Cloned meat

Originally posted by Wajoma
Your claim on society is presumptuous and ugly.

My "claim" on society is only as a citizen, as an individual consumer, as a not very powerful person in the face of commercial interests which might be detrimental to mine, and as a voter. If I vote for some degree of protection from powerful entities, and the resulting labels on food infuriate you, I think I can live with your infuriation. No problem. I can live with you calling my single vote "presumptuous and ugly".

Originally posted by FMF
My "claim" on society is only as a citizen, as an individual consumer, as a not very powerful person in the face of commercial interests which might be detrimental to mine, and as a voter. If I vote for some degree of protection from powerful entities, and the resulting labels on food infuriate you, I think I can live with your infuriation. No problem. I can live with you calling my single vote "presumptuous and ugly".

Yes, it doesn't matter that I call it what it is. What is necessary is for you to recognise what it is.

Originally posted by FMF
My "claim" on society is only as a citizen, as an individual consumer, as a not very powerful person in the face of commercial interests which might be detrimental to mine, and as a voter. If I vote for some degree of protection from powerful entities, and the resulting labels on food infuriate you, I think I can live with your infuriation. No problem. I can live with you calling my single vote "presumptuous and ugly".

btw, I don't read the labels, you must have forgottten.

Originally posted by Wajoma
btw, I don't read the labels, you must have forgottten.

Then you are a free man indeed.

Originally posted by twhitehead
Where did you draw the line? I didn't quite get that? No two products are the same. Every cow is unique (until clones came along) so every can of beef is different.
I have already pointed out that death rates vary between different breeds of cattle, and even between different countries, or types of farming practice. Yet I don't see you advocating putting rning Chinese, and if I post much more over in spirituality I will get accused of spamming.

I drew the line at cloned/not cloned. Is that difficult for you to understand? The point about the death rates is illustrating that these are different from normal cows and so there are good reasons to investigate and label differently. And we're talking about clones which have the same DNA, not across species (which makes no sense as obviously life expectancy is expected to be different). And different species of cows, they have been eaten for a long time without any major consequence so there is good reason to think that is not an issue.

Where do you draw the line and why did you avoid the question?

Edit - The EU is not the main point. The FDA agreed with me that we should not assume they are the same and conducted some testing before allowing the product in the market. Were they wrong to do so?

Originally posted by Palynka
I drew the line at cloned/not cloned. Is that difficult for you to understand?

It was not clear to me - and it still isn't clear why you draw the line there. I thought you said it had to do with death rates, but now I am not so sure. Now it is starting to look like it has to do with uncertainty, ie you feel we don't know much about cloned animals so we should label them differently.

And we're talking about clones which have the same DNA, not across species (which makes no sense as obviously life expectancy is expected to be different). And different species of cows, they have been eaten for a long time without any major consequence so there is good reason to think that is not an issue.
Now I am not following you. Are you now saying there might be a health risk to eating cloned cows? I thought you were arguing based on ethical grounds ie keeping weak animals that have a high death rate is inhumane.

Where do you draw the line and why did you avoid the question?
I haven't decided yet. I think if we have major concerns about animal welfare or health risks to us after eating them, then we should ban the clones rather than label them. Labeling seems to be useful in the organic vs inorganic issue where people feel one method is better than the other, but I am not sure that should be enforced by law, and I also feel it results in a lot of misinformation because of the financial interests.

Edit - The EU is not the main point. The FDA agreed with me that we should not assume they are the same and conducted some testing before allowing the product in the market. Were they wrong to do so?
No, they were not wrong to do so. I fully agree that safety testing is necessary. I just don't think it should get as far as labeling if there are health risks. I don't think I should see beef in my local supermarket labelled "dangerous".

Originally posted by twhitehead
It was not clear to me - and it still isn't clear why you draw the line there. I thought you said it had to do with death rates, but now I am not so sure. Now it is starting to look like it has to do with uncertainty, ie you feel we don't know much about cloned animals so we should label them differently.

[b]And we're talking about clones which have th ...[text shortened]... h risks. I don't think I should see beef in my local supermarket labelled "dangerous".[/b]

Yes, sorry if I wasn't clear. It's indeed about uncertainty and health issues, not a moral argument.

Again, if there was knowledge of health risks then yes I would be advocating a ban. It seems that there isn't, but it's still relatively early as some problems may take many years to appear. So there are potential concerns but so far seems safe, and that's why I would go for labelling rather than a ban.

