Posted by Jonathan Adler:
Cloned Bull:
http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2007_01_07-2007_01_13.shtml#1168311651
Slate's William Saletan [1]defends cloned food. It's a good article,
that briefly summarizes and refutes the conventional arguments against
cloned food.
Messing with nature at this level is never simple. It requires
ongoing debate, monitoring, and regulation. But we're not even
getting that debate. Instead, opponents are relying, as they have
in the human cloning debate, on the sheer fact that cloning freaks
people out. To reinforce this revulsion and intimidate regulators,
politicians, and food producers, they constantly emphasize surveys
showing that Americans are uncomfortable with cloned food, think
it's unsafe, and won't buy it. As though polls settled the matter.
As though the FDA should put science before politics, but only when
it suits liberals.
Yes, we're scared of cloned food. But according to the same polls,
most of us have heard little about animal biotechnology, don't know
biotech food is already in supermarkets, and, against all reason,
are more afraid of cloning animals than of genetically engineering
them. Don't be cowed. Question your fears. That's the difference
between us and the animals.
References
1. http://www.slate.com/id/2156931/pagenum/all/#page_start
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