KSig_RC rocks my socks.

I apologize if I haven't read carefully enough, but what is dangerous about the cloned mean?

What kind of genetic modificiation would be dangerous considering that we eat so many different species already and natural genetic variety is present in non-cloned animals?

My main concerns about food safety have to do with food borne pathogens. I'm somewhat less concerned with the healthfulness of my diet, but that's because I expect those effects to be kind of slow, rather than something I'm going to experience based on eating something one time.

What could be introduced into clone meats that wouldn't be even more likely to be present in bred meat, in terms of viruses, mad cow, etc?

What changes could be introduced into clones meat that wouldn't also be able to be introduced through breeding?

All of the food will mutate cause you and your children to grow funky appendages. You will all contract Mad Cow, or the appropriate prion based disease of the cloned animal you consume. (Mad Cow isn't viral, at least as far as anyone can tell. )


Clearly you and everyone you love will die.

Uh...nothing. That's the stupid part-people hear clone and start freaking out thinking they'll contract some funky disease. While we're on the subject, (correct me if I'm wrong AKA_Monet) a clone is not an exact genetic copy. The cloning process only uses the nuclear DNA, not the mitochondric DNA.
Nothing will happen to you if you eat cloned meat, and as that's not actually the issue at this time, there's no reason to go 'ZOMG FDA sucks I won't be their little bitch!'
If you're going to get anything, as Drolefille said sarcastically, it'll be BSE (Mad Cow) or salmonella, something like that. Now, if they start cloning unhealthy animals (which they won't, completely non-profitable), then you'd have reason to worry.
If you're (in general, not you specifically) so concerned about where your food comes from and what has happened to it in the process of delivering it to your grocery store, buy a farm, slaughter your own animals, get your own dairy products and grow your own produce. It's the only way to be 100% safe, since you'll know what was involved every step of the way.

Thanks for answering. That's kind of what I thought.

I realize there are better place to find this information than GreekChat, but what is the biology of Mad Cow?

I really thought it was viral. I don't know why.

I know that it ends up making holes in brain tissue and that prions, I think, are involved, but what kind of pathogen is it?

AFAIK...Mad Cow happens when cows are fed beef.

In short - cow cannibalism.

Why in the world are you still waiting? What part of "I would have to take your posts seriously in order to try and 'retort your facts'" was too complicated for you to understand?

Seriously. But just wait. He "retorted" her "facts," so according to what seems to pass for logic, he must be wrong. There'll be a five gazzillion-word post full of links to "sources" telling him he doesn't know what he's talking about. It is inevitable.

From wiki
That's really rather dense, and sorry, but I'm not sure I can actually simplify it.
But yeah, they get it when they're fed cow nervous tissue. Sheep get a similar disease.




I can't even read those posts.

Can you imagine doing discovery with her? :( She'd bury you in take-out menus.

ROTFL! That's the best laugh I've had all day, as well as the most horrifying thought I've had all day. A 2-fer!

Thanks, I appreciate the info. Just so you all don't think I've been living in a cave, I want to say that I too knew that consuming the tissue was the way it was transmitted, even for cows, sheep, some game (there's an Elk form, I'm pretty sure), so I understood the "canniblism" element.

I just mistakenly believed that you could classify a prion transmitted illness, like I wanted to say "it's a virus" or "it's a bacteria," or "it's congential" (which weirdly, I think it can be with at least the human version). But I think prion disease is actually the classification.

I tend to think it's probably less likely to actually occur in cloned meat than bred meat, but I really don't know anything about it.

I think it's an identical chance, since it's based entirely on feed, AFAIK.

Well, except that I'd expect cloned animals to be better screened and fed. It seems unlikely that you'd take the trouble to genetically engineer a cow and then use tissue from an infected cow or implant it into an infected cow. Or once the cow was born, feed it tainted food.

But maybe not.

A close collegue of mine studies encephalopathies and prions in Deer. He is a vet.

As I understand it, the research is unclear about "vertical transmission" of animal prions to humans, i.e. CJD (Cruzfeldt Jakob Disease). Molecularly, it is easy to understand, disease research is showing that misfolded proteins muck up a cellular system in a lot of diseases that ranges from cancer to heart disease. But that is is cellular or in vitro assays.

Within 10 years or our lifetimes, these kinds of diseases and treatment options will be solved... Newer kinds of drugs will be used to treat these factors. They will emmanate from the HAART treatments from HIV/AIDS.

As far as cloning, one could introduce various meat enhancing genes or substances to boost meat quality for superior meat cuts. If you can purchase a low to non-fat tenderloin or filet mignon that melts in your mouth, would you buy it even if it cost $100 per lb?

Or animals that had a superior immune system that did not require adding excessive amounts of antibiotics that they eventually become antibiotic resistant?

Or improved overall fitness with minimal amounts of movements because of the lack of feeding range or increased output of milk that would not require further processing because it is healthy right from the cow?

The ability to clone would be limitless.

Alas, others fear what little they know. When was the last acceleration of animal vet care, husbandry and food processing science in this country? 1940's? That is too long of a time to not have barely any new innovations with all the bioinformatics that we know now...

Thank you for your answer.