quote:

Originally posted by thegreatgardener:
wd8izh you have eaten potatoes, strawberries and raspberries. there you go you have eaten cloned plants without even knowing it. Since all these plant reproduce asexually which is the exact same thing as cloning. The only difference between current cloning and previous cloning is where and how it is done.

One, I notice you failed to give an example of where we have been eating cloned animals for years, per you previous post. And two, environmental variables cause enough difference in the mentioned plants that they show a genetic difference. Unlike "Dolly". I am afraid you will need to further elaborate.

I don't know if we are eating clones yet, but apparently the offspring of cloned animals have been hitting the stores now for several years.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/20...rss_email/components

"Yet even as the two agencies sought a unified message -- that food from clones is safe for people but perhaps dangerous to U.S. markets and trade relations -- evidence surfaced suggesting that Americans and others are probably already eating meat from the offspring of clones.

Executives from the nation's major cattle cloning companies conceded yesterday that they have not been able to keep track of how many offspring of clones have entered the food supply, despite a years-old request by the FDA to keep them off the market pending completion of the agency's safety report."

It's really grim, isn't it?

Wd- Environmental differences do not cause a genetic difference or change in genotype. They cause a difference in phenotype or expression of genes. This would be true of cloned animals as well as plants.

I would think of cloned embryos as identical twins and cloned adults as identical twins of different ages. They are produced outside the animals body. The so called "test tube" babys are also produced outside of the body, where eggs are fertilized and embryos develop until they are implanted. The difference is, the cells of the embryo are split up to form identical twins or octuplets (I don't think they are able to go beyond eight or sixteen).

Cloned adult cells are different in that the cell must be treated to cause it to revert to a stem cell state and it is placed in an egg where the nucleus is removed. Problems are that the cell acts in some ways like an older cell in terms of number of times it can divide. Also, the technique itself can lead to disfunctions in development with an increase in birth defects. This is why it is not being done in humans. Birth defects in food animals are not something I would worry about, but in humans it would not be acceptable.

As far as worrying whether cloned humans would be perfect copies of their parent, environment does play a role in our development (genetics sets the range within which our characteristics develop). It would be impossible to exactly duplicate the conditions under which someone developed.

I remember a film called "The Boys from Brazil" that dealt with this. In the plot, Nazis clone hitler and try to reproduce his childhood environment by killing off the boy's foster fathers at a certain age, among other things. In the end, the good guy who solves the puzzle, realizes he doesn't have to kill the boys once the main organization is destroyed as none of the boys will have the environment to become another hitler.

It may be that divided embryo clones have been on the market, but I am not sure- I'll have to research this later as I am doing grades all weekend.

Sorry for going on here. I'm still in my "teacher" mode.

quote:

Birth defects in food animals are not something I would worry about, but in humans it would not be acceptable.

Actually, if you happen to be a person who cares about the humane treatment of animals, even animals that are raised for meat, then birth defects in cloned animals IS something to be concerned about.

I grew up on a farm, and though many animals that we raised eventually went in the freezer or to market, while those animals were alive, we treated them humanely and with care.

Animals born with birth defects suffer, whether they end up on the butcher block or not.

Furthermore, for the industry to claim that we will not actually be eating cloned animals because they are too expensive and will be used for breeding is, in my opinion, a misrepresentation of the truth. Even cloned cattle that become pampered breeding stock grow old and past their prime. When those animals get culled from the herd, they'll end up as hamburger, just like the rest of the culled cattle do. That's the way it works.

quote:

Executives from the nation's major cattle cloning companies conceded yesterday that they have not been able to keep track of how many offspring of clones have entered the food supply, despite a years-old request by the FDA to keep them off the market pending completion of the agency's safety report.

I don't know how stupid the cattle cloning companies think the American public is, but I can tell you right now, if it cost 25K a pop to have a championship cow cloned, then the clone of that animal is evidently NOT being "bred" in the good old fashioned way. If cloned animals already have "many offspring" then it is reasonable to conclude that they are only harvesting eggs from the cloned animal, as many as they can, artificially inseminating those eggs using an invitro technique, and then implanting the fertilized eggs in standard female cows who act as surrogates.

The whole thing makes me shudder.

The lable rules must be changed to allow consumers to make a choice.

Though, I prefer to bypass the risk and shop from the organic market and order beef from a local organic rancher.

It may cost more, but it's worth it.

quote:

Originally posted by GardenDmpls:
Wd- Environmental differences do not cause a genetic difference or change in genotype. They cause a difference in phenotype or expression of genes. This would be true of cloned animals as well as plants.

Actually this is not quite the case. Evolution dictates that genetic adaptations is a result of environment. This is why we have the variety of animal species we do.

Well, Ginkogirl, while I applaud your choices, the vast majority of Americans cannot afford to buy organic meats and vegies, even if they want to. There are millions of Americans living in apartments, with no garden space and no freezer space, and their options are few.

What is worse is the fact that even IF we were given a choice, and all cloned animals and their progeny had to be labeled, there wouldn't be enough organic, grass-raised beef out there to meet the consumer's needs. This has to change.

We need to demand uncloned, grass-fed organic beef from the grocery stores and not just because of the cloning factor either. They just recalled 5.7 MILLION pounds of hamburger not too long ago because of E.coli. Do you know how many beef animals that was? E. coli is 300 times more likely to exist in beef animals from feed lots, where they are fattened on corn and grain. (Check out E.coli on Wickipedia) A Cows' digestive system is not made to eat corn and grain; they get lesions and abscesses in their stomachs and intestines from it which results in E.coli, and this is the reason beef animals fattened for market are fed a steady diet of antibiotics. Grass fed animals are 300 times less likely to carry E.coli.

