Monday, January 21, 2008

Juxtaposition Displaying Forced Submission...





It is MLK's birthday, not that anyone REALLY cares. I mean it’s a day off of work and school for most, but I doubt that many people really care to understand the significance, history and the message of MLK (outside of what they teach you in elementary school…another reason that home school is the way to go). I’m not sure that I even grasp the entire movement and struggle, because the foundation had already been laid for me. Not to sound crass, but I can honestly say it’s been WAY easier for me because of the plight of others like MLK. My generation HAS (and still does without a doubt) struggled, but in a less intense manner than that of our ancestors, parents and grandparents. I know that I can walk with my head high and not live in fear that a cross will be burned in my front yard because Lucas is white and I am black (this is due to the extreme diversity of where I live (DC metro area, but in other places in America I know this risk is still alive and kicking). I also have been privileged enough to get an extensive education, etc. However, I do experience different forms of racism in both my work and my personal life, but they are very quiet and polite (if you will…) and most likely (from personal experience) if a complaint was uttered aloud it would be dismissed and chalked up to paranoia or a chip on the old shoulder.

For some his dream has been realized, but I don’t truly believe it has been fully attained and won’t be until the relevance of his "dream" is extended to all sentient beings. I also feel that way in part due to the media and the portrayal of “minorities and people of color” (btw-I despise both references). I am about to read The Dreaded Comparison: Human and Animal Slavery by Marjorie Spiegel. The forward is written by Alice Walker (The Color Purple, Meridian). I feel that all people should consider that the implications of racism and sexism spill right over into specisim, where the similarities are rampant.

Animals are our “modern-day slaves”, that we objectify and dominate with such callousness and no regret. As a black woman I can not knowingly participate as an oppressor and feel that I’m being morally consistent. This vivid comparison scares and infuriates a lot of people, but obviously that isn’t EVER going to stop me from making it. It didn’t stop Marjorie or Alice either...thanks to both of these courageous woman who like Dr. King laid the foundation and built the framework for me to be able to speak truths close to my heart. I’ll review the book once I’ve finished it. I have read great reviews on this book and my husband devoured the book in about one day, reading aloud to me the parts he found most riveting. I have pasted some editorial reviews I got from Amazon below.

I too have a dream, that one day all living creatures large and small, hoofed and winged, amphibious and reptilian will be treated with respect and allowed to live out their lives cruelty free without the chains and oppression of a so called “modern society” with Neolithic tendencies…

(scroll past reviews for more blogging goodness)

Editorial Reviews
From Library JournalSpiegel, executive director of the Institute for the Development of Earth Awareness, has revised her 1989 book to present an in-depth exploration of the similarities between the violence humans have wrought against other humans and our culture's treatment of animals. Using considerable scholarship, she makes a strong case for links between white oppression of black slaves and human oppression of animals. Her thesis is not that the oppressions suffered by black people and animals have taken identical forms but that they share the same relationship between the oppressor and the oppressed. These comparisons include the brandings and auctions of both slaves and animals, the hideous means of transport (slave ships, truckloads of cattle), and the tearing of offspring from their mothers. Her illustrative juxtapositions are graphic, e.g., a photograph of a chimpanzee in a syphilis experiment beside a photo of a black man in the Tuskegee Syphilis Study. As Alice Walker writes in the preface, "This powerful book...will take a lifetime to forget." Chilling yet enlightening, this provocative book is vitally important in our efforts to understand the roots of individual and societal violence. It belongs in all libraries. [The book received a special award from The International Society for Animal Rights.Ed.] Eva Lautemann, DeKalb Coll. Lib., Clarkston, Ga.-Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. Book Review"Fascinating..." The New York Review of Books

"An extremely important book honest and fearless...Marjorie Spiegel has said the single most important thing there is to say about animals. I love this book." Elizabeth Marshall Thomas, Author of The Hidden Life Of Dogs

"This powerful book will take a lifetime to forget." Alice Walker, Author of The Color Purple, from her foreword to "The Dreaded Comparison"

"This book belongs in all libraries." Library Journal

"THE DREADED COMPARISON: HUMAN AND ANIMAL SLAVERY by Marjorie Spiegel...executive director of the Institute for the Development of Earth Awareness compares the exploitation of human slaves and of animals, as well as explores the putative justifications of those who profit." Publishers Weekly

