Bill Would Require Labels on Cloned Food

The California Cattlemen's Association and other industry groups oppose the legislation.

"We're sort of a little ahead of ourselves," said Matt Byrne, the association's executive vice president. "There's no meat or milk from cloned animals on the market, and there's no expectation that this will be an issue any time soon."

The FDA in December issued a preliminary report saying there was no evidence that eating meat from cloned cows, pigs and goats - or their offspring - presents concerns about food safety. The agency could grant final approval for manufacturers to sell cloned animal products by year's end.

Farmers and food safety experts who testified in support of Migden's bill said they feel a sense of urgency to make sure products from cloned animals are labeled. Without them, cloned DNA could quickly infiltrate the nation's food chain.

"Cloning is a radical new form of reproduction, and the long-term ramifications are unknown," said Eric Schlosser, author of "Fast Food Nation, the Dark Side of the American Meal." "This bill gives consumers the ability to choose if they want to be part of a huge food-safety experiment."

According to research by Consumers Union, which publishes Consumer Reports, the FDA has based its preliminary findings on limited samples, said Jean Halloran, the group's director of food policy initiatives. Findings that cloned pork could be safe, for example, were based on tests of just five pigs, while the findings about cows' milk were from 43 cows.

"Considering that 90 percent of cloned animals die because there's something wrong with them, we don't consider that to be an adequate safety assessment of what millions of people would be eating and drinking from millions of different animals," Halloran said.

With or without labels, consumers have at least one clue they're not eating cloned meat: The U.S. Department of Agriculture's green organic seal, given to food produced without pesticides or antibiotics, also means clone-free, according to the agency.

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