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Animal cloning (Policy Brief 225)

Animal cloning (Policy Brief 225)

27/05/11

In August 2010, the UK Department for Food Safety announced that meat from cloned offspring of a cow in the United States had built the food chain in the UK. This revelation resulted in any EU backlash.

Technical feat, cloning contributes to the acquisition of fundamental knowledge in the fields of biology and evolution of life: the fact that, contrary to common belief, a clone may not be identical to the body which it is derived thus highlights the role of "the environment" of DNA much larger than previously thought.

The establishment of a regulatory framework is however a difficult task for the European authorities, shared between three choices: ban the import and marketing of any food derived from cloned animals and their offspring at risk of entering conflicts with other countries before the World Trade Organization (WTO) allow each country an opportunity to allow them case by case basis, under forthcoming European legislation on "novel foods", or permit free circulation in accordance with rules and international agreements on trade. The citizen, consumer potential, was conspicuously absent from these discussions.

A public debate on cloning in the diet, although the decisions taken by one government are constrained by WTO rules, thus seems desirable.

Summary:

  • Animal cloning: What do we speak?
  • Cloning in food: elements for debate
  • Consumption of clones and their products: institutional positions very different countries
  • Two lines of action: public debate and the evolution of WTO rules
  • Author: Jean-Luc Pujol, Department of Sustainable Development Centre for Strategic Analysis.

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