The Center for Food Safety (CFS) today applauded the European Food Safety Authority's (EFSA) final cloning risk assessment, which stated that more testing is required to determine if foods from new cloning technology are safe for human consumption, or if they may pose risks for public safety . The Center strongly agrees that more testing is needed to investigate possible long-term effects from the consumption of cloned foods. CFS calls upon governments to impose a mandatory moratorium on the release of food from cloned animals and their offspring into the marketplace. This moratorium should remain in place until such time when scientific studies can prove that food from cloned animals and their offspring are safe, pose no harmful environmental impacts, and can be processed without troubling animal cruelty issues. The decision casts doubt upon the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's assessment announced in January, which took the position that clones and their offspring display no demonstrable differences when compared with naturally raised livestock and need no additional testing. However, recent studies reviewed in the FDA's own risk assessment uncovered troubling abnormalities and defects in animal clones that could pose threats to public safety. Moreover, as cloning processes are the result of new technologies developed only in recent years, there are no historical data available that can adequately determine the safety of these foods for long-term human consumption. The risk assessment highlights many unanswered questions about the safety of cloning for both the animals and humans consuming foods from cloned livestock and their offspring. "We're encouraged by the EFSA's decision and the organization's demonstrated concern for public safety," said Andrew Kimbrell, CFS Executive Director. "The European Union now needs to take the next step and ban the sale of foods derived from cloning technology until full knowledge of these foods' potential health effects can be determined." CFS officials support the regulation of cloned foods in Europe under the purview of the EFSA. This regulation should include product labeling as well as traceability programs, instituted before cloned foods reach the market. CFS believes that these programs will ensure general public safety and, over time, provide insight into many unanswered questions regarding products from cloned animals. "If our recent food crises have taught us anything it's that we need far better safety oversight of our food supply," added Joseph Mendelson, CFS Legal Director. "In their recognition of the safety concerns surrounding animal cloning, the EFSA has shown that the U.S. FDA rushed to judgment in allowing potentially unsafe clone meat and milk onto the market. We're pleased that the EFSA has called attention to these still unanswered questions regarding cloning." The EFSA's decision lends credence to concerns from the European Parliament's (EP's) Agriculture Committee, which recently showed unanimous support for a ban on the production or import of food from cloned animals and associated products. On May 22nd the European Parliament adopted a new animal health strategy, stating that the EP "...strongly believes that the cloning of animals