Is your coffee fair-trade? Your spinach organic? As healthy-eating options expand, so do the challenges of making choices at the store. But there’s one decision looming that you may or may not get to make: Do you buy meat and milk from cloned animals?

In the latest volley in the food wars, the FDA determined in January that meat from cloned cows, pigs, and goats (and their oΩspring) is safe to eat— and therefore there’s no need to label it. That argument hasn’t convinced some consumer advocates and members of Congress. It hasn’t swayed many Americans, either: Two-thirds don’t like the whole idea of animal cloning, while more than 40 percent believe that serving the results at the dinner table is a bad idea, according to a 2006 survey released by the Pew Initiative on Food and Biotechnology. “There are concerns about safety, but it’s also a question of moral discomfort,” says Michael Fernandez, who was in charge of the Pew Initiative at the time of the survey. The skeptics are pushing lawmakers to force meat producers to label cloned meat and dairy products as such. “Consumers should have the right to refuse, whether it’s justified by the science or not,” insists Marion Nestle, Ph.D., a nutrition professor at New York University.

If the term “cloned meat” makes you wince, take a deep breath. Cloning is expensive—costing upward of $30,000 per animal— so it’s limited mainly to prize cattle and horses. No one thinks meat from clones will arrive in any quantity for years. “For now, it’s extremely cost-prohibitive, with technology still in the research phase,” explains Karen Batra, director of public aΩairs for the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association. The breather will give consumers a chance to get up to speed on what’s at stake. As it turns out, the fight over cloning goes beyond human- health issues, to the ethics of how we produce our food.

Facts and Fears

First, let’s be clear about what cloning is and is not. The concept has long been a staple of science fiction, evoking images of identical humans created by arrogant researchers and controlled by evil forces. (Just dust oΩ your copy of Brave New World.) But the truth is, you’ve probably been eating cloned food all your life. Most of the bananas, potatoes, apples, and grapes at supermarkets are clones, having been produced through various “vegetative propagation” techniques designed to ensure consistent quality and get produce to market quickly.

Most of us feel diΩerently about animals than we do about plants, however. When scientists cloned Dolly the sheep in 1996, they reaped widespread criticism, much of it driven by the fear that humans might be next in line. But in the past decade, animal cloning has only expanded, with scientists cloning mammals ranging from deer to rabbits. To create an animal clone, scientists remove the DNA from an egg cell, replace it with DNA from the cell of a donor animal (the one they want to clone), then implant the egg in a surrogate mother. A genetic copy of the donor animal— a clone—is born. Although some people equate cloning with genetic modification, it’s entirely unrelated; the animal’s DNA is not altered at all, unlike that of the genetically modified corn that’s become part and parcel of the food supply.

Given the exorbitant cost of cloning, you might wonder what the appeal is for breeders. As Batra explains it, it’s simply another tool in their kit, which includes artificial insemination, in vitro fertilization, and other methods designed to ensure that the best genes of an animal carry on. But rather than turning every $30,000 investment into hamburger, breeders will likely keep clones for breeding and sell their progeny instead. So what appears in our food supply will mainly be the oΩspring of clones, produced by conventional reproduction. (After their breeding years end, however, clones may be slaughtered for meat.)

Regardless of where clones are in the family tree, consumer advocates have pressed the government to study the safety issues. The National Academy of Sciences said in 2002 that certain cloned products were no danger to the public. A year later, the FDA announced that milk and meat from cloned pigs, goats, and cattle was likely safe to eat. Some groups argued for more data, so the FDA spent several years taking a closer look. Their final conclusion? “Meat and milk from cow, pig, and goat clones are as safe to eat as the food we eat every day,” Stephen Sundlof, director of the FDA’s Center for Food Safety & Applied Nutrition, said in a statement.

Though some consumer groups still argue for more research, many former critics were assuaged by the FDA’s most recent report, at least on the safety front. The Center for Science in the Public Interest, for instance, found that the FDA has “satisfactorily answered the safety question.” But the cloning controversy isn’t over. As Nestle points out, “just because it is safe doesn’t mean it’s acceptable.”

