Author: Admin

Sunday, June 29, 2008

While nearly all coverage of the 2008 Presidential election has focused on the Democratic and Republican candidates, the race for the White House also includes independents and third-party candidates. These prospects represent a variety of views that may not be acknowledged by the major party platforms.

Wikinews has reached out to these candidates throughout the campaign. We now interview Green Party Presidential candidate Dr. Kent Mesplay.

Why do you want to be President?

I run for president to help improve society, pointing out that we are more secure when we live in a sustainable manner. As of this writing our culture is based on the consumption of limited materials such as petroleum, coal and uranium with great emphasis placed on the consumption of “goods” that are produced and purchased with little regard for the well-being of future generations. Government, ideally, provides an independent, objective forum through which solutions to the needs and wants of our time can be raised, discussed and implemented in a thoughtful, respectful manner. In contrast to this ideal, our current central, national government exists largely to protect and preserve the status quo of relatively few stake-holders, having undue political influence and acting in a manner not in the best interest of the majority of people. We cannot blindly consume our way to peace and stability.

A Green presidential administration would put the needs of current and future generations above the rude demands and expectations of the well-heeled political donor class. It is not important that we have a new president bearing the face of change. We need vital, core change to our political institutions to decentralize control, empower rational science-based decision-making and cut the damaging influence of corporate money on public policy. This change is unlikely to arise from within the current two political parties that are intrinsically corrupted by the ubiquitous “greased-palm” bribing handshake with corporate entities. We need to only ask how many corporate media conglomerates regularly advertize the question, “Should a corporation have the legal status of a super-person?” to realize the extent of the current dilemma. A corporation should never have been considered to have the legal rights of an individual. The Green Party is independent from business interests. This political arm of the environmental, peace and justice movements represents meaningful change to public policy and to our fragile, centralized, short-sighted way of life.

Green solutions are largely local solutions: more community gardens and small farms, reasonable use of fresh water, grey-water and waste-water, including more water storage and community responsibility for the entire water stream, energy-efficient housing and transportation, health care for all, protecting besieged ecosystems. Practically, what this means is a higher base-line of essential services with the costs shared and supported broadly. To be clear, our basic physical security deserves support, not gaming at the hands of profiteers. A common wealth for all citizens is possible, with local regional flavors in commerce and culture atop this “baseline” of security. To be danced out of the way, one finds the current heavy-handed players of agribusiness, pharmaceuticals, energy, insurance and the congressional-military-industrial complex all dependent upon “corporate socialism” for subsidies and protection from real, meaningful, positive change and shielded from probing questions as to why, for example, we so frequently go to war.

Mottos include “sustainability is security” and “freedom to debate.” I run to help define, popularize and grow the Green Party, to be an advocate for: single-payer health-care, renewable energy, increased energy efficiency, rail transport, organic local agriculture, indigenous rights, wise water use, banning lobbying/bribery, over-turning the legal fiction that a corporation is a person, and equal media exposure for all political candidates, having open debates between all political parties and beating those “swords into plowshares” by focusing on improving diplomacy, communication and basic physical security in water, food and energy in particular to mitigate the negative effects of global climate change and to provide emergency readiness. Also, I get bored easily and this keeps me busy.

Have you ever run for political office before? (President, senate, congress, city councillor, school trustee… etc.) Have you ever been a member of a political party, other than the one you’re currently in?

I ran for president in 2004 and 2008, being one of the four “finalists” at the nominating conventions. Also, I ran for U.S. Senate in California as part of a contested race in the Green Party Primary Election in 2006. I plan to run for U.S. Congress in 2010 and I am now taking the steps to begin running for the 2012 presidential race. I have been a member of both main U.S. parties and I cannot adequately express my disgust for them both. I encourage people everywhere to register Green, vote Green and support Green Party efforts at achieving and maintaining ballot access within the current hostile political environment. Ideally, we can together displace one of the two major parties; such is the near-majority level of disapproval of the antiquated mainstream parties and the desire for a true alternative.

Have you ever campaigned for another political candidate?

