This time, the rumors were finally right. On Jan. 15^th, the Food and Drug Administration released its lengthy risk assessment examining whether meat and milk from cloned livestock represent a public health threat.

To no one’s great surprise – the decision had been anticipated now for several years, and had generated widespread media speculation for months – the FDA found that cloned cattle and swine (and importantly for the dairy industry, the milk from cattle clones) is indistinguishable from animals reproduced conventionally.

But to its credit, the government heeded the call of the dairy industry for a go-slow approach. The FDA and the U.S. Department of Agriculture asked the owners of clones, including cattle owners, and cloning technology providers, to continue withholding their products from the marketplace, during a period of what the USDA terms regulatory “transition.” The government smartly split the cloned baby in this case, affirming the prerogative of the FDA to decide the science in the matter, while also exerting the USDA’s marketing prerogative to keep cloned milk out of the food supply for the time being.

Many in the food industry should be relieved at this artful distinction. NMPF’s strategy, all along, was to encourage the FDA to exhaustively review the research behind animal cloning, and allow the science to carry the day. That’s been our position on other processes and technologies used on the farm and in the processing plant, and it was appropriate to apply it to this issue as well.

At the same time, we recognize the apprehension that some others in the food marketing chain feel about cloned foods, and we were vocal in our expressions to Congress and the White House that the marketing moratorium be extended so that economic (as opposed to health and safety) considerations can be addressed. Given that we are now exporting more than 11% of our milk production annually, it would be bad form for the U.S. to get out on a limb where cloning regulation is concerned, while our major trading partners are still in a different part of the forest. We also worked with cloning technology providers to create a supply chain management system to identify who owns cloned cattle, so that this information is available with a degree of confidence not possible with rBST claims.

Like so many other issues affecting food production and marketing today, the cloning issue is emblematic of the disconnect between what happens on farms and ranches today, and what many in the public know – or don’t know – about it. Part of the FDA’s risk assessment points out that the failure rate for cloning is similar to that of other common industry reproductive practices, especially artificial insemination and embryo transfer. These practices have been used for decades without controversy. Rather than being a revolutionary new process, cloning is more of an evolutionary step that only a handful of breeders of high-value animals will employ. But because cloning sounds ominous, and is often portrayed in the media as being notorious, it gets the headlines.

Since the FDA has said labeling of cloned foods will not be required – that is NMPF’s position, and unless Congress decides otherwise, that will be the case once the moratorium is lifted – the marketplace will have to sort the matter out in the future. Hopefully, in doing so, we will learn from the past.

The dairy industry has been its own worst enemy through the use of prominent marketing claims on rBST that some say are in response to consumer concerns – when, in fact, they are only a misguided ploy to differentiate identical products, and are hurtful to the overall image of dairy products.

If we follow the same route as rBST-free claims when it comes to cloning, we will only have ourselves to blame from the fallout. It’s time that companies use a thoughtful, disciplined approach before they rush off and create confusion, for the sole purpose of trying to gain the upper hand over competitors. Why not try distinguishing products by touting their quality, packaging, convenience and nutrition, instead of employing erroneous, misleading and petty claims that eventually damage the whole industry’s image? Will the fallout from cloning be an identical copy of the past few years where similar issues have been involved? I hope not.