No EU Agreement on Clone Regs, So Market to Be Flooded with Cloned Meats & Dairy

Not only will cloned meats and dairy products be sold throughout the EU, but there will be no labeling. Agribusiness runs the show—not the EU Parliament.

by Heidi Stevenson

2 April 2011

The European Union has become Agribusiness's dream. After sabotage by the UK's grotesquely misplaced Secretary of State for the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Caroline Spelman and cohorts have managed to prevent an agreement for sale and labeling of cloned foods in the EU. Of course, in any rational system of government, a lack of approval on products that most people think should be banned would mean that they can't be sold. However, in this twisted system, the opposite is happening. As we speak, over a hundred cloned cattle are now being raised on UK pseudo-farms.

Cloned meat and dairy products will soon be on the market in supermarkets all over the EU. What's worse, though, is that there will be no labeling! Because of a lack of agreement in how to regulate cloned products, the EU is allowing any and every sort of cloned animal and its offspring to be placed into the food supply of the entire continent. We, the people of the EU, who have clearly let it be known that we do not want cloned food, have been sold out to the powerful Agribusiness agenda.

There is an obvious double standard between regulation of products that people want, such as vitamins and herbs, and those that we don't, like cloned meat and genetically modified (GM) foods. If the product is natural, the EU is, quite literally, regulating it to death. Natural herbs that have always been available are being effectively banned for fraudulent reasons, while truly dangerous and completely unnatural products—which have been demonstrated to have devastating effects on both our health and the environment—are going entirely unregulated.

What's Wrong With Cloned Food Products?

The Soil Association states three primary reasons for not supporting cloned foods:

• It is harmful to animals at every stage of the cloning process, resulting in health problems and abnormalities. The EU's own European Food Safety Authority, interestingly completely ignored in the decision to allow sales, said that the suffering of many animals leaves no room for the ethical justification of cloned animals.
• The impact on human health is unknown, as there are not adequate studies to know.
• Consumers have the right to know if they're purchasing and eating foods from cloned animals.

Cloning produces defective animals, many more than it does normal ones, resulting in much suffering. The mothers suffer from invasive procedures. Cloned animals are the epitome of monoculture, so they are particularly at risk for disease, which will naturally result in even more antibiotic use, leading to ever more drug-resistant diseases.

Even the Semblance of Democracy Is Gone

Even the EU's direct representatives of the people have been ignored. Parliament itself voted recently to place a moratorium on cloned foods. That legislation has been ignored by the EU!

Thus, even the law-making body of the EU, the Parliament, has simply been ignored. Obviously, there is no longer even the pretense of democracy in the European Union. As the Mail Online stated:

The move signals the start of a free-for-all in 'Frankenfood' – despite claims the technology is cruel and unethical.

Shoppers will be left in the dark because products from the offspring of cloned animals will not require special labels. One MEP warned supermarkets could soon be flooded with their milk.

It's anticipated that it will take years before any regulation can be brought to the cloning industry.

What to Do

At this point, we are sitting back while a takeover of European government is enacted. It's nearly complete. However, the Parliament is still the people's representative. With encouragement, the members—who have voted to act with caution, at a minimum, on the cloning issue—need to know that the people truly support them against the other departments of the government, especially the EU Commission. This is part of a major powerplay. As long as the people are unaware, it will continue as we're seeing, with full control of every aspect of our lives managed by multinational corporations strictly for profits.

It's time to write to your Members of European Parliament. Tell them that you want them to stand up to the Commission and stop the production and sale of cloned meats and dairy products. Don't stop with one letter or e-mail. They need to be inundated. People from other nations need to recognize that this battle is worldwide. You should send messages, too. Send them to both your own political representatives and to EU Parliament members. This needs to be seen as a worldwide issue, not simply an EU one—because it is.

Start here to find your MEPs, along with their contact information. Don't write to only one; send to as many as you want. If you're from another area of the world, just pick some at random and send messages. Let them know they're being watched by the citizens of the world, who want them to stop the cloning madness. (Then send a message to your own representatives, telling them that you are against cloning.)

Don't worry about whether your message is well-written. It doesn't matter. You can send something as simple as:

I oppose all cloning of animals. I do not want any cloned food to be sold. Please introduce regulation to prevent it.

That will get your message across. If you want something more lengthy and genteel, then you might want to use the Soil Association's sample, reproduced here in RTF format.

What matters is that you make your voice heard. Don't wait. Please, if you care about either issue—cloned food or democracy—then your MEPs need to know it. They are not going to grow spines unless they know that the people are behind them.

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