In 1996 I helped organize a press conference for then-presidential candidate Ralph Nader, after having helped support efforts to draft him as a candidate.

What skills or ideas do you bring from this position, or previous positions, that will benefit the Oval Office?

I believe in the separation of power within government, including economic power. Due to the influence of money in politics and within government we do not have a political system that works well to advance the needs and concerns of “we the people.” There are few, muted voices within our government supporting the dispossessed, the disenfranchised, the “left out,” the lower echelon within our socio-economic strata. Especially now, with high energy costs, questionable food supplies, shredded social safety nets, job loss due to outsourcing and other losses, loss of civil liberties and rights, the consolidation and concealment of governmental power, the “fascist” confluence of military-industrial business with governmental power, threats of unstable weather, retaliation by terrorists and opportunistic foreign governments following our model it is a good time to not be silent. I have lived with and among many different cultures, religions and peoples, I have a multi-cultural background and a mixed ancestry, I value art, music and science, I am both intuitive and analytical and I enjoy solving problems. Our nation would benefit greatly from my services. Plus, I am not “on the take.”

Campaigning for the American presidency is one of the most expensive exercises in the world. How do you deal with the cost and fundraising?

Small contributions from many people not expecting a return of favors approximates public funding of campaigns. In order to “get the word out” about my existence as a candidate it is necessary to adapt and adopt alternative, low-cost strategies. With my campaign team steadily growing I anticipate utilizing modern low-cost communication methods to help “spread the word.” Fund-raising is among the least palatable activities that I have to endure as a candidate and I will be the first to admit that I have done very little fundraising. The reader who is a U.S. Citizen of voting age is encouraged to support my candidacy by visiting my web site, www.mesplay.org, and making a small donation in accordance with Federal Election Commission guidelines. Also, simply e-mailing friends helps tremendously with these small campaigns.

What are you/were you looking for in a running mate?

My running mate would likely represent a demographic that I do not, such as being female and non-white, since I am a white male. As to character and experience, I would want to be supported by someone with great practical public experience who has remained in integrity with the original idealistic hopes and dreams that once drew them into the public eye or political arena.

Can you win the 2008 Presidential election?

I can win the 2008 presidential election by becoming the Green nominee, by inspiring otherwise non-voters to register Green and to grow Green Parties in those states where they are not yet granted ballot access and to subsequently vote in some creative, time-urgent manner circumventing the severe limitations put on candidates and parties by the secretaries of state through the country. I would have to win many of the states where the Green Party is on the ballot and I would have to find a manner allowing erstwhile green voters to legally vote in those states where we are not on the ballot.

If you can’t make it into the Oval Office, who would you prefer seeing taking the presidency?

I cannot support candidates who foolishly support nuclear power and weapons, who do not recognize the need for peace and who do not offer real, meaningful, substantive systemic change.

What should the American people keep in mind, when heading to the polls this November?

When heading for the polls this November U.S. citizens should support Green Party candidates, policies and values. Thank you.

Thursday, December 18, 2008

A team of eight transplant surgeons in Cleveland Clinic in Ohio, USA, led by reconstructive surgeon Dr. Maria Siemionow, age 58, have successfully performed the first almost total face transplant in the US, and the fourth globally, on a woman so horribly disfigured due to trauma, that cost her an eye. Two weeks ago Dr. Siemionow, in a 23-hour marathon surgery, replaced 80 percent of her face, by transplanting or grafting bone, nerve, blood vessels, muscles and skin harvested from a female donor’s cadaver.

The Clinic surgeons, in Wednesday’s news conference, described the details of the transplant but upon request, the team did not publish her name, age and cause of injury nor the donor’s identity. The patient’s family desired the reason for her transplant to remain confidential. The Los Angeles Times reported that the patient “had no upper jaw, nose, cheeks or lower eyelids and was unable to eat, talk, smile, smell or breathe on her own.” The clinic’s dermatology and plastic surgery chair, Francis Papay, described the nine hours phase of the procedure: “We transferred the skin, all the facial muscles in the upper face and mid-face, the upper lip, all of the nose, most of the sinuses around the nose, the upper jaw including the teeth, the facial nerve.” Thereafter, another team spent three hours sewing the woman’s blood vessels to that of the donor’s face to restore blood circulation, making the graft a success.

