The FDA is trying to force me to go vegetarian

If you’ve been keeping up with the news during the past week I am sure you saw the story about how the FDA has approved cloned animal products for sale in the USA. The “yuck” response seems to be the most popular one, so the USDA undersecretary is recommending that there be a “delay” for “market adjustment”.

Hmm, let’s decode the term “market adjustment”. I’m thinking of hormone-laden milk, irradiated strawberries, and battery hens. “Market adjustment” means, roughly, “let’s wait for the furor to die down and then we’ll get these saps to eat it”.

What amazes me — well, I guess it shouldn’t amaze me, I shouldn’t even feel mild surprise– is that there are no long-term studies done on the health of these animals, though the cloning process produces high levels of stillborn births and birth defects. The FDA has decided that if an animal looks healthy at birth it will continue to be so through a normal lifespan. No….it would be too much trouble to actually wait ten years and see how things go before unleashing cloned animals and their offspring into our food supply.

For me this ranks with Monsanto’s sterile wheat as one of the all-time worst-ever cheap Washington compromises with a nation’s food and health. I am sure Canada and the UK will follow in the footsteps of the U.S., but let’s be sure to give credit where it is due: this is a cynical and no doubt industry-led attempt to make yet another quick buck off the public wallets with a criminal disregard for the health and well-being of the public and of the animals.

This is one more convincing argument for sustainable local food production and the organic movement. It’s also an argument for vegetarianism, but I’m not prepared to give up Sunday roasts, barbecues, and chicken pies yet. If the FDA and the USDA continues on this track, though, I may have to revisit the idea of going vegetarian.