I’m somewhat of a beef connoisseur. From tartar to Kobe, I enjoy sampling all of what the cow has to offer.

If the purpose of cloning an animal is to duplicate an “optimal” individual, I can definitely see steak lovers not just finding their favorite cut, favorite ranch, or favorite country… but finding their favorite cow!

Imagine if high end butcher shops (such as Savenor’s Market, here in Cambridge/Boston) offered cuts from various named animals. I could choose to have a steak from “Rumpy”, or perhaps “Katie”.

Eventually, people would find their favorites. Web sites would be setup to rate and rank various lines of cloned individuals. Restaurants would offer steaks like they offer wine.

Awesome.

So I’m all for the hysteria. It will keep the prices lower for carnivorous connoisseurs like me.

Certainly the risk to the consumer from eating cloned meat seems pretty low. But I agree with Dr. N that genetic diversity is more of a concern. Breeding stock, like seeds, must be bred to be maintained. If farmers are encouraged to return repeatedly to purchase cloned animals, there may be fewer strains to cross-breed with. Which in turn makes it harder for farmers to control their own means of production.

Re birth defects: are most of the birth defects life threatening, meaning the animal will not survive long enough to get into the food stream? Or are they lower level defects, meaning the animal may need more inputs and will eventually be eaten? And does the current rate of defects give any idea whether cloning might be economically viable?

The last two comments under this post are quintessential examples of the sort of fear-mongering Dr. N alluded to.

We would be dumb enough to do that. Profit would drive us there and then we would be stuck with a slowly worsening stock source.

http://www2.nau.edu/~bio372-c/class/sex/cornbl.htm

that shows how dangerous it can be to put all of one’s proverbial eggs into one basket. Voluntarily making the pool of genetic diversity more shallow is a fool’s game; you never know what’s just around the corner.

Plants are a lot easier to clone, all you need to do is take a cutting and under the proper circumstances it will put down roots and develop into a whole plant. But in many cases a clone of one type is grafted onto root stock of another type.

Essentially all wine is produced from such “Frankenstein” type plants, even in France. The vinefera grape produces roots that are susceptible to a new world insect, Phylloxera

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phylloxera.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_French_Wine_Blight

It was only the grafting of vinefera clones onto resistant North American rootstock that allowed wineries in Europe to produce wine. That is still the method used today.

Concord grapes are all clones of the original plant.

Virtually all of the seedless varieties of plants are only propagated through cloning.