The New York Times reported that “three partial face transplants have been performed since 2005, two in France and one in China, all using facial tissue from a dead donor with permission from their families.” “Only the forehead, upper eyelids, lower lip, lower teeth and jaw are hers, the rest of her face comes from a cadaver; she could not eat on her own or breathe without a hole in her windpipe. About 77 square inches of tissue were transplanted from the donor,” it further described the details of the medical marvel. The patient, however, must take lifetime immunosuppressive drugs, also called antirejection drugs, which do not guarantee success. The transplant team said that in case of failure, it would replace the part with a skin graft taken from her own body.

Dr. Bohdan Pomahac, a Brigham and Women’s Hospital surgeon praised the recent medical development. “There are patients who can benefit tremendously from this. It’s great that it happened,” he said.

Leading bioethicist Arthur Caplan of the University of Pennsylvania withheld judgment on the Cleveland transplant amid grave concerns on the post-operation results. “The biggest ethical problem is dealing with failure — if your face rejects. It would be a living hell. If your face is falling off and you can’t eat and you can’t breathe and you’re suffering in a terrible manner that can’t be reversed, you need to put on the table assistance in dying. There are patients who can benefit tremendously from this. It’s great that it happened,” he said.

Dr Alex Clarke, of the Royal Free Hospital had praised the Clinic for its contribution to medicine. “It is a real step forward for people who have severe disfigurement and this operation has been done by a team who have really prepared and worked towards this for a number of years. These transplants have proven that the technical difficulties can be overcome and psychologically the patients are doing well. They have all have reacted positively and have begun to do things they were not able to before. All the things people thought were barriers to this kind of operations have been overcome,” she said.

The first partial face transplant surgery on a living human was performed on Isabelle Dinoire on November 27 2005, when she was 38, by Professor Bernard Devauchelle, assisted by Professor Jean-Michel Dubernard in Amiens, France. Her Labrador dog mauled her in May 2005. A triangle of face tissue including the nose and mouth was taken from a brain-dead female donor and grafted onto the patient. Scientists elsewhere have performed scalp and ear transplants. However, the claim is the first for a mouth and nose transplant. Experts say the mouth and nose are the most difficult parts of the face to transplant.

In 2004, the same Cleveland Clinic, became the first institution to approve this surgery and test it on cadavers. In October 2006, surgeon Peter Butler at London‘s Royal Free Hospital in the UK was given permission by the NHS ethics board to carry out a full face transplant. His team will select four adult patients (children cannot be selected due to concerns over consent), with operations being carried out at six month intervals. In March 2008, the treatment of 30-year-old neurofibromatosis victim Pascal Coler of France ended after having received what his doctors call the worlds first successful full face transplant.

Ethical concerns, psychological impact, problems relating to immunosuppression and consequences of technical failure have prevented teams from performing face transplant operations in the past, even though it has been technically possible to carry out such procedures for years.

Mr Iain Hutchison, of Barts and the London Hospital, warned of several problems with face transplants, such as blood vessels in the donated tissue clotting and immunosuppressants failing or increasing the patient’s risk of cancer. He also pointed out ethical issues with the fact that the procedure requires a “beating heart donor”. The transplant is carried out while the donor is brain dead, but still alive by use of a ventilator.

According to Stephen Wigmore, chair of British Transplantation Society’s ethics committee, it is unknown to what extent facial expressions will function in the long term. He said that it is not certain whether a patient could be left worse off in the case of a face transplant failing.

Mr Michael Earley, a member of the Royal College of Surgeon‘s facial transplantation working party, commented that if successful, the transplant would be “a major breakthrough in facial reconstruction” and “a major step forward for the facially disfigured.”