"Marjorie Spiegel ...has written a deeply provocative book." David Brion Davis, Sterling Professor of History, Yale University

"THE DREADED COMPARISON is a wonderful and important book...I loved it. I urge everyone to read it." Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson, Author, When Elephants Weep

THE DREADED COMPARISON should be placed in schoolrooms across the universe. Gordon Parks, Photographer and Author

Spiegels book is a powerful and important statement about oppression and violence in Western culture. The author writes "To those who would be master, what matters is not so much who their slaves will be, but that there are slaves to be had". This work is accessible to all adult audiences, and would be suitable for college courses at any level in sociology, philosophy, or peace studies, or examining issues of oppression in contemporary animal issues. Multicultural Review

"...eerie parallels between slavery and dominance over animals are well described in this provocative book. We know that slaves have been treated like animals; Spiegel asks us to consider why we treat animals like slaves." Tom Hayden, California State Senator

"...Fascinating and beautifully concise." James Merrill, Author, The Changing Light at Sandover

"...this book is all the more powerful for the testimony of slaves and descendants of slaves who have voiced their empathy strongly with the rest of oppressed creation..." The New Scientist

"[An] invaluable contribution...Marjorie Spiegel’s extraordinary book, The Dreaded Comparison, with its judiciously chosen quotations and stunningly juxtaposed illustrations...packs a huge punch." Boston Book Review

"[A] gem..." Choice
THE DREADED COMPARISON is essentially a consciousness-raising exercise..." The Womens Review of Books


OH – and just for giggles I read this article from the AP:
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5gyXVIfZ2F2CTuuxH3_93vuTP-ywwD8U74PLG0
(pasted after my rant)

What a crock…I mean he immediately refers to companion animals (like so many others)…oh my daughters want a dog. WHAT ABOUT COWS AND ANIMALS USED IN AGRIBUSINESS OBAMA (you know dude…the ones that you eat for dinner)??? Why does animal rights get soooooo lost even on those supposedly educated and informed like politicians? People consider themselves animal lovers because they like cats and dogs, they don’t see that there is NO DIFFERENCE between the dog that cuddles with them at night and a cow on their dinner plates. They are both domesticated and both are sentient AND both deserve to live a cruelty free existence! If he truly cared about animal rights issues he would obviously GO VEGAN!!!! Ya think??!?!!!


Obama Pledges Support for Animal Rights
5 days ago
HENDERSON, Nev. (AP) — Democrat Barack Obama says he won't just be a president for the American people, but the animals too.
"What about animal rights?" a woman shouted out during the candidate's town hall meeting outside Las Vegas Wednesday after he discussed issues that relate more to humans, like war, health care and the economy.
Obama responded that he cares about animal rights very much, "not only because I have a 9-year-old and 6-year-old who want a dog." He said he sponsored a bill to prevent horse slaughter in the Illinois state Senate and has been repeatedly endorsed by the Humane Society.
"I think how we treat our animals reflects how we treat each other," he said. "And it's very important that we have a president who is mindful of the cruelty that is perpetrated on animals."
Compiled by Nedra Pickler

Friday, January 18, 2008

An Email With My Hubbie...

I just love the fact that I'm in a relationship with someone who is on the very same page as I am. We both have the same values and beliefs and that makes our relationship very successful. I am proud to be a vegan and my husband's pride attracts me to him more and more each day (though I didn't think that was possible)! They say that great minds think alike, I would have to agree. I'm so stoked about our present life, but even more stoked about our future and our little kiddies-to-be and all that we can explore with them and teach them. With such great love and passion the possibilities are endless...

Anyway here is one of our emails from today:

<@yahoo.com>To: @aol.comSent: Fri, 18 Jan 2008 10:43 amSubject: prostate cancer and meat consumption

http://www.hachettebookgroupusa.com/books/76/0446526401/chapter_excerpt13195.html

"Lately, scientists at Johns Hopkins have begun exploring the relationship between the prostate and seminal vesicles. What we have learned from their work is that the saga of human evolution is also a story of two male glands-both of which produce fluid that makes up semen. One gland, the prostate, is prone to cancer. The other, the seminal vesicle, is remarkably free of it. In nature, animals that are carnivores-meat-eaters like dogs and lions-don't have seminal vesicles. The only animals that have both prostates and seminal vesicles are herbivores-veggie-eating animals like bulls, apes, and elephants. There is only one exception to this rule: humans. Men have seminal vesicles, too. In other words, man, a meat-lover, has the makeup of an animal that should be a vegetarian."note - dr patrick walsh is not an animal rights activist -http://urology.jhu.edu/patrickwalsh/index.phphttp://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/commoncancers

http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/commoncancers

@aol.com wrote(ME):
Cool! I thought we read this same thing before a while ago from the same dude? Am I right??? You know how my brain works!


