FSA launches investigation into offspring of cloned cow entering the food chain [UK - edited]

The Telegraph
August 4, 2010

The Food Standards Agency has launched an investigation into how the offspring of a cloned cow entered the food chain, it has been confirmed.

The FSA , the food industry watchdog, said two bulls born in the UK from embryos harvested from a cloned cow had been slaughtered, one of which "will have been eaten", while the other was stopped from entering the food chain.

Under European law, foodstuffs, including milk, produced from cloned animals must pass a safety evaluation and gain authorisation before they are marketed.

Cloned milk should be fine, says geneticist But the FSA said it had neither made any authorisations nor been asked to do so.

The two bulls, which were born in the UK from embryos harvested from a cloned cow in the US, have been slaughtered, one last month and one in July last year.

An FSA spokeswoman said of the two bulls that one was slaughtered in July 2009 and meat from the animal "entered the food chain and will have been eaten".

The second, she said, was prevented from entering the food chain.

The bulls sired 100 cows at the farm near Nairn, in the Scottish Highland, whose milk has not entered the food chain, the council said.

Their future will be decided by the FSA.

The revelation regarding the bulls came amid an FSA probe into whether any matter from cows born of a clone has been used in food production.

The FSA has admitted that it does not know how many embryos from cloned animals have been imported into Britain.

FSA chief executive Tim Smith stressed that there were no health risks associated with eating meat or drinking milk from the descendants of cloned cows.

And he said that, while there was debate across Europe about how far the progeny of clones should be regulated, Britain's position was clear - that the Novel Food Regulations applied and should have been followed.

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