In Wednesday’s conference, Siemionow said “we know that there are so many patients there in their homes where they are hiding from society because they are afraid to walk to the grocery stores, they are afraid to go the the street.” “Our patient was called names and was humiliated. We very much hope that for this very special group of patients there is a hope that someday they will be able to go comfortably from their houses and enjoy the things we take for granted,” she added.

In response to the medical breakthrough, a British medical group led by Royal Free Hospital’s lead surgeon Dr Peter Butler, said they will finish the world’s first full face transplant within a year. “We hope to make an announcement about a full-face operation in the next 12 months. This latest operation shows how facial transplantation can help a particular group of the most severely facially injured people. These are people who would otherwise live a terrible twilight life, shut away from public gaze,” he said.

Thursday, March 16, 2006

Anti-war demonstrators in Sydney, Australia on Thursday dubbed U.S. Secretary of State Dr Condoleezza Rice a “war criminal” and “murderer.” Two protesters were evicted and five people were arrested during protests against the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.

Dr Rice, on a three-day trip to Australia, said she understood why people found it hard to be positive about Iraq when all they saw on their television screens was violence.

Soon after Rice began her speech at the University of Sydney’s Conservatorium of Music, two protesters shouted from the rear of the auditorium, “Condoleezza Rice, you are a war criminal,” and “Iraqi blood is on your hands and you cannot wash that blood away.” Standing with their palms towards her, the young man and woman repeated their accusation until security intervened to remove them from the hall.

About 15 minutes into Rice’s address, a third protester appeared at a balcony door, interrupting her speech as she referred to freedom. “What kind of freedom are you talking about? You are a murderer,” said the demonstrator before he was quietly escorted from the hall. “I’m very glad to see that democracy is well and alive here at the university,” she said.

In her speech, Rice sought to justify the U.S. occupation of Iraq, describing Iraqis as now more free. One student asked about abuses committed by U.S. forces at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. She said the abuses had made her “sick to her stomach.” However, she defended Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where human rights groups say detainees are held in inhumane conditions and in detention flouting international laws.

Before Rice began her speech, about 50 protesters were gathered at the front gates of the Conservatorium. The group were confronted by police on horseback and by police dogs. Police used the horses to charge into the group of activists and push them back, as a police helicopter hovered.

A police spokeswoman said the group was blocking pedestrian access to the building and that police had spent more than 20 minutes warning them to move. The police then moved in and pushed the crowd back 20 metres. Police say five people have been charged with “hindering police in the execution of their duties.”

The “Stop the War Coalition” says Rice is a “war criminal” and is not welcome in Australia. The group’s spokeswoman, Anna Samson, says the protest is one of many planned in the lead-up to the third anniversary of the invasion and occupation of Iraq on March 20.

Paddy Gibson, from the University of Sydney’s Student’s Council, says the protest is in opposition to the Iraq war, and to the use of the University of Sydney’s campus to host Rice, “the most powerful woman in the world,” who they say is a war criminal. “They’re saying, ‘… you’ve got Sydney Uni’s support to stand up and peddle your murderous hate speeches,’ which is what we see it,” he said.

“You’ve got 180,000 people killed, as we said, for no other reason than strategic control of the region’s oil resources. And the anti-Muslim racism that’s been whipped up to justify this war is being felt by Sydney University students,” said Mr Gibson.

Sunday, May 14, 2006

Federal prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald announced on Friday that he would introduce new evidence in the perjury and obstruction of justice case against former Vice Presidential chief of staff Lewis “Scooter” Libby.

One of the new pieces of evidence consists of handwritten notes that Vice President Dick Cheney left on the margins of ambassador Joseph Wilson‘s OpEd column questioning the administration’s handling of evidence regarding weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in the run-up to the Iraq war. Fitzgerald charged that “those annotations support the proposition that publication of the Wilson Op Ed acutely focused the attention of the Vice President and the defendant – his chief of staff – on Mr. Wilson, on the assertions made in his article, and on responding to those assertions.” Fitzgerald describes the notes as reflecting “the contemporaneous reaction of the Vice President to Mr. Wilson’s Op Ed article” and views the relevance of these notes as “establishing some of the facts that were viewed as important by the defendant’s immediate superior.”

