First there was the story, on Monday, that the soon to be dismembered Food Standards Agency (FSA) had pledged to urgently investigate suggestions that a British dairy farmer was selling milk from cloned animals.
Then yesterday, amid claims that up to 100 cattle had been bred from clones on British farms, the same agency revealed that the law governing the sale of clone-derived meat had been broken last year.
Decisions concerning whether or not foods are fit for sale in the EU are made by the European Food Safety Authority, and to confuse matters further the FSA was then told it had misinterpreted the current rules. Officials in Brussels stated that while products derived from cloned animals are classified as 'novel foods' which require special permission to be offered for sale, this does not apply to products derived from the offspring of cloned animals.
So while in the US products derived from cloned animals and their offspring are officially considered perfectly safe to eat, in the EU member states can't even agree on what their own rules are. Small wonder, perhaps, that so many people this side of the Atlantic seems to rely more on their instincts than any official advice.
Where do you find yourself in this cloning maelstrom? Is the scepticism widespread in Europe healthy or absurd, and if the powers that be decided tomorrow that these products posed no risk to human health, would they be on your shopping list?