Animal Welfare

Cloning mammals has risks. Some 95 percent of clones don’t survive gestation. Of those that do survive, many die during their first year of life, which outrages animal-rights advocates. “Clones die from respiratory, digestive, circulatory, nervous, muscular, skeletal, and placental abnormalities,” explains Lee Hall, legal director for Friends of Animals, an advocacy organization based in Connecticut. The FDA’s January report counters that “none of these abnormalities is unique to clones,” and adds that these traits aren’t passed on to their offspring.

Experts such as Andrew Weil, M.D., point to another concern: Safe or not, cloned meat and dairy products will come from factory farms that threaten the environment and make use of hormones and other additives. “There may not be a specific danger in cloned meat,” Weil notes. “But it’s all part of an unhealthy trend in food production.” Cloning, he and other critics say, increases the control of factory farms, decreases genetic diversity, and does little to encourage small-scale and organic farming.

On the flip side, you can rest assured that organic meat and milk are clone-free. Although clones could theoretically be raised using organic methods, the USDA has ruled that meat and dairy products from cloned animals and their offspring cannot carry the organic label.

Both cloning skeptics and opponents back the labeling of cloned meat so that consumers can make a real choice. Senator Barbara Mikulski (D-Maryland), for instance, is pushing an amendment to the Consumer Product Safety Commission bill that would make such labeling mandatory. Joe Mendelson, legal director of the Center for Food Safety in Washington, D.C., says, “The public wants more information before clones are released into the food supply.” On that point, it seems, everyone can agree.

The post The Clone Wars appeared first on Andrew Lawler.

Bad food. Toxic fumes. Not a blade of grass in sight. Welcome to the hospital, the place where you’re

supposed to get well. It’s an odd truth that while grocery chains sell organic products and businesses boast energy-e≈cient skyscrapers, the places where Americans go to heal have traditionally been among the worst offenders when it comes to disposing chemicals, using resources e≈ciently, and providing a healthy environment and diet.

But recent years have seen a quiet yet radical change. A movement to turn hospitals “green”—healthier, more e≈cient, less toxic—is gathering force, and can already boast a host of successes. From the use of nontoxic cleaners to the shuttering of many medical incinerators that once polluted the planet with dangerous chemicals, “we have achieved the tipping point,” says Barbara Sattler, director of the Environmental Healthy Education Center at the University of Maryland.

As community centers open 24/7, hospitals aren’t the easiest places to turn into eco-utopias. Air and surfaces must be kept clean to prevent infections, patients and staΩ need food around the clock, and tons of waste must be disposed of. But as Sattler and other passionate advocates explain it, the greening of our medical system, both within hospital walls and outside them, holds promise for human health and the health of the planet—while illuminating the ways they’re

inextricably linked.

Cleaning Up Hospitals

The irony of unhealthy health care is on full display in hospital eateries. Think of oncology wards full of chemotherapy patients eating processed food, obesity wards with vending machines stocked with candy, and cafeterias serving meat from animals given antibiotics at a time when antibiotic resistance poses a serious threat. No doubt about it, says Laura Brannen, director of Hospitals for a Healthy Environment, an advocacy organization based in Lyme, New Hampshire: “We serve really crappy food.”

There’s a long way to go, but changes have begun to take hold at hospitals large and small. The health-care giant Kaiser Permanente, for instance, serves milk free of the hormone rGBH and has farmers’ markets on its premises and healthier choices in vending machines. Good Shepherd Health Care System, a small hospital in Oregon, serves meat from grass-fed, antibiotic-free animals and only whole-grain breads and pastas. And if you’re a patient at St. Luke’s in Duluth, Minnesota, you can request organic vegetables in your meals. “And you have to go beyond food,” says Brannen. “If you are serving organic coΩee in a polystyrene cup, it doesn’t cut it.” That may mean hospitals rethinking their kitchens. “We are telling them, ‘Sorry, you have to put your dishwashers back,’ ” she adds.

Just as important as healthy food, of course, is clean air—and in hospitals it’s often hard to come by. The bacteria-fighting cleaners so ubiquitous in hospitals, for instance, have a downside, releasing chemicals shown to cause everything from headaches to breathing di≈culties. And patients are not the only ones at risk: A recent study showed that nurses have one of the highest rates of adult asthma.