In the margins of Wilson’s article Cheney wrote a series of questions about the legitimacy of Wilson’s CIA-sponsored trip to Niger: “Have they done this sort of thing before? Send an Amb. [sic] to answer a question? Do we ordinarily send people out pro bono to work for us? Or did his wife send him on a junket?”

Lea Ann McBride, spokesperson for the Vice President, declined to comment on the publishing of the notes, but stressed that the Office of the Vice President continues to cooperate with the investigation.

Friday, July 6, 2007

London is preparing for Le Grand Départ of the 2007 Tour de France. The route, which will run through the Greenwich Millennium Village, is being prepared for the Départ. The Tour de France will be in London and the South East for the two days of the 7th and 8th of July. The event will start in Trafalgar Square at 15:00 BST (UTC+1).

“I believe this will be the most spectacular Grand Départ the Tour has ever seen and the weekend will underline London’s great sporting reputation,” said Ken Livingstone, mayor of London.

The parts of the Tour that London will be hosting are the Prologue and Stage One. The Prologue will be on Saturday, the 7th of July, starting in Trafalgar Square at 15:00 BST and finishing at 18:20 BST. Stage One will be on the following day, starting in Greenwich at 11:00 BST and finishing in Canterbury, Kent.

Over the years the Tour de France has seen 52 British riders; the first being Charley Holland and Bill Burl in 1937. Londoners may get to see today’s riders on their two wheels, but they will be followed by 1,500 vehicles, 13,000 policemen and women patrolling the route and 2,300 members of the world press.

During the event many roads will be closed along the route and off it. The official website provides detailed information.

Saturday, February 24, 2007

On 19 February 2007, XM Satellite Radio and Sirius Satellite Radio announced a move that will change the face of satellite radio in the United States and Canada: XM and Sirius will be merging, creating a single satellite radio provider.

Multi-million dollar losses, combined with increasing competition from internet radio, downloadable music, and HD radio were factors in this merger.

Mel Karmazin, CEO of Sirius Satellite Radio, described the problem: “We don’t want to take subscribers from XM. We won’t make money that way. We need new subscribers.” Likewise, XM executives say they can’t succeed by stealing Sirius subscribers. This leaves both companies with the problem of attracting new customers and distinguishing their brand, while at the same time trying to convince potential customers to pay $12.95 a month for radio, something that people are used to getting for free. Even if one company were to force the other out of the marketplace, the remaining company would have won a Pyrrhic victory, without enough capital remaining to take advantage of the situation.

The solution: make a deal now, while both companies are both strong and in a position to expand their technologies and services. That’s exactly what they plan to do: In press releases and news postings on both of their web sites, both companies have pledged to make the combined company better than either service by itself. “You’ve heard of 1+1=3,” Karmazin said during an invester conference call, “that’s what this is.”

Pending approval of the deal, each share of XM stock will be replaced with 4.6 shares of Sirius. Each company’s stockholders will retain approximately 50% of the joined company. Sirius CEO Mel Karmazin will retain his CEO title in the new company, and XM chairman Gary Parsons will retain his. XM CEO Hugh Panero will retain his position until the merger is complete, which should happen near the end of 2007.

Saturday, April 16, 2011

One year after the Deepwater Horizon disaster which caused the largest oil spill in the history of the petroleum industry and caused huge environmental damage in the Gulf of Mexico, experts have warned there are serious questions over the safety of deep water drilling as the United States government approves more exploration without improving safety measures.

Scientists have raised major concerns over repeated assurances from the industry and the government, who insist lessons have been learned from the environmental disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. Charles Perrow, a professor at Yale University, said the oil industry “is ill prepared at the least” to deal with another oil spill. “I have seen no evidence that they have marshaled containment efforts that are sufficient to deal with another major spill,” he said.

While the government has implemented new regulations, technical systems for stopping oil flowing from a leaking well, and increased oversight from oil officials, Perrow said deep water drilling had become no less dangerous. “I don’t think they have found ways to change the corporate culture sufficiently to prevent future accidents,” he said. “There are so many opportunities for things to go wrong that major spills are unavoidable.”

