Paris, London and Rome

You know we have to travel a lot to represent your interests at international meetings, such a Codex Alimenatrius. When I go to Europe I eat with a feeling of moderate confidence that my food, unless imported from the US, will be free of Genetically Modified (GM) ingredients. Moderate confidence, I say, because, as a meat eater I know that although food intended directly for people is, for the most part GM free, animals raised in the EU for human consumption can be fed GM feeds. The foreign DNA, and the artificially introduced antibiotic resistance which is used as a marker for GM techniques in the laboratory, are transmitted to the animal and then to you, the eater.

Vegetarians what are ready to take smug satisfaction from that fact, however, should consider that the EU authorities are adding new species of approved GM crops on a nearly daily basis. That means that the confidence with which you eat food in Europe should decline almost on a daily basis.

Now there is another kick to the consumer’s safety and confidence in Europe. “Probably safe” apparently is safe enough, at least for the EU regulators. Cloned food, now judged to be “probably safe”, is being approved in the US along with cloned meat. It is true, of course, that Dolly the cloned sheep died young and the health of other cloned animals is questionable over time. Dolly not only contracted a “common livestock disease” (What? Her immune system was not strong and effective in protecting her from it even with the superb care she must surely have been receiving?) and her cells showed signs of premature aging! What about your cells when you invite Dolly to dinner – and eat her? The cloned DNA was not actually identical in terms of keeping the animals alive and well over time. Well, to my mind, just as the foreign and unstable DNA in GM foods gets woven into your DNA and may provide one of the worst health disasters in human history, so cloned DNA may add to the debacle. Of course, according to the AP, the EU’s 47 page report, released this week, stated that “there was “only limited data available” on animal cloning” and it did urge consultation with scientists and consumer groups which have in the past objected to allowing such products onto the market.”

In the US, however, where there is just as little data available, the FDA has exercised no such caution. In fact, it has rushed headlong into the approval process for milk and meat and stipulates that because IT, the FDA, says that there is no danger (or at least no danger KNOWN – yet) both meat and milk will be permitted in our markets and our mouths. And when we find that cloned meat and milk are dangerous? Well, think Vioxx.

The headlong rush to make the Biotech industry happy [remember, a Monsanto employee was seated as a member of the US Delegation at last year’s Codex Working Group on Labeling Foods Derived from BioTechnology (that’s GM foods when you take away the fancy language) in Oslo] is a perfect example of why the FDA, controlled solely and totally, as far as anyone observing it can see, by the industries it supposedly regulated, MUST be divested of its food regulatory authority. Not only is the FDA clearly incapable of resisting the pressures – and payments – of Big Pharma, Big Biotech, Big Agribiz and all the other Bigs, it receives a significant portion of its operating budget from drug company “User Fees” and now wants to receive similar “User Fees” from the Food, Chemical and Biotech industries! This is a killer system. The consumer is the victim. As a consumer, an eater (and not a useless one, I would assert!), I find this industry-centric, consumer-contemptuous approach appalling.

Join the Natural Solutions Foundation, www.HealthFreedomUSA.org, www.GlobalHealthFreedom.org, in supporting protective standards for consumers, not the multinational corporations! Sign up today for our Health Freedom eAlerts and become part of the global community speaking for health freedom! Your data is safe with us. You have my promise.

Yours in health and freedom,
Dr. Rima

Rima E. Laibow, MD
Medical Director
Natural Solutions Foundation
www.HealthFreedomUSA.org
www.GlobalHealthFreedom.org

EU Report Says Cloned Food Probably Safe
There were no consumer advocates or independent scientists on that delegation, of course. IN a few weeks General Stubblebine and I will be attending this year’s iteration of that meeting in Ghana. It will be interesting to see who is sitting on the US Delegation this time!
Published: 1/11/08, 6:46 PM EDT

BRUSSELS, Belgium (AP) – Meat and milk from cloned animals is probably safe for humans, the European Union’s food safety agency said in a preliminary report released Friday. The report, by the European Food Safety Authority, seems likely to fuel new debate over whether the EU should allow cloned animals to enter the food chain.

The 47-page draft cautioned, however, that there was “only limited data available” on animal cloning. It urged consultation with scientists and consumer groups, which have in the past objected to allowing such products onto the market.

The EU’s Food Safety Authority, which is based in Italy, was directed by the EU’s executive office in Brussels last year to investigate what risks were involved in making projects for human consumption from cloned animals.

The 27-nation union currently has no laws regulating animal cloning and food. The European Commission is trying to decide whether legislation is needed, said Nina Papadoulaki, spokeswoman for EU Health Commissioner Markos Kyprianou.

“Based on current knowledge, there is no expectation that clones or their progeny would introduce any new food safety risks compared with conventionally bred animals,” the preliminary report said.

Papadoulaki said the commission hoped the report would help EU officials determine whether there is public support for allowing cloned food onto supermarket shelves.

She said the commission would seek further advice from an ethics group specializing in science and new technologies, which includes 15 scientists, philosophers, theologians and lawyers.

That group is scheduled to issue its own report on the “ethical aspects of animal cloning for food supply” on Jan. 16.

Some countries outside the EU are moving to permit cloned animals to enter the food chain.

The United States is expected to allow food from cloned animals onto the market sometime this year. A poll conducted in 2006 found, however, that 64 percent of Americans were uncomfortable with animal cloning.

The issue is also under review in Australia, New Zealand, Japan and Canada.

Scientists across Europe have for years investigated different animal cloning techniques. The most famous example was the cloning of Dolly the sheep in Britain. Dolly was euthanized in 2003 after she contracted a common livestock disease and her cells showed signs of premature aging.

Italian scientists cloned a racehorse in 2005, hoping to pass on genetic lines of champion thoroughbreds.