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Jens 'n' Frens
Idle thoughts of a relatively libertarian Republican in Cambridge, MA, and whomever he invites. Mostly political.
"A strong conviction that something must be done is the parent of many bad measures."
-- Daniel Webster
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Friday, December 29, 2006 :::
Is meat from cloned animals unsafe? Most people would say, "No, of course not, what kind of stupid question is that?" But apparently the FDA has to give an OK:The agency said it would be unlikely to recommend special labels for food made from clones, which are genetic twins of donor animals, but would not decide on the labeling issue until it collects comments from the public over the next 90 days. I may have said before — I'm too lazy to look it up — that I'm a lot more comfortable with labeling requirements than bans. Just a few days ago, in a disagreement about smoking bans with someone dear to me, I allowed that I would be accepting of an understanding that bars and restaurants should be expected to be smoke-free and a subsequent requirement that restaurants that allowed smoking would have to prominently advertise this fact. But even labeling requirements impose a cost, and not just in terms of printing and compliance by the Large Scary Corporation — while I wouldn't mind requiring a warning before someone is subjected to tobacco smoke (which a substantial number of people have a strong aversion to), less significant caveats make me mindful of P.J. O'Rourke's tractor manual, which was so full of "moron warnings" that he missed an important component of his machine's maintenance. Once you read, "don't catch the sharp twirling thingy in your teeth" too many times, you lose focus.
The world is a strange place, and I suppose it's very remotely conceivable that eating meat with shortened telomeres when Venus is in conjunction with Pluto could anger some petulant pagan god or another. But until someone at least proposes a mechanism for a nutritional impact, how does this even get to this point?
Actually, I just read that article more thoroughly, and I'd like to do a complete 180. Well, not "complete", but I'm seeing this and lamenting the fact that I'm too lazy to throw away this whole blog entry:Opinion polls suggest shoppers would be wary. More than half of consumers in a recent survey by the International Food Information Council said they were unlikely to buy food made from cloned animals, no matter what the government says. If that many people actually care to know, let the morons know. If I can buy cloned meat at 70% of the price of sperm-and-egg meat, so much the better. And if it impacts demand so badly that I can't buy cloned meat at all, that's just the price I pay for living in a stupid world. I'm going to sleep.
UPDATE: I didn't bother to edit this when I posted it, and I'm not going to now, but I'd like to point out one extra thing: I'm talking principle, here. I've seen a comment or two on the web that cloning animals for food is not likely to be economically competitive with making them the old-fashioned way.
::: posted by Steven at 12:11 AM
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