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- How Important is DNA Information of Cloned Animals?
How Important is DNA Information of Cloned Animals?
- By Rebeca Walsh
- Published September 8th, 2008
- Genetics
- Unrated
Post the FDA declaration regarding the safety of meat and milk produced from cloned animals, several companies have got into the act of producing cloned animals for the animal livestock industry. Some companies have already started marketing semen from cloned animals to provide this entire exercise with an impetus.
An opinion poll that was conducted by Consumers Union revealed that 89 percent of consumers want an indication of whether their food comes from cloned animals or not by virtue of labels. The pivotal question here, however, is that should the public have access to DNA from every unique clone? This thought has essentially originated in the mind of Patrick Cunningham, who happens to be Dublin Trinity College's professor and also serves the Government of Ireland as its Chief Scientific Advisor.
Patrick Cunningham, also co-founded IdentiGEN Ltd. along with a group of geneticists from Ireland's
Trinity College and presides over the company as its chairman. This company is the proud developer of 'DNA TraceBack', the world's very first meat traceability system, which is DNA-based. DNA TraceBack is instrumental in tracking the identity of meat from its original source.
Presently, informational data about the DNA of cloned animals is essentially propriety. Producers do not go public with such information, however, cloned animals have to wear ear tags. Mr. Cunningham states that for producers and retailers to be able to substantiate their claims of providing customers with clone-free products, they will need to provide solid evidence, like, DNA traceability, which is made available the TraceBack database.
TraceBack is now being extensively used by reliable grocery retailers and meat producers throughout Ireland and the United Kingdom to facilitate the selling of branded meat, also duly verifying the country of origin and providing valid product attributes.
An opinion poll that was conducted by Consumers Union revealed that 89 percent of consumers want an indication of whether their food comes from cloned animals or not by virtue of labels. The pivotal question here, however, is that should the public have access to DNA from every unique clone? This thought has essentially originated in the mind of Patrick Cunningham, who happens to be Dublin Trinity College's professor and also serves the Government of Ireland as its Chief Scientific Advisor.
Patrick Cunningham, also co-founded IdentiGEN Ltd. along with a group of geneticists from Ireland's
Presently, informational data about the DNA of cloned animals is essentially propriety. Producers do not go public with such information, however, cloned animals have to wear ear tags. Mr. Cunningham states that for producers and retailers to be able to substantiate their claims of providing customers with clone-free products, they will need to provide solid evidence, like, DNA traceability, which is made available the TraceBack database.
TraceBack is now being extensively used by reliable grocery retailers and meat producers throughout Ireland and the United Kingdom to facilitate the selling of branded meat, also duly verifying the country of origin and providing valid product attributes.