Everybody needs to tell the people in the grocery store meat section that, because those folks are probably going through hell trying to keep up with all the meat recalls. If they miss meat that has been recalled, and somebody gets E.coli and dies from it, you can bet that grocery store is gonna' get the pants sued off them.

Demand grass-fed beef and do it NOW because this E.coli thing is truly getting out of hand.

This should be top priority for all organic gardeners, because the E.coli virus is passed on in cows' manure. DO NOT PUT ANY CHICKEN OR COW MANURE ON YOUR GARDEN, no matter how "aged" it is, unless it has first been aerobically heat-composted, and all the manure has been turned several times and reached an internal temperature of 140 degrees in the compost pile. If you don't do this, you are risking contaminating your garden soil with E.coli.

quote:

Actually this is not quite the case. Evolution dictates that genetic adaptations is a result of environment. This is why we have the variety of animal species we do.

Evolution would dictate that a mutation that is better adapted to the environment would be more likely to survive and produce offspring than one that is less adapted. This is not the same as the environment causing the mutations. For example- if I cut the tails off of a hundred generations of mice, this does not cause mice to be born without tails. Lamark thought that giraffes had long necks because they stretched them to reach food and their offspring inherited the streatched necks. According to evolutionary theory, giraffes born with a mutation for a longer neck would be better nourished, especially in hard times, and would therefore produce more offspring with the long neck genes passed on.

E. coli on meat is a slaughtering/butchering problem, where intestinal contents containing e. coli are splashed on the meat. Although I have cut way back on meat, I have been able to find reasonably priced organic kosher meat. Kosher meat comes from the front part of the cow, is drained of blood and salted and soaked which may destroy bacteria, I believe.

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E. coli on meat is a slaughtering/butchering problem, where intestinal contents containing e. coli are splashed on the meat.

I am afraid you are seriously in error and need to do a little more research. I would not be standing on a soapbox here, admittedly shooting off my big mouth unless I'd already done my homework. The findings established by Cornell University and later confirmed by the USDA do, undoubtedly, proove E.coli is directly linked to feeding cattle corn and grain.

This however, does not negate the undeniable fact that pre-existing E.coli contamination is grossly compounded by the deplorable lack of safety and sanitation found in commercial slaughter and processing plants.

quote:

Kosher meat comes from the front part of the cow, is drained of blood and salted and soaked which may destroy bacteria, I believe.

Just a heads up FYI...

http://health.usnews.com/articles/health/2008/01/11/is-kosher-food-safer.html

"Whether kosher foods are actually less likely to be contaminated with, say, E. coli bacteria remains up for debate. While research is scant in this area, experts say it makes sense that kosher food could be safer because it's more closely monitored. "Jews aren't allowed to ingest bugs, so produce must go through a thorough washing and checking to ensure that no bugs are found within the leaves or on the surface of the fruit or vegetable," says Moshe Elefant, a rabbi and chief operating officer of the Orthodox Union KOSHER, a kosher certification organization based in New York. But bacteria can remain even after this type of washing, so consumers can't assume they're less likely to get food poisoning with bagged spinach marked kosher than with a conventional bag.

The same caveat applies to poultry and beef. A salting process that removes blood from the meat has antibacterial effects, but salmonella and E. coli can still survive, says Joe Regenstein, a professor of food science who teaches a course on Jewish and Muslim food laws at Cornell University. Kosher beef, though, is much less likely to contain the misshapen proteins that cause mad cow disease, rare as that is, probably because the animals are slaughtered young, before the disease sets in."

Unfortunately, way back when, when God wrote the rule book, he didn't have to deal with E.coli O157:H7. That little bugger has evolved over the last 30 or 40 years.

Thanks for the note on kosher meat. I have heard that that kosher chickens are somewhat safer because they are cold plucked- they are not dipped in hot water to loosen their feathers because this is considered cooking and the meat may not be cooked until it is salted. It takes time for the dipped chickens to cool, during which bacteria may increase.
I just avoid all these worries by thoroughly cooking my food (I don't care for rare) and washing off my utensils.

Kosher chickens aren't scalded to pluck their feathers off? How the heck do they do that? Seriously, I've plucked chickens, and I am curious.

And I do suspect that Kosher meat and chicken processing plants are probably a good deal cleaner and safer than most. If people knew what went on in a Tyson Chicken processing plant, they'd never eat chicken again. It's that bad.

I've only seen on a small scale. We have a ceremony before the holiday of Yom Kippur, the day of atonement, where we buy a chicken which, after a ritual, is then slaughtered and donated to charity. I watched them pluck it with a machine which looked like a rotating drum with rubber fingers. A worker held the chicken up to the drum and feathers went flying. It was the funniest thing I had seen in a while, but I had to hold in the laughter, as it was a serious ceremony, what with us asking G-d to take the charity we were giving in lieu of the punishment we deserved for our sins.

Hmmmm. Well, they didn't have a feather plucking machine back in Joshua's day. I sure wonder how they did it back then. Now I am really curious...

Thanks for the info.

Re Kosher meat-
There has long been the idea that Kosher meat is killed more "humanely" and treated more humanely before death.
This may have been true once, but I believe is no longer true, according to what I've read. I believe this is one of those assumptions of conventional wisdom which turns out to be untrue.

See for example:

"Today's kosher meat comes from the same abusive factory farms as all other meat. Despite the humane intention and spirit of the Jewish dietary laws, there are no standards to ensure that kosher slaughter is any less cruel than conventional slaughter. In some instances, it's been shown to be much worse."
http://www.goveg.com/kosher.asp

Someone is sure to tell me that because the site I link to is a vegetarian site, they must be lying and so it is untrue. Please do not bother to argue with me because you afraid of giving up your hamburger.
I'm simply giving this information, another point of view.
People can make up their own minds.


ellen