Kristen Philipkoski of Wired answers the first question I had when I read about the FDA's pending approval of cloned meat/dairy: isn't it too expensive?
The answer is - yes, mos def.
Wired News: T-Bone Steak, Well-Cloned U.S. regulators may have declared meat and dairy from cloned animals safe for humans to eat, but don't expect to see clones on the supermarket shelves any time soon: Rather, look for their offspring.In a 678-page report released Thursday, the Food and Drug Administration says that cloned pigs, goats and adult cows pose no more risk to humans who eat them than any other meat or milk. Newborn cows may pose some “very limited risk” to humans, the report says, because the genetic reprogramming that takes place during cloning may not be complete in very young animals. And the agency said it didn't have enough data to make a decision on sheep.
... “The fact is, meat and milk from clones is going to be too expensive for the marketplace,” said Mark Walton, president of ViaGen, an agricultural cloning company in Austin, Texas. “They're going to be breeding animals and their offspring are going to market.”
It costs about $15,000 to clone a cow, compared to $2,000 for natural breeding
Soylent Green is people, you know, and is much, much cheaper.