@yahoo.com wrote:
you're right. i wasn't sure if we had discussed it but i just wanted to send you the link because it fits in with the fact that eating meat is NOT as natural for humans as humans seem to currently think.we humans may have "always" (which is not true in the first place) eaten meat but that doesn't mean that our bodies have ever been able to process it well. an overwhelming amount of evidence shows that the obviously optimal, natural human diet is free of dead animals, as well the products of their rape which have also been linked to prostate cancer -http://chetday.com/prostatecancermilk.htmhttp://www.cancerproject.org/survival/cancer_facts/prostate.php
http://www.cancerproject.org/survival/cancer_facts/prostate.php
people always get "to do" and "to be" confused. yes, we do eat animals and their reproductive fluids. no, we are not carnivores and NO, no other mammal consumes the milk of another species at all and no species consumes the milk of their own species after weaning. natural? it's rather odd that humans are, once again, the exception to the rule (sarcasm).if it's a question of what's natural, then our diet would be plant based according to the theory of evolution (science) and the bible (religion). it's painfully obvious (especially to any vegan) that humans actually eat animals more as a matter of bigoted traditions, which is -doing-, than for the sake of their own health and the health of the planet (what's natural), which is -being-.
-mini rant over-

Wednesday, January 16, 2008

Mentally Preparing for Our Propaganda Filled Future...



Yet another article from the Washington Post on cloned animals being used as food:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/15/AR2008011501555.html

(the link isn't working for some reason so I'm pasting the article in it's entirety at the very bottom of this post)

In my eyes technology and food do not mix.


"This is a fairy tale that this technology is not being used and is not already in the food chain," said Donald Coover, a Galesburg cattleman and veterinarian who has a specialty cattle semen business. "Anyone who tells you otherwise either doesn't know what they're talking about, or they're not being honest." (from post article)


First, it is very lovely that this HONEST cattleman/veterinarian (aka mass slaughterer of land and animals) makes money by doing NO WORK and underpaying (assumption...i'm allowed it's my blog and at least i'm calling myself out) workers to collect semen from cows (again via unethical methods of rape). That’s man for you…it’s all about making money off of doing as little as possible and taking advantage of those unable to defend themselves.

So called “food” is already being consumed from cloned animals without the general population even being aware of it. This is a dangerous and dishonest tactic and another betrayal of our fundamental rights as human animals. The same thing happened with GMO crops. I don’t really think people are aware that the corn (tortillas, popcorn, high fructose corn syrup, etc), soy (including all of its byproducts), tomatoes and most all other fruits and veggies are also being genetically modified, mixing technology with food. The government does not label fruits and vegetable products that are genetically modified, so in order to avoid these products you must eat an organic (or mostly organic) diet. It is of course impossible to be sure of the accuracy in labeling and standard practices, so the only true way to steer clear from these scary adaptations is to grow your own food (though that is not a realistic option for everyone…but is a great ultimate goal to aspire to…at least it is for us). As for the labeling of cloned animals, their offspring and byproducts…you are basically out of luck. Forget the so called “happy meat”, just steer clear from all animal products; it is the only way to be sure you aren’t eating a genetic disaster waiting to happen.



I’ve lost count of the times I’ve heard the arguments for eating meat and animal products as natural and as tasting good, but are these two ideas really worth the possibility of disease, defects, deformity and possible extinction? I mean why do you think other places like Europe (who even rejects many gene altered crops) and Japan are refusing products from cloned animals? They are highly against introducing cloned animals into their food chains. I guess America doesn’t care about its people; we care more about capitalism and producing a “BETTER PRODUCT” by any means necessary. THIS IS OBVIOUS AND IS DEFINTELY FORSHADOWING A VERY BLEAK FUTURE FOR US ALL.

