Cloned Embryo Sale Claim has Feds Checking with UK

Cloned embryo sale claim has feds checking with U.K.; Food from cloned animals not approved here
Edmonton Journal
Fri Aug 6 2010
Page: A5
Section: News
Byline: Sarah Schmidt And Christina Spencer
Source: Postmedia News
The federal government is probing a claim that embryos from a cow bred of a cloned parent animal in Great Britain have been sold to breeders in Canada.
"We are working closely with our U.K. counterparts to investigate these allegations," Canadian Food Inspection Agency spokesman Guy Gravelle confirmed Thursday.
Foods derived from cloned animals are not approved for sale in Canada.
But the possibility that clone-derived animal embryos may have entered this country follows reports that breeders from several European nations have been importing from the United States embryos and semen from cloned animals or the offspring of cloned animals. For example, the New York Times reported last month that dairy products derived from cloned animals are already thought to be in some grocery stores in Britain and in Switzerland.
One farmer told the Times he uses milk from the progeny of a cloned cow in his production, adding he was also selling embryos from the same cow to Canadian breeders. The farmer was not named.
Cloning animals is among the techniques breeders use to try to produce heartier, healthier animals, with higher-quality meat or the ability to produce more milk. But public reaction to cloning has been mixed, at best, in many countries.
Two years ago, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration concluded that cloned pigs, goats and cattle were safe to eat, as were their progeny.
The European Parliament recently moved to ban the sale of meat or dairy from cloned animals and their offspring, however, and Canada has not yet approved their sale.
At the same, this week the U.K. government said that meat from a cloned animal had made its way into the food chain, according to FoodQualitynews. com.
In Canada, "our officials are in contact with our counterparts in the United Kingdom and will receive pertinent information once the investigation . . . is completed," Gravelle said in an e-mail to Postmedia News. "The CFIA reviews any credible information it receives about non-compliance to determine what followup action is required."
The Canadian Food Inspection Agency and the federal Health, Agriculture and the Environment departments produced a draft assessment of the safety of cloned animals in 2008, but have not yet finalized it, Gravelle said.