Originally posted by Wajoma
You're going to be real busy running around putting labels on all those poisonous things that occur naturally.

The solution would be all those concerned about such things can purchase foods certified by an independant organisation. i.e. user pays, you use a food certifcation system you pay for it, you don't use a food certification service you don't pay for it.

I am professionally quite familiar with the US FDA and the historical precedents that have led to regulation. There is a lot of private stuff going on now. There are private organizations like the USP and AOAC that industry, not individual consumers, have supported, although over time the US government tends to tacitly or overtly "bless" them as the go-to source for standards and analytical methods, rather than reinventing the wheel. There are also private consumer-interest groups and professional associations and industry groups that establish voluntary standards that are "enforced" by granting or withholding certification by the group, just as you say. The difference is that the costs are built into the cost of goods involved. In some cases, an individual consumer can find a vendor that has not joined their industry group and the goods from that vendor might be cheaper, but the costs of such associations are a negligible part of the cost of the goods. Industry is motivated to self-police in order to avoid being saddled with sometimes clumsy regulations, and to maintain a good public image. Congressional committees will look at the degree of voluntary compliance (as reported by FDA who does inspections and reports on problems in the field) when deciding whether to tighten or relax regulations. Both have occurred.

I suggest that everyone interested in this topic look at:

http://www.fda.gov/AboutFDA/WhatWeDo/History/Milestones/ucm128305.htm

The key provisions of laws governing food, drugs and cosmetics were promulgated only after some disaster or series of disasters like poisonings due to ignorance or negligence. Elixer of sulfanilimide is one example, another is thalidomide. Neither of these two pivotal cases was the result of intentional fraud. The chemist who picked the toxic solvent for the elixer ended up committing suicide over it.

The reason that drug laws are more prominent than food laws is that drugs typically contain a number of synthesized ingredients whereas food are typically natural products. Also, the USDA covers certain aspects of food regulation. And drugs are supposed to treat medical conditions and so there are regulations for proving efficacy, that are not applied to foods.

Originally posted by Palynka
Again, if there was knowledge of health risks then yes I would be advocating a ban. It seems that there isn't, but it's still relatively early as some problems may take many years to appear. So there are potential concerns but so far seems safe, and that's why I would go for labelling rather than a ban.

I don't think I would go for labeling. It implies you believe that:
1. there is enough of a risk that the consumer needs to be informed. I would consider that significant enough to ban the product.
2. the consumer is capable of making rational choices in the matter. Maybe the consumer has the right to decide, and the right to know, but you are only enforcing that right because you have already established a risk. I think if the risk is significant enough, pull the product, if it is not significant enough, the cost of enforcing labeling is too high to justify right to know. Otherwise, every possible thing about the product that a consumer could possibly be concerned about would end up having to be on the product.

Were labeling makes sense is when the contents do affect the consumer but are not necessarily always harmful - for example products that may cause allergic reactions in some people, or product that may cause weight gain, or products that have benefits such as vitamins - or lack those benefits when people might be reasonably expected to think they contain them.

Originally posted by FMF
Then you are a free man indeed.

You may 'feel' you're qualified to get between a willing buyer and a willing seller and interfering with that transaction but you are woefully unqualified to use the word 'free'.

So stick with your 'feelings' and leave the freedom alone.

Originally posted by Wajoma
You may 'feel' you're qualified to get between a willing buyer and a willing seller and interfere with that transaction but you are woefully unqualified to use the word 'free'.

And yet you feel qualified to order a ban on a factory causing a minute amount of pollution.

Originally posted by KazetNagorra
And yet you feel qualified to order a ban on a factory causing a minute amount of pollution.

And you've picked up FMFs habit of telling me what I'm saying but not actually saying what I said, you're turning into FMFs mini-me.

Originally posted by Wajoma
And you've picked up FMFs habit of telling me what I'm saying but not actually saying what I said, you're turning into FMFs mini-me.

You said all polluting factories should be closed down. Do you retract this earlier statement? It would be about time you did.

Originally posted by KazetNagorra
You said all polluting factories should be closed down. Do you retract this earlier statement? It would be about time you did.

Haha, I never said that, do you think it's time you retracted it?

Originally posted by Wajoma
Haha, I never said that, do you think it's time you retracted it?

You said a factory may not harm you or your possessions. Since pollution does this by definition, this claim is equivalent to saying a factory may not pollute.