The US Food and Drug Administration has tentatively concluded that milk and meat from cloned animals are safe to consume, a finding that could eventually clear the way for such products to reach supermarket shelves, The New York Times reported Friday.

The conclusions could face some opposition, the report quoted the FDA as saying. After receiving public comments, the FDA hope by late next spring to outline their views on how cloning would be regulated, including whether food from cloned animals should be labeled.

But if the preliminary conclusion stands, labeling would not beneeded and there would be little regulation, according to Stephen Sundlof, director of the FDA's Center for Veterinary Medicine.

"If we consider them materially the same as traditional foods, the role for the FDA would be minimal," Sundlof said.

There are now only several hundred cloned cattle, for instance,out of the total of about 100 million in the Unites States, so experts do not expect an immediate influx of food from cloned animals if they were allowed. Cloning an animal can cost about 20,000 dollars, much too expensive to make an animal just for its milk or meat.

"That would make about a 100 dollar hamburger," said John C. Matheson, a senior regulatory scientist who led the agency's assessment.

Instead, the main use would be to make copies of prized animalsfor breeding. The clone would not be sent to the slaughterhouse, but would be used to make many more animals by conventional breeding, and those animals, the offspring of clones, could enter the food supply.

(People's Daily   November 1, 2003)