Meat from the descendants of cloned animals could soon end up in Canada's food supply, and a leading food researcher is warning that consumers may not know they are buying it.
Sylvain Charlebois, Director of the Agri-Food Analytics Laboratory at Dalhousie University, Health Canada will allow meat from the descendants of cloned animals to be sold in the country without labeling or formal risk assessment, reported Global News on Saturday.
“The science is pretty clear in terms of food safety. There should be no fears,” he said. – In fact, over the past 25 years, a lot of literature has appeared on this issue. But the problem here is not science. I think it's actually silence.
Health Canada It launched a consultation in 2024 to gather feedback from Canadians on its proposed approach to food derived from cloned animals and their descendants.
The change would exclude cloned animals from the definition of “novel food” by eliminating requirements for pre-market safety assessment or mandatory labeling. The agency stressed that it is not involved in the practice of cloning “now or ever.”
A sign at Health Canada headquarters in Ottawa, January 3, 2014. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick.
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In early November, duBreton, a certified humane and organic pork producer based in Quebec, expressed concern about meat from cloned animals entering Canada's food supply. The company said the regulatory changes would allow stores to sell beef and pork from cloned animals without safety testing or mandatory labeling.
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IN release Vincent Breton, chief executive of DuBreton, wrote: “Consumers have the right to decide for themselves. The government is quietly changing the definition of a new food product, meaning that unless it is labeled as organic, it is impossible to distinguish brands that support animal cloning from brands that do not.”
“People want and deserve to know this.”
Charlebois said consumers, many of whom are attracted by lower prices, won't know when cloned products will be available to them.
“If I give you two pieces of meat, one regular and one cloned, you won’t notice the difference.» – he said. “However, if it has a label on it and I offer you cloned meat at half price, which one will you choose?”
He said cloned products could end up being cheaper to produce, adding: “How will consumers benefit from these technological advances without labeling? That's the point.”
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