3rd September 2008

Responding to a vote today in the European Parliament,  which saw 622 MEPs calling for an EU ban on the cloning of animals for food, Cllr Philip Booth, a Stroud District green party member said: "This is a very positive move: the prospect of animals being cloned for food is hugely disturbing."

Philip Booth continued: "From an animal welfare perspective, it is clear that this process causes serious suffering, and may already be illegal. European law actually states that "breeding procedures that cause or are likely to cause suffering or injury to any of the animals concerned must not be practiced" (Directive 98/58). Moreover, the impacts on human health are still unknown. Clearly, the only reason to pursue animal cloning is to increase the profits of the corporations behind it."

Philip Booth added: “Cloning is also an incredibly wasteful way of producing food, requiring the loss of many animal lives just to produce one successful clone. Furthermore, it has been shown that the animals who do survive suffer more defects and die much earlier than non-cloned animals."

Dr Caroline Lucas, Green MEP for the South East, commented: “Only 8% of sheep involved in a cloning process result in a viable offspring or embryo transferred. For cows this is 15-20%. Goats less than 3%, pigs 3-5%, rabbits less than 2%, mice less than 2%, horses less than 1%, and deer less than 1%. The European Group on Ethics, which advises the European Commission, said in its final opinion published on 17 January that it 'does not see convincing arguments to justify the production of food from clones and their offspring'."