As it turns out, safer options can be just as eΩective. In 2001, New Jersey’s Hackensack University Medical Center (the nation’s fourth-largest hospital) replaced the usual cleaners with greener alternatives without any rise in infections. What’s more, the staΩ who had sprayed the chemicals stopped reporting headaches and other symptoms once they made the switch. “This is common sense,” says Deirdre Imus, who founded the hospital’s Environmental Center for Oncology. “We need to eliminate exposure to the things that make people sick.”

A less obvious, more insidious threat comes from the widespread use of PVC plastic or vinyl, common in IV bags and tubing. To make such plastic flexible, manufacturers often use a softener made from DEHP, a chemical shown to harm the reproductive systems, livers, kidneys, and lungs in animals. That worried Valerie Briscoe, a neonatal nurse at John Muir Medical Center in Walnut Creek, California, and she spent six months transitioning the facility to alternative materials.

Briscoe’s concerns were confirmed in a 2005 study by the Harvard School of Public Health. Babies in two Boston-area intensive-care units had up to 25 times the amount of DEHP in their systems as the general population. Though the study didn’t detail health eΩects on the babies (and there’s no evidence the chemical harms humans), the FDA now recommends against its use in some medical procedures—another green-hospital victory.

The Planet’s Health

The movement extends far beyond the patient wards and cafeterias, as medical facilities work to minimize their negative impact on the planet. As late as the 1990s, more than 5,000 medical incinerators in the United States burned through millions of tons of waste every year—a practice considered environmentally sound at the time because it reduced the need for landfills. But researchers then discovered that those incinerators burned medical devices made with PVC plastic, creating dioxin, a dangerous toxin used in the infamous herbicide Agent Orange.

“It was so ironic. Hospitals full of cancer patients were pumping out one of the worst carcinogens,” says Stacy Malkan at Health Care Without Harm, an international consortium of hospitals, community groups, and health organizations. Stricter pollution-control regulations along with a public outcry for cleaner air has led to the closure of the majority of medical incinerators over the past decade; only about 100 remain active in the United States. (So worrisome is PVC that Kaiser Permanente is investing billions to replace PVC-laden floors and carpets at its facilities with safer alternatives.)

Of course, when you take incinerators out of commission, landfill contents soar—and they have. Recycling eΩorts are under way, however. StaΩat Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in Lebanon, New Hampshire, for example, upped recycling to 38 percent of its waste stream in the past decade, winning kudos from eco-advocates.

Unlike recycling at home, hospitals must sort out dangerous wastes such as mercury, used in thermometers and other equipment. A single splash can contaminate a 20-acre pond, and up to 1 in 10 women in the United States has enough of the potent neurotoxin in her blood to threaten the health of a fetus. Hospitals produced 17 tons of mercury waste from thermometers in 2000 alone—a tenth of the amount generated in the entire country.

Alarmed at the mercury threat, a group of activists, including Hospitals for a Healthy Environment, started a campaign, and today more than 4,000 medical centers have pledged to become mercury-free. For thermometers, there’s even a relatively simple fix: Digital or alcohol-based versions are widely available and are generally as accurate as their toxic counterparts.

A Green Frontier

As with the rest of the green movement, there’s no more ignoring the cause-and-eΩect nature of unhealthy hospitals or putting changes oΩ for the future. “This is the future,” says Imus.

On the green-building front, the Green Guide for Healthcare was launched in 2004 as an educational tool for hospitals wanting to integrate environmental design, construction, and operations principles. “In the past year, I’ve seen an upsurge in the number of hospitals going green,” says Kim Shinn, a consulting engineer in Nashville who works with architectural firms to create healthier medical centers. That means more natural light, more open spaces, and more comfort for patients, visitors, and staff. Behind the scenes, new hospitals have more-e≈cient systems that capture rainwater and automated controls that switch oΩ lighting and electronics when not in use. As it turns out, right action and good business sense can go hand in hand; investing more up front leads to reduced operating costs over time.

What’s next? The pioneers in the green-hospital movement want to transform medical centers into carbon-neutral places that, at the very least, don’t harm the environment. It’s a bold idea—but then, “do no harm” is the first tenet of medicine.

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