Cloned Food: Safety

There are no known safety risks to eating the food produced from animal clones and their progeny, but critics of the process point out that due to its recent and quick development, there has been little time to evaluate the long-term effects of animal cloning (Center for Food Safety, 2006). Additionally, there are significant risks to the animals used and created in the cloning process (particularly the surrogate mothers who give birth to clones).

Due to these concerns, there are certainly ethical reasons to abstain from eating the foods produced from animal clones and their progeny. Since there are no systems to track or trace animal clones or to label the food products derived from them and their offspring, avoiding such food products—for those who might want to—is largely a matter of luck.