Last year, Doug Inkley, a scientist at the National Wildlife Federation, said the culture of an “addiction to oil” was ultimately responsible for the catastrophe. “How long must we wait for lawmakers to act to prevent future disasters? How many more lives, livelihoods and animals must be claimed by our addiction to oil?” Greenpeace also slammed BP, who ran Deepwater Horizon, for how they allowed the disaster to happen. “The age of oil is coming to an end and companies like BP will be left behind unless they begin to adapt now,” the organization said.

However, under pressure from industry executives the administration of president Barack Obama has resumed issuing drilling permits. It is understood regulators are still allowing oil companies to obtain drilling permits before reviewing new spill response plans. “I’m not an oddsmaker, but I would say in the next five years we should have at least one major blowout,” Perrow said. “Even if everybody tries very hard, there is going to be an accident caused by cost-cutting and pressure on workers. These are moneymaking machines and they make money by pushing things to the limit.”

BP has insisted it has changed safety procedures. The oil giant came under heavy criticism for how it handled the crisis, and other major oil companies insisted Deepwater Horizon was a result of a culture exclusive to BP. Michael Bromwich, the director of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement (BOEMRE), the U.S. government agency responsible for regulating offshore drilling, said the view was “as disappointing as it is shortsighted,” and the issue of deep water safety was “a broad problem.”

The warnings came as it emerged BP had attempted to take control of an independent study into the environmental consequences of the Deepwater Horizon spill. Internal emails expose how BP executives attempted to influence the study, which was funded by a US$500m grant from the oil company. The study may be part of the final verdict as to what penalties, fines and criminal charges are brought against the company. Greenpeace, who uncovered the emails through a Freedom of Information Act request, attacked the reportedly unsuccessful attempts to influence the supposedly independent study as “outrageous”.

Protesters rallied outside BP’s annual conference in London this week, where shareholders met for the first time since the disaster off the Gulf coast. Executives faced questions over their competence and large salaries from angry shareholders, many of whom disapproved of the appointment of Carl-Henric Svanberg as chairman and Sir Bill Castell as the head of BP’s safety board.

Some demonstrators purchased shares in BP in an attempt to get inside the meeting; one woman, a fisherwoman who lives on the Gulf Coast was arrested after pouring a black substance down herself at the entrance to the conference centre and refusing to move. “I have travelled all the way over from the Gulf Coast and I just wanted to talk those responsible for destroying my community,” she said as she was led away by police. “My community is dead. We’ve worked five generations there and now we’ve got a dead community. I’m angry, I’ve been angry a long time.”

Sunday, July 3, 2011

Philippines Foreign Secretary Albert del Rosario is scheduled to visit China from July 7 to 9, raising hopes that a territorial dispute between the two countries may be resolved.

A six-nation dispute has escalated in the sea concerning territorial claims to several islands including the Spratly Islands. The area is thought to be rich in natural gas and oil. Both the Philippines and China wish to have a peaceful resolution to this conflict. “I’ve been invited to Beijing and we’re looking for peaceful means to settle the challenges facing us,” said Del Rosario.

The news comes after the United States and the Philippines began a series of naval exercises last week in the South China Sea, scheduled to last for 11 days. A Philippine military commander stated that the drills are part of an annual series of activities taking place under a defense agreement between the two countries and have nothing to do with the territorial dispute.

The Philippines maintains a close relation with the U.S. as a former territory of the nation.

The drills come at a time when several competing disputes in the South China Sea have begun to intensify. “Since February 25th, we actually have noted as many as nine intrusions of different varieties, but clearly becoming more aggressive and more frequent,” said Del Rosario. Several countries in Asia, including China, the Philippines, Vietnam, Brunei, Malaysia, and Taiwan, have territorial claims in the area spanning the Spratly and Paracel Islands. The region may be rich in oil and gas reserves. The US and Philippines have urged the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to address the conflict.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has argued that the United States would remain neutral regarding the disputes. She has also said that the United States has a “national interest” in freedom of navigation, respect for international law, and unimpeded, lawful commerce in the South China Sea.” Both countries are bound by a 1951 Mutual Defense Treaty.

