Uproar over Cloned Food? Copy That

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In the past, the U.S. government has backed away from requiring labels on controversial new foods. That was the case in the early 1990s with genetically modified crops. But a cloned cow has different implications for consumers than a reengineered tomato—just the word "clone" carries heavy baggage. That's one reason cattle producers are hell-bent against putting language on food containers such as that suggested by Mikulski: "This product is from a cloned animal or its progeny." Breeders and other cattlemen think that would kill the business before it starts. "Studies reviewed by the FDA have already shown that they are safe, so labeling is out of the question," says Mark Walton, president of Austin (Tex.)-based ViaGen, a biotech company that produces cloned cattle, pigs, and other animals in its labs.

Further Down the Processing Chain

Food companies are highly sensitive to the implications of cloned foods. Several of them, including retail chain Whole Foods Market (WFMI), milk producer Dean Foods (DF), and ice-cream maker Ben & Jerry's, have said they won't accept food products from cloned animals. However, without labeling, those companies may find it difficult to prove that. So last month, ViaGen's Walton started a tracking program that will allow companies to identify whether cloned animals enter the food processing chain.

However, many experts believe that offspring produced from clones have already entered the food system. Meat producers who bought calves born from clones 18 months ago or longer may well have sold them to slaughterhouses already. "Not everyone is holding their breath for the FDA to approve, and if people believe that this meat isn't already in the market, they are clueless," says Donald Coover, a veterinarian with an embryo transfer facility in Galesburg, Kan., who has produced several clones at his facility.

Then there are concerns about the type of tests that federal officials have pursued. David Schubert, head of the Cellular Neurobiology Laboratory at the Salk Institute in San Diego, worries that the studies the FDA has reviewed look at very basic factors like fat and protein content in clones, rather than more complex things like the composition of fatty acids in meats or hormones in milk. "These factors have to be studied before giving a blanket clearance because if there are problems, you will never be able to track where it came from without labeling," says Schubert. In a commentary he wrote in the journal Nature last year, Schubert said that cloning will produce inbred animals and genetically similar populations.

Iowa cattle breeder Frye worries about how consumers will perceive all this. However, he also believes that if technology shows a better way to produce something, you have to embrace it. "In any business you have to be a step ahead, not a step behind," says Frye.

Gogoi is a contributing writer for BusinessWeek.com.