FDA prepared To announce approval Of sale of meat and milk from clones animals.

Having completed a years-long scientific review, FDA is poised to announced that meat and milk from cloned farm animals and their offspring can start making their way toward supermarket shelves.

The decision would be a notable act of defiance against Congress, which last month passed appropriations legislation recommending that any such approval be delayed pending further studies. Moreover, the Senate version of the farm bill, yet to be reconciled with the House version, contains stronger, binding language that would block FDA action on cloned food, probably for years.

With a conference committee poised to finalize the farm bill in the next few weeks, that left FDA a potentially narrow time frame within which to act if it wanted to settle the issue in sync with America's major meat-trading partners.

New Zealand and Australia have released reports concluding that meat and milk from clones are safe. Canada and Argentina are reportedly close to doing the same. And although European consumers are generally uncomfortable with agricultural biotechnology, the EU's food safety agency is expected to endorse the safety of meat and milk from clones in a draft statement that could be released within the next week. "The science seems to be leading them and us to the same conclusion," said a U.S. trade official, speaking on the condition of anonymity because U.S. policy is technically still under review.

That FDA decision also is under question because, according to the Center for Food Safety, the FDA's initial risk assessment of cloned food is faulty. Although the FDA claims to have used extensive peer reviewed safety studies, the administration only used three peer-reviewed studies, which focus solely on milk from cloned cows. None focus on meat safety or on the byproducts from cloned offspring and none deal with cloned goats. In turn, the few studies used were also funded by the same biotech firms that produce clones for profit.

The Center for Food Safety argues that comprehensive research is imperative when defects in clones are common and even cloning scientist warn of small imbalances that can lead to food safety problems in milk and mea