Any Thoughts On Eating Cloned Animals??

by minimus 37 Replies latest jw friends

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  james_woods

  A clone is both genotypically and phenotypically simply an identical twin to the animal it originated from.

  Theoretically, yes. Practically, and especially after numerous replications, I would think not. DNA is always subject to damage from extraneous outside influences (virus, radiation, certain chemicals, etc).

  I have a fascinating book on DNA - "Unraveling DNA" by Maxim D. Frank-Kamenetskii. Dr. Kamenetskii is the head of the department of Genome Expression at the Institute of Molecular Genetics, Moscow.

  He points out that DNA and it's replication code is far more complicated than a one-on-one "computer tape" analogy that has been popularized since the discovery. One certain effect is that bisexual reproduction introduces a sort of self-correcting mechanism which acts against the foreign influences corrupting the original sequences of the parent DNA.

  I tend to wonder if cloning again and again would not be like copying a cassette tape over and over - with the result of losing a little fidelity each time the copy is made.

  Anyway, as poster Cowboy points out - true "cloning" does not offer any real economic potential in the foreseeable future, so it is all probably a moot point.
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  james_woods

  james_woods, BSE, or "mad cow disease", is not genetic, nor is it heritable. It is contracted by the animal eating other animal based proteins (usually blood and/or bone meal), so nothing about cloning increases the BSE risk whatsoever.

  Yes, but I thought that specifically it was caused by ingesting brain proteins that already had produced the proteins. For example, it is very much associated with cannibalism in the south pacific - whole tribes were decimated by a human version of the disease because they practised the disgusting ritual of eating human brains.

  I am not quite ready to be so sure that "nothing about cloning increases the risk"...nor am I so positive that genetic engineering of crops, etc. is so completely safe. I am convinced that we do not yet know so much of the extremely complex operations of DNA in the life cycle.

  Something had to make the original encoding of the prion proteins that cause it - (aside from ingesting a lot of these proteins from eating brain materials). I would be concerned that replication over and over (without self-corrections inherent in DNA sharing like sexual parenthood) might eventually enhance such genetic markers and prove to be quite harmful.
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  Cowboy

  I see what you mean that some ill effects from erosion and/or concentration of the original dna seems possible if one were to continually make clones from clones. I know of a number of animals to which several clones exist, but all of them were produced from the original cell line, not from one another, so I've never really considered it in those terms. An established cell line can be produced from, probably not infinitely, but the number of times appears to be far more than has been reached, as far as I know. So aside from pure research, there's really no reason to clone a clone - a large percentage of the cost of cloning is in establishing the original cell line, so from a commercial aspect, multi generation clones make little sense.

  Right now, the vast majority of clones in the beef cattle industry are of bulls that sell alot of semen for AI, and the rest are of elite females that sell embryos and/or progeny at high prices and in large numbers. It's not really replacing sexual reproduction, just making more of the same generation so they can make more of the next. Alot of these bulls can easily sell 100,000 units of semen a year at $50 per unit (for example), if they can produce it - thus the value of clones. These cattle won't remain this popular forever, though a very select few may continue to be used (in continually lesser amounts) for several years. Each generation will produce it's new "stars", and the breeders will keep moving on.

  My biggest objection is simply that it reduces genetic diversity. Between that and the fact that it will prob'ly always remain relatively expensive and complicated, I really don't think it's going to ever get a whole lot more concentrated (in the beef industry) than it already is.

  Hopefully, it's true value will be in medical and genetic discoveries, not in selling bull semen anyway.
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  stillajwexelder

  we have been eating genetically engineered wheat for a long while now -I see no real difference
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  minimus

  I'll bet Mcdonald's meats are cloned.
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  james_woods

  My biggest objection is simply that it reduces genetic diversity.

  Same here.

  I kind of always think back to the Irish potato famine, and the way that the fungus killed off almost all the wine vinyards of Europe, which had to be reconstituted from American cuttings.

  Not to be sounding like a Luddite on the subject, though - there is a lot of promise in the technology if it is used wisely.
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  hillbilly

  only if we grill on charcoal........I hate gas grills.

  Hill
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  MissingLink

  I don't know how much DNA damage there is in these animals, but whatever it is, IT DOESN'T MATTER! The DNA of our food does not affect our own DNA. You could eat down syndrome cattle for every meal (if there is an equivalent bovine chromosonal disorder) and you won't "catch it". Our digestive system breaks these things down and we absorb the results.
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  james_woods

  I don't know how much DNA damage there is in these animals, but whatever it is, IT DOESN'T MATTER! The DNA of our food does not affect our own DNA. You could eat down syndrome cattle for every meal (if there is an equivalent bovine chromosonal disorder) and you won't "catch it". Our digestive system breaks these things down and we absorb the results.

  Numerous people got the mad cow disease from eating the affected meat.
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  maximumtool

  The idea of eating cloned animals doesnt bother me in the least.

  Interesting conversation in this thread. I wish I knew enough to intelligently engage in the discussion. Guess I will be a bystander from here on out!