News that cloned meat varieties have found their way to supermarket store shelves in the UK created a flutter last week
. Is cloned meat safe? Does it cause harmful side effects? Should cloned meat not be differentiated by separate labelling? These were the questions top most on consumers minds. Cloning has been a subject matter of debate ever since the Rosalin Institute at Edinburgh, Scotland successfully created Dolly the first goat through cloning. While it was hailed as a milestone in bio technology, it also raised questions on how desirable the whole thing is, did it amount to too much interference with nature and its ways? Etc Most objections to cloning are on the basis of animal welfare, religion, moral grounds and not so much because it is a harmful process.
We do not wish to go into the ethical and moral issues of cloning but confine to the safety of consuming cloned meat and dispel fears related to it. At the outset we would like to point out to our readers that cloned meat is no different from normal meat. Cloning is a process of identical duplication; it does not interfere with the nature and features of whatever is being cloned. To put it simply if the original lamb, cow or chicken is healthy then its cloned counterpart is equally so. While cloning may not improve the quality of meat by itself it also does not result in the production of inferior livestock.
We however agree that consumers have the right to know and need to be informed through specific labelling that the product inside is cloned meat. It may be no different from normal meat but they should still have the choice of making an informed decision.
So next time you step into a store and find your favourite tinned meat labelled as cloned meat, just go ahead and buy it without any reservations.