¡¡¡¡The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is in a quandary1 over cloned animals. The agency tentatively2 concluded in late October that meat and milk from cloned animals is safe to eat, elating3 farmers who are developing clones of cows and other creatures. But almost immediately, one of the FDA¡¯s advisory committees sharply questioned the conclusion and the science behind it.

¡¡¡¡In evaluating food from cloned animals, the agency outlined two approaches in October.

¡¡¡¡One approach, it said, compared clones at different stages of life to healthy conventional animals to determine whether they appear the same. The second and more rigorous approach could involve tests on the meat and milk of clones.

¡¡¡¡When the FDA concluded that cloned animals appeared to be safe to eat, critics noted that the agency seemed to rely almost exclusively on the first approach.

¡¡¡¡¡°Most of the things we evaluate for safety, we can identify what the hazard might be,¡± said Stephen Sundlof, director of the FDA¡¯s Center for Veterinary Medicine4. ¡°When you¡¯re talking about cloning, it¡¯s very different because we have not been able to identify a particular hazard.¡±

¡¡¡¡Joseph Mendelson, legal director for the nonª²profit Center for Food Safety, called the FDA¡¯s draft report ¡°bizarre¡±5 for its lack of research. ¡°Healthy animals equal safe food. I agree with that on some level,¡± Mendelson said. ¡°But we don¡¯t know if these animals are healthy. What if they appear healthy, and there¡¯s some metabolic6 difference that¡¯s caused by a genetic defect? They don¡¯t have those studies.¡± -