”Eating livestock and chicken, the most worried about?” I recently interviewed a number of random street in Shenyang Shenyang, the people who have expressed a fear of water flooding of meat, second, fear of dead meat, and most worried about the health and safety of meat . Another 5 months, the public must have no such worry. “Meat and poultry regulations of Liaoning Province” (“the Ordinance”) through the Provincial Standing Committee, will next year go into effect April 1. “Regulations”: pigs, cattle, sheep, chicken slaughtering be implemented, centralized quarantine, the maximum penalty 100 thousand yuan injection meat.

  All livestock and poultry slaughtering pigs addition, the cattle and sheep meat production and consumption in the province is also relatively large amount of livestock and poultry products. The State Council, “pig slaughtering regulations” promulgated and implemented since 1997, despite the Situlanzai and the manufacture and sale of pig disease, water meat, bad meat and other illegal activities severely dealt with, as there is no province-wide implementation of the cattle and sheep, chicken slaughtering, its management has no legal basis, there Situlanzai phenomena, water table meat and other phenomena on the residents there are still occurrences.

  April 1, 2010 after the cattle and sheep slaughtering poultry are included in the scope of the implementation of centralized quarantine. In addition to individuals in rural areas and urban residents from the slaughtered animal from eating outside, without a fixed point, no unit or individual shall not engage in livestock and poultry slaughtering activities. If not designated to be slaughtered animal, its behavior on an offense subject to appropriate financial penalties and even criminal sanctions.

  How to set the fixed point of slaughter and processing? Slaughter plant location must be away from drinking water and surface water protection areas, residential areas, schools, kindergartens, hospitals, shopping malls and other public places, and shall not affect the location of the living and activities in public places.

  People eating meat in a slaughter plant, if there were no problems, future problems can be traced back to the source. Slaughtering plants faithfully record the source of their slaughtered livestock and product flow, record keeping of not less than two years. Quality of meat inspection record keeping and shall not be less than two years, consumer activists such provisions provide a legal basis. Illegal slaughtering activities in the value of livestock category is difficult to determine the amount, the maximum penalties for 200,000 yuan on the unit, the maximum penalties for 10,000 yuan to individuals.

  Shuttle transportation to recall protect their own interests, the future consumers of meat products, there must be spotted and the certificate of inspection and quarantine symbol. The future can not be any means of transportation used to transport the meat product. Must meet the requirements of the special closed national health delivery systems. To prevent meat contamination, the transport of small livestock and poultry slaughtering of livestock and poultry products point of operation shall not be open. Failure to sell or appearance of the animal products, to frozen or chilled.

  Future meat products recall system will be implemented. Meat quality inspection or inspection without unqualified products, not the factory, the point. If it is found unsafe meat products, slaughterhouses to immediately stop production, to the public the information, notify the seller to stop selling, inform consumers stop using recalled products already on the market. Livestock and poultry slaughtering plant on the recalled products, harmless treatment must be taken to prevent re-enter the market.

  The maximum penalties for 100,000 yuan injection of meat to the meat filling, consumers hate. The future of the livestock and poultry, poultry products injected water or other substances, not only to confiscate the illegal gains, the value should be 3 to 5 times the amount of fine, individual to office more than 20,000 yuan 10,000 yuan fine. On livestock and livestock products category injected water or other substances is difficult to determine the value of the amount, or other units of the slaughtering plant a maximum fine of 100,000 yuan; personal maximum fine of 30,000 yuan. More acts constitute a crime should be investigated for criminal liability.

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                                     By Sandy Powers

The cloning process for cattle is almost identical to human embryo cloning techniques.  The process, known as somatic cell nuclear transfer, involves the removal of an egg cell’s DNA and replaces it with DNA from a body cell of a donor.  The resulting cell can be chemically programmed to divide.  If the cell survives, it may become an exact genetic duplicate of the body cell donor animal.  In practice, the process produces a high proportion of deformed animals that cannot survive.  As cells divide, their chromosomes get shorter.  This is because the DNA sequences at both ends of a chromosome–called telomeres—shrink each time the DNA is copied.  What does this mean?  It means problems can develop during later development.  Aging is affected.  Chromosomes from cloned cattle seem to have a longer lifespan compared with the cells of naturally conceived cattle.  However, Dolly, the cloned sheep, had cells aging faster than cells from a normal sheep.  Dolly’s death at the relatively early age of 6 years old fuels the debate about the long term health of clones.

Problems of development associated with cloning have not been solved.  Scientists aren’t sure why cloned animals show differences in telomere length.  According to the University of Pennsylvania Center for Bioethics, “there has not yet been a single cloned mammal that has yet been alive long enough to have lived a natural life span for that animal.  We can’t underestimate the unanswered questions about cloning.”  Yet, the American Food and Drug Administration (FDA) concluded meat and milk from cloned animals are safe for human consumption, clearing the way for cloned products to enter the U.S. food supply.  Remember, this is the same FDA that proclaimed DES was safe in our food which was later discovered to cause cancer, and the same FDA that permits synthetic steroid male and female hormones and synthetic growth promoters to be added to our food today.  The FDA in its ruling also concluded no labeling is required to inform the consumer that the food is derived from cloned animals or their offspring. 

“The FDA has acted recklessly, and I am profoundly disappointed in their rush to approve cloned foods,” said Maryland Senator Barbara Mikulski, co-sponsor of a bill amendment passed by the U.S. Senate which asked the FDA not to rule until further research was available.  The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) said cloned animal products may not be safe and further study was needed. Of course, the biotechnology industry disagrees with the EFSA and Senator Barbara Mikulski. “The biotechnology industry applauds the FDA for its comprehensive scientific review of this new assisted reproductive technology,” said Jim Greenwood, president and CEO of the Biotechnology Industry Organization, which represents companies and institutions in the biotech field.

The FDA asked for a “voluntary moratorium” on keeping cloned products out of the food supply for now.  However, a  New York Times article reports that Donald Coover of Kansas has sold enough semen from a cloned bull in one year to inseminate 2,000 cows.  In 2008, Coover told the Washington Post that it “is a fairy tale that this technology is not being used and is not already in the food chain.”

Are meat and milk from cloned animals really safe to eat?  The rush to judgment by the FDA prevents a safe and thorough answer to that question.  Once again, the American consumer becomes the laboratory test animal as in the case of DES.

Sandy Powers

www.organicforhealthsite.com