These cloned animals have various problems with their health and suffer high mortality rates! Doesn’t that say enough? I am surprised there isn’t more of a unified public outcry. Aren’t people pissed? Don’t they want to speak out and tell the government they aren’t standing for this? I guess a nation who rallies around dead animals in celebration and hacks down rainforests for the taste of flesh also known as hamburger doesn’t truly care about what goes into their bodies or that of their families (an estimated 55 square feet of rainforest is what we’re trading for a quarter pound of hamburger, bringing your body more than a quarter percent closer to death as the corpses of dead animals decay in your digestive tract). Very disappointing I might add, very…

Generally people may not want cloned products, but I guarantee those with vested interest will strategically smooth the way with their great marketing and public relations campaigns. This should be very interesting to watch unfold. Keep your eyes peeled.

Bruce I. Knight, the USDA's undersecretary for marketing and regulatory programs, requested an ongoing "voluntary moratorium" to buy time for "an acceptance process" that Knight said consumers in the United States and abroad will need, "given the emotional nature of this issue." (from post article)

Haha…an acceptance process GREAT, and people are just gullible enough. Prove me wrong! I’d love to be wrong with this particular assumption.

At issue are clones of beef cattle, dairy cows, pigs and goats, as well as their offspring, which farmers in the United States and a few other countries are starting to raise in an effort to produce more consistently high-quality milk and meat. (from post article)

So I guess living creatures need perfecting (nature isn’t good enough and the eating meat and drinking milk is natural argument is totally thrown away because CLONED ANYTHING is not NATURAL). Once again animals are being objectified and treated as a product, a commodity and definitely not a LIFE WORTH ANYTHING…

The agenda seems to be all about desensitizing the masses and it starts with these non-human animals. The cloning of humans (which is already in progress) is sure to follow as a normal practice and standard. People + Technology = the acceptance of national ID cards, veri-chip implants and our freedoms and privacy being taken away for the alleged safety and security reasons. The negative implications reach far beyond the animal rights spectrum. We’re losing this battle, our freedom to privacy and our freedom to choose and have knowledge of what EXACTLY goes into our bodies.

The last quote in the article really was a gnarly one and made me want to smash stuff.

While the now-expired FDA moratorium sought to keep both clones and their offspring off the market, the new USDA moratorium requests only that clones themselves be withheld, so the offspring might make it to store shelves within a few years.
But imagine the labels that would appear if certain rules were in place, Greenwood said:
" 'This steak's father was a clone.'

'This steak's grandfather was a clone.'

'This steak's great-grandmother was a clone.'

"At what point does it become absurd?"
(from post article)

Ummmm don’t you think it became absurd when eating animals (and the economic factors revolving around eating animals) became so important that people would risk their health and well being? Not to mention the absurdity in recognizing animals that you believe to be food as a father, grandfather and great-grandmother. The ethical implications are so obvious and apparently easy to avoid or ignore.


Did a Fast Make Gwyneth Sicketh?



Photo: WireImage

Horreur! Gwyneth Paltrow was admitted to Mount Sinai yesterday with ailments unknown, Us Weekly is reporting. "She was slumped over in a wheelchair pushed by [husband] Chris Martin," a witness told Us. "She looked not well." However, Us also reported that later that evening a bag from Organic Avenue was delivered, which indicates that the actress is at least eating. Or is she? Like the virtual Woodward and Bernsteins we are, we called Organic Avenue to find out what was in the bag. "She's doing our five-day live-food fast," an employee told us. Reaaaaaally, we drawled in our best gumshoe-detective voice. Could that be why she's in the hospital, perhaps? The employee laughed like that was just crazy talk. Right, because whoever heard of anyone getting sick from not eating? "Oh, no," she said. "She's eating salads, there's juices. There's actually quite a bit of food there, it's just all raw and organic." And so our groundbreaking reporting reached a dubious but still satisfying conclusion. Because Gwyneth can't actually be that sick if she's still sticking to her diet.

I hope idiots don’t use this as an attack on raw and organic diets…

P.S.
R.I.P.-Brad Renfro (def one of my fav actors who lived too fast and died too soon)



USDA Recommends That Food From Clones Stay Off the Market (FOR NOW...HA!)

The U.S. Department of Agriculture yesterday asked U.S. farmers to keep their cloned animals off the market indefinitely even as Food and Drug Administration officials announced that food from cloned livestock is safe to eat.

