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Press Coverage Story
Most consumers would consider buying food from clones: poll
By , Food Chemical News
November 08, 2005
A poll released last week shows that two-thirds of U.S. consumers would either buy or consider buying meat and milk derived from cloned animals if FDA ruled the technology is safe.
The survey was funded by Texas-based Viagen Inc., which is developing cloned cattle, pigs and horses, and conducted among a representative sample of 1,000 individuals by KRC Research, Inc. The telephone survey was conducted Oct. 21-23 and had a margin of error of 3.1%.
About one-third of Americans surveyed said they would definitely buy FDA-approved food products from cloned offspring. Another third said they would consider buying such products. The remaining third said they would avoid such products.
The KRC survey found 45% of consumers totally ignorant of animal biotechnology, while 26% said they knew “a little” and 21% knew “some.”
A survey conducted by the International Food Information Council earlier this year found 63% of Americans unlikely to buy meat, milk and eggs from cloned animals.
“The word cloning ... is science fiction. It seems very futuristic," Jennifer Sosin, president of KRC Research, told Reuters. “If I had guessed before doing research on it, I would have expected that the word alone would be enough to be far more negative.”
For animal cloning to be accepted, consumers need to continue to trust USDA and FDA regulators in addition to understanding why the technology is used, Sosin said.
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