Recent reports that meat of cloned cattle had been sold in stores in Britain, and the news of the “resurrection” of the world’s first cloned sheep “Dolly” seven years after its death, have renewed concerns about the scientific and ethical dimensions of cloning. The four new Dollies are said to have been created from the deep-frozen section of the same sample of cells from which the original Dolly was produced in 1996 and are, therefore, the exact genetic replicas of the first Dolly. This virtually means that Dolly is not yet dead and may never be; and, if the man wishes, the world’s entire sheep population may one day comprise only of Dollies. The same can, theoretically, be true of human beings, if cloned. The international debate on the ethics and science of cloning has acquired an Indian dimension with scientists in India producing three cloned calves of a buffalo, a dual purpose milk-cum-meat animal. Significantly, these cloned buffaloes have been developed with “hand-guided cloning technique”, which is said to be a relatively simpler and advanced modification of the conventional cloning technique. The day may, therefore, not be too far off when buffalo milk or meat linked to cloned animals enters the Indian food chain. This is bound to raise concerns, as with insect-protected transgenic Bt-cotton and Bt-brinjal, and these must be addressed now. Food authorities in the UK and the US have affirmed that meat and milk from cloned cattle and their offspring are no different from conventional products. The critics are not yet convinced. To begin with, governments must make proper labelling of such foods mandatory.
To be sure, cloning is a cutting-edge discipline of biotechnology that deserves scientific development. But, the risks associated with human consumption of cloned foods should not be ignored. Animal breeders view cloning as a logical extension of the livestock breeding technologies already in vogue, such as artificial insemination and in-vitro fertilisation, to produce more productive animals. There are many benefits to be derived from cloning for man and animals alike, including the possibility of cloning parts of the human body or healthy cells of a sick person that need replacement. On the downside, however, cloning can shrink the already waning genetic diversity in livestock by encouraging monoculture. This can, in turn, potentially put the entire livestock populations at risk of being wiped out by the same disease. Clearly, the debate on the positive and negative aspects of cloning has not ended, and recent achievements of Indian scientists will only revive the debate at home. It is best that such debates are informed and transparent. Hopefully, such an informed debate will also generate a set of guidelines that will facilitate the proper development of this science in the interests of society.