Bruce I. Knight, the USDA's undersecretary for marketing and regulatory programs, requested an ongoing "voluntary moratorium" to buy time for "an acceptance process" that Knight said consumers in the United States and abroad will need, "given the emotional nature of this issue."

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.

At least one Kansas cattle producer also disclosed yesterday that he has openly sold semen from prize-winning clones to many U.S. meat producers in the past few years, and that he is certain he is not alone.

"This is a fairy tale that this technology is not being used and is not already in the food chain," said Donald Coover, a Galesburg cattleman and veterinarian who has a specialty cattle semen business. "Anyone who tells you otherwise either doesn't know what they're talking about, or they're not being honest."

Yesterday's awkwardly meshed announcements by FDA and USDA officials, made at a joint news conference in Washington, reflected continuing divisions among U.S. regulatory agencies on how to deal with the issue of food from clones.

Stephen F. Sundlof, director of FDA's Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition, spoke from his perspective as the person who oversaw that agency's six-year review of the safety of milk and meat from clones and their offspring. He released the results of that 968-page "final risk analysis," saying "meat and milk from cattle, swine and goat clones are as safe as food we eat every day."

That conclusion amounted to handing the cloned-food hot potato to the USDA's Knight, whose agency has the responsibility of getting those products accepted on the market.

Recent surveys indicate that the agency has a challenge. Last year, 22 percent of Americans who responded to a major survey said they had a favorable impression of food from clones.

That was up from 16 percent a year earlier. Nonetheless, about 50 percent have an unfavorable impression, said Danielle "Dani" Schor of the International Food Information Council Foundation, an industry-funded interest group that has conducted the survey of 1,000 Americans annually since 2004.

At issue are clones of beef cattle, dairy cows, pigs and goats, as well as their offspring, which farmers in the United States and a few other countries are starting to raise in an effort to produce more consistently high-quality milk and meat.

n recent weeks, as it became clear that the FDA was ready to release its positive safety report, officials there began encountering resistance from other agencies that would have to deal with the consequences of food from clones entering the U.S. food supply.

Some of them, including the USDA's Foreign Agricultural Service and the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, have been struggling for years to persuade countries in Europe and other parts of the world to accept gene-altered crops from the United States. The last thing those agencies needed, insiders said, was a new U.S. product that nobody wants.

The USDA's request that farmers keep their clones out of the food chain, probably for a few more years, "is simply allowing the time for an orderly transition to occur," Knight said, adding that the department is already having conversations with U.S. trading partners and trying to smooth the way to acceptance.

Some U.S. consumer groups have expressed concern for the cloned animals, which often have health problems, and have suggested that the American public may be as tough a sell as the wary consumers in the European Union and Japan.

"Despite the fact that cloned animals suffer high mortality rates and those who survive are often plagued with birth defects and diseases, the FDA did not give adequate consideration to the welfare of these animals or their surrogate mothers in its deliberations," said Wayne Pacelle, chief executive of the Humane Society of the United States.

Some U.S. groups have demanded that food from clones be labeled to give consumers the "right to choose."

But James Greenwood, president of the Biotechnology Industry Organization, whose members include the nation's biggest farm-animal cloning companies, rejected that idea, as has the FDA. He said cloning is simply a way to make offspring. Other methods of farm animal procreation, such as in vitro fertilization and artificial insemination, are not listed on food labels.

He and other industry representatives specifically rejected proposals to label food from conventionally conceived offspring of clones.

While the now-expired FDA moratorium sought to keep both clones and their offspring off the market, the new USDA moratorium requests only that clones themselves be withheld, so the offspring might make it to store shelves within a few years.

But imagine the labels that would appear if certain rules were in place, Greenwood said:

" 'This steak's father was a clone.' 'This steak's grandfather was a clone.' 'This steak's great-grandmother was a clone.'

"At what point does it become absurd?"

Staff researcher Madonna Lebling contributed to this report.

Tuesday, January 15, 2008

Cloned Animals Coming to a Plate Near You...




Hey guys! Happy New Year!!!! I'm totally alive, just in case you were wondering! Everything is going great in this awesome New Year. 2007 was such a stellar year, but I sensing 2008 will be one for the history books! I'm so glad "the holiday season" is totally over!!! I'm still doing the raw foods diet, but totally slacked at the end of December and dropped down to about 60%. Yes, very sad I know!! I'm totally back on track working on that and the exercise thing. I really thought that since I had fully mastered veganism that I could easily master the raw food life very quickly, it proves to be way more challenging than ever...BUT SO WORTH IT! I've read a lot of blogs from other raw foodist and I see that everyone has their ups and downs with the raw diet and it's not really a win/lose situation. It's basically all win with a whole foods vegan diet as a foundation, but your average score gets higher with the more raw foods you implement!

