| Share this Newsletter |  |
 |
Your actions are working
Health Canada has paused its decision to remove regulation from meat and milk from cloned animals.
Here's Health Canada's announcement: "The Government of Canada has received significant input from both consumers and industry about the implications of this potential policy update. The Department has therefore indefinitely paused the policy update to provide time for further discussions and consideration. Until the policy is updated, foods made from cloned cattle and swine will remain subject to the novel food assessment. There are currently no approved foods from cloned products on the market in Canada."
Thank you for taking action!
This pause is an important time to demand transparency on the use of cloning and genetic modification (GM or genetic engineering) in food.
Health Canada set a dangerous precedent when it removed pre-market regulation from most GM gene-edited foods. Just like with food from the offspring of cloned animals, Health Canada decided that foods from gene-edited plants can be released without government safety assessments and without any notification to the government. Now's the time to demand government oversight and mandatory labelling of food produced with the use of cloning and genetic engineering.
Take Action
Keep up the pressure. Email Health Canada and your Member of Parliament:
- Title your email “Regulate and Label Cloned Meat and Gene-Edited Foods”
- Tell Health Canada and your Member of Parliament that you want regulation and mandatory labelling for all meat from cloned animals and gene-edited animals, and for all genetically engineered food.
- Send your email to Health Canada at bmh-bdm@hc-sc.gc.ca and search for your MP's email address using your postal code at ourcommons.ca.
Thank you for your action and support. Donate today at cban.ca/donate
More Information
What’s cloning? Cloning is not genetic engineering (genetic modification) but it can be used as part of the genetic engineering process. Cloning is also different from lab-grown meat (“cellular agriculture”). Animal cloning is the process of creating an identical copy of an animal. Somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT) is a reproductive animal cloning technique. The process involves taking the nucleus of an unfertilised egg cell from a female animal and replacing it with the nucleus of a somatic (any cell except sperm and egg) cell from another animal to form an embryo. The embryo is then transferred to a surrogate animal, to continue developing until birth. Cloning can be used to create copies of animals with desirable traits. The first mammal ever cloned was Dolly the sheep in 1996, in Scotland. Dolly was cloned from the udder cell of a 6-year-old sheep. It took 276 attempts.
What’s happening? Health Canada says: “Health Canada's Food Directorate determined these foods should be regulated in the same manner as those from traditionally bred animals. Foods derived from SCNT clones of other animals such as goat, sheep, etc., (that is, not cattle or swine) will continue to be novel and require a mandatory pre-market safety assessment. Consequently, foods derived from SCNT cloned cattle and swine and their offspring will no longer be considered novel foods and as such are no longer subject to pre-market notification under Division 28, Part B of the Food and Drug Regulations.” This is the same type of decision that Health Canada recently took to on foods from gene-edited plants.What are the risks? Defects in these animals are common and even small imbalances could lead to hidden food safety problems in milk or meat from cloned animals. Health Canada says: “Although animal clones have been successfully derived from various somatic cells in several mammalian species, there are problems associated with SCNT animal cloning, including lower rates of reproductive success, altered birth weights and higher organ failure rates. The origins and mechanisms underlying these problems are not completely understood… Cellular and reproductive manipulations associated with SCNT also have the potential to impact the health, welfare, and survival of all animals involved in the cloning process.” Click here to read our comments on Health Canada's proposals.
Click here to read about the problem of no regulation for new GMOs produced through gene editing.
Please consider your end-of-year, tax-deductible donation to support our work www.cban.ca/donate.
The Canadian Biotechnology Action Network (CBAN) brings together 15 organizations to research, monitor and raise awareness about issues relating to genetic engineering in food and farming. CBAN members include farmer associations, environmental and social justice organizations, and regional coalitions of grassroots groups. CBAN is a project of MakeWay's shared platform.