EU talks on modified foods break down
BRUSSELS (UPI) -- Negotiations in the European Union on "novel foods"broke down on the issue of labeling food products from the offspringof cloned animals, officials said.
Talks on the issue ended Tuesday with EU member states and theEuropean Parliament each blaming the other, EUobserver reported.
Both had agreed on the need to ban all food products from clonedanimals, but failed to reach agreement on the issue of labeling foodproducts from the offspring of cloned animals.
Members of the European Parliament insisted on the need to immediatelycover all products under the additional labeling requirement whilemember states were concerned that onerous new rules would be difficultto enforce.
"Measures regarding clone offspring are absolutely critical becauseclones are commercially viable only for breeding, not directly forfood production," Socialist MEP Gianni Pittella and far-left MEPKartika Liotard said in a joint statement after the talks broke down.
"No farmer would spend 100,000 euros ($141,000) on a cloned bull, onlyto turn it into hamburgers," the two MEPs leading parliament'snegotiating team said.
Meanwhile, the scientist behind the first mammal to be cloned from anadult cell, Dolly the sheep, said cloning for food is hard to justify.
"If you were making cloned animals to make a genetic change to producea protein that could treat human disease, that might be ethicallyacceptable," Ian Wilmut of Edinburgh University said.
"On the other hand, if you were producing more meat, or slightlybetter quality meat, the advantage would not be very great."
Copyright 2011 by United Press International
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