On June 27, the US Senate unanimously passed a motion condemning “the use of force by naval and maritime security vessels from China in the South China Sea.” China, on the other hand, has stated that it will not use force to resolve disputes in the South China Sea.

Sunday, December 13, 2015

Macomb, New York Councilman Steve Burke took some time to speak with Wikinews about his campaign for the U.S. Democratic Party’s 2016 presidential nomination.

Burke, an insurance adjuster and farmer, was elected councilman in Brookhaven, New York in 1979. He left the town after being accused and found not guilty of bribery in the 1980s. Since 1987 he has served as Macomb councilman off-and-on and currently holds the post. From 1993 to 1996 and 1999 to 2002 he worked as chairman of the Democratic Party of St. Lawrence County, New York. Among his many political campaigns, Burke unsuccessfully sought the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination in 1992 and recently attempted to run for U.S. Congress in 2014 but too many of his ballot petition signatures were found invalid. Burke filed with the Federal Election Commission to run for president in the 2016 election on September 18, 2015 and has qualified for the first-in-the-nation New Hampshire Primary.

With Wikinews reporter William S. Saturn?, Burke discusses his political background, his 2016 presidential campaign, and his policy proposals.

Tuesday, April 12, 2005

A National Academy of Sciences report (.pdf) last year said that while the milk and meat from cloned animals would not likely make anyone sick, more research should be performed. Now, a new US-Japan study published in the April 11 online issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences says that milk and meat from cloned cattle does indeed appear to meet industry standards and appears to be safe for human consumption.

As BBC News reports, the scientists, led by Professor Jerry Yang from the University of Connecticut, compared the produce from two beef and four dairy clones, all derived from a single Holstein dairy cow and a single Japanese black bull, with the produce from normal animals of similar age and breed.

The meat was analysed against more than 100 physiological, tissue and cellular components, while the milk was analysed for protein, fat and other variables. No significant differences between the produce of cloned and normal cattle were found. Higher levels of fat and fatty acids were found in the cloned cow meat, but they still fell within beef industry standards.

While the study showed the cloned produce to be within the range approved for human consumption, the scientists stressed that the research was still in its early stages. Their findings, they said, provide “guidelines” for further research with larger numbers of clones from different genetic backgrounds.

Cloning livestock may one day increase yields by copying those animals that are especially productive and especially resistant to disease.

“The milking production levels in the US are three to four times higher than levels in China; maybe even five times or more compared to cows in India and some other countries,” Professor Jerry Yang told BBC News. “Therefore cloning could offer technology for duplicating superior farm animals. However, all the products from these cloned animals must be safe for human consumption. …and it is a major issue for scientists to provide a scientific basis for the data and information to address this question.”

As USA Today reports, there is currently no law governing the sale of meat or milk from the estimated 1,000 to 2,000 cloned farm animals in the USA. But since 2003, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has asked producers to voluntarily keep the meat and milk of these animals, and that of their offspring, out of the food supply.

Wired News reports that companies like ViaGen and Cyagra, which offer livestock-cloning services, have also been waiting for several years for a final say from the FDA.

“For the United States agricultural industry, (cloning) can reduce the number of cows necessary for milking,” said Jerry Yang “They can have a pleasant environment and produce even more milk.” He also said that cloning cattle from the United States, where genetic breeding is more advanced, could save developing countries 50 years of breeding.

The idea of cloning animals for human consumption is not without its critics. First, there are the welfare concerns, as most cloned animals do not make it to term before being born, and many of those that do are born deformed or prone to illness. The Humane Society of the United States has asked for a ban on milk and meat from clones for just this reason. Second, there is still the concern that healthy clones may have subtle defects that could make their food products unsafe to eat.

As the Washington Post reports, some critics are asking why it is necessary to clone cows that produce huge amounts of milk when surpluses, rather than shortages, are the main problem facing the U.S. dairy industry today.