Though I did eat some cooked foods in my absence from the blog-world, they were still organic and whole foods with no wacky additives or preservatives just the way nature intended. A raw and whole foods diet is simply getting back to basics, food they ate before all the wasteful packaging/microwave/fast food days. I view it as a worthwhile simplification leading to maximum results with minimal effort. This year I'm planning a full on metamorphosis, where I will become not only a better raw vegan but a healthier woman in general. I've found an ideal healthy balance and am quite happy with it, though I do want to boost my raw percentage back up to where it was!! I plan on going on a crazy fresh veggie and fruit juice/smoothie detox in the next few weeks. I'll totally let you know when I start it. I really want to get rid of all the toxins accumulated over the last couple of weeks. Seriously, what can be more nutritious, wholesome and beneficial than implementing a large percentage of raw foods into your life? You simply can’t go wrong.

I apologize for the lack of posts. I guess it is best not to make any more daily blog promises, so I don't have to feel guilty when I'm way too busy or self absorbed (haha) to post!


Today I'm posting this article from CNN: http://www.cnn.com/2008/HEALTH/01/15/fda.cloning/index.html

Just another reason for you to stop eating animals and their secretions produced by mass rape...
Natural? I think not! Thank heavens for organic whole foods! What nature really intended...

It only gets worse from here people…


FDA OKs meat, milk from most cloned animalsStory Highlights
Sheep meat, milk need more research, FDA says


Heated debate has raged for years over use of cloned animals for food production

Experts: Consumers won't see cloned food products for 3-5 years

Next Article in Health »



By Jennifer Pifer
CNN

ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) -- Meat and milk from most cloned animals are safe to eat, the Food and Drug Administration announced Tuesday.


Debate has raged around food products from cloned cattle, such as this one produced by the company Viagen.

According to a 968-page "final risk assessment," the FDA finds no safety risks in meat from healthy cloned cows, pigs or goats or milk from cloned cows and their offspring.

"Food products derived from cattle, swine, and goat clones pose no more risk than food derived from sexually reproduced animals," the report said.

However, in the end, the FDA decided it needed more information to determine the safety of meat and milk from cloned sheep. The FDA also decided food from newborn cattle clones, "may pose some very limited human food consumption risk."

The agency reportedly included hundreds of pages of raw data in the risk assessment, to help the public understand how it came to its findings.

For years, a heated debate over the use of cloned animals for food production has stretched from Congress to cattle farms. The agency reached a preliminary decision in December 2006, after a four-year review, that milk and meat from cloned animals was safe for human consumption. Under government policy, the agency was required to collect more safety data before issuing a final decision.

It is highly unlikely actual clones will be used in food production. A cloned cow costs $15,000 to $20,000 to create. More likely, experts said, the offspring of cloned animals will be used. Experts also say it will be three to five years before consumers see milk and meat from their offspring.

Opponents of using cloned animals in food production are angry that the FDA is releasing its report now.

"We think the FDA should pay attention to what Congress is asking them to do," say J.D. Hanson, policy analyst for the Center for Food Safety. "It looks like they are releasing it to sidestep what Congress has asked them to do."

Another concern is economics. "People will start consuming less dairy and meat" out of uncertainty, suggested Michael Hansen, a senior scientist with Consumers Union. His group calls for more study and clear labeling.

Last month, the Senate passed a measure that would bar the FDA from approving the proposal until it conducts further study of the potential health effects. The legislation also would require the Agriculture Department to examine consumer acceptance of cloned meats. The amendment was part of the Senate's $286 billion farm bill, which was passed in December.

Health Library
MayoClinic.com: Health Library
Other consumer groups are satisfied with the findings. "There are still unanswered questions about the use of cloned animals in the food supply, but the Food and Drug Administration has satisfactorily answered the safety question," the Center for Science in the Public Interest said in a statement. "While the safety of any food cannot be proven with absolute certainty, consumers should have confidence that meat and milk from cloned animals and their offspring will be safe."