Japan Studies the Safety of Cloned Meat
JAPAN - Unsatisfied with the recent reports that conclude that meat from cloned animals is safe, Japan has decided to conducts its own experiments.
3 April 2008
1 minute read
"The safety commission has been asked to deliberate on the matter," an Agriculture Ministry official said.
It was not immediately clear how long it would take for the Food Safety Commission, Japan's food safety watchdog which will be looking into the issue, to reach a conclusion. "There is no prior case that we can compare it with," an official with the commission said. He said the safety of cloned cattle and also pigs would be studied.
According to Reuters, many Japanese consumers, notoriously sensitive to food safety, are likely to oppose moves to introduce meat or milk from cloned animals into the human food supply, however.
The farm ministry official said Japan has been breeding cloned cattle since 1998.
As of September last year, a cumulative total 535 cloned cattle had been bred in Japan, all for research purposes.
The United States is ahead of Japan as it has already made a final risk assessment.
TheCattleSite News Desk
