The Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety and the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development of the European Parliament proposed to ban the sale and import of cloned animals and their products (meat and milk). In 2013, the European Commission advanced a similar proposal.
Some languages of the proposal by two committees of the European Parliament (the “proposal”) are noteworthy. For example, Amendment 42 reads that:
“If cloning causes unnecessary pain, suffering or injury, Member States have to act at national level to avoid it. Moreover, a large majority of European consumers have no desire to eat food derived from animal clones. Different national approaches to animal cloning could lead to market distortion. It is thus necessary to ensure that the same conditions apply to all involved in the production and distribution of live animals throughout the Union.”
Here, animal welfare and other cultural/ethical concerns appear to inform the EU’s alleged rejection of cloned animals and their products. This language reminds us of another legislative resolution by the European Parliament that bans GMOs for cultural or moral reasons. (See my earlier blog on this.)
Regarding food safety concerns, Amendment 49 reads that:
“As regards food safety, EFSA [European Food Safety Authority] stresses the importance of acknowledging that the data base is limited, and concludes: 'Uncertainties in the risk assessment arise due to the limited number of studies available, the small sample sizes investigated and, in general, the absence of a uniform approach that would allow all the issues relevant to this opinion to be more satisfactorily addressed.' As an example, EFSA states that information is limited on the immunological competence of clones and recommends that, should evidence become available of reduced immunocompetence of clones, the question should be investigated as to 'whether, and if so, to what extent, consumption of meat and milk derived from clones or their offspring may lead to an increased human exposure to transmissible agents.”
This language seems to imply that risk assessment under SPS Article 5.1 is premature and therefore a provisional ban under SPS Article 5.7 can be justified.
Note that the U.S. FDA concluded that meat and milk from cloned animals are “as safe as food we eat every day.” A phantom menace for a future clone (trade, if not star) war?
