America's Largest Milk Company Says "NO" To Cloned Cows

[Doondoo]

The nation's biggest milk company, Dean Foods, said Thursday it will refuse milk from cloned cows. The Food and Drug Administration gave preliminary approval to meat and milk from cloned animals and could grant final approval by the end of the year. Federal scientists say there is virtually no difference between clones and conventional cows, pigs or goats.

Smaller companies such as Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream and Organic Valley previously have said they oppose milk from clones. Dallas-based Dean Foods is a $10 billion company that owns Land OLakes and Horizon Organic, among dozens of other brands. In a statement issued Thursday, the company said its customers and consumers don't want milk from cloned animals.

"Numerous surveys have shown that Americans are not interested in buying dairy products that contain milk from cloned cows and Dean Foods is responding to the needs of our customers," the statement said.

Milk companies worry that concern over cloning could turn people away from dairy products. So far, public opinion appears mixed. A September poll by the Pew Initiative on Food and Biotechnology found that 64 percent of respondents were uncomfortable with animal cloning. And a December poll by the University of Maryland found that the same percentage would buy, or consider buying, such food if the government said it was safe.



http://www.enn.com/today.html?id=12279

[no_hypocrisy]

1. Two questions:

1) Could the cloned cow industry sue and win in order to force Dean Foods to allow it access of milk sales?

2) How can you visibly identify a cloned cow from a noncloned cow. Isn't there an expectation that cloned ones will be surreptitiously combined with the others.

I don't see how the milk of cloned cows can be indefinitely sequestered and/or kept off the market, esp. if the FDA gave it approval.

[NashVegas]

3. 1. No 2. I Don't Know

Dean is a private distributor and cannot be sued to accept milk from cloned cows anymore than Ben & Jerry's can be sued to accept milk from rBGH-treated cows.

[RC]

2. Good for them!

Cloning in itself is not necessarily a bad thing. It's the extreme non-genetic diversity that results. If a disease gets into a herd of cloned animals, it could wipe them all out, whereas that is not usually the case with a 'normal' herd.

What is really bad is what is planned next: GM animals. These will be clones also. All the same size, same shape, weight, etc., produced for ease of real factory farming.

[kestrel91316]

5. From a veterinary perspective, the herd health risk of cloning

is too high to justify using them. If something comes along and makes one sick or kills it, the same thing will happen to all the rest. I can't imagine anyone dumb enough to INSURE the damned things.

In diversity is strength. The most superficial study of ecology shows this to be true.

[eppur_se_muova]

4. Actually, they said "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO".

Couldn't help it.:evilgrin:

[RC]

6. That ain't no excuse...

Couldn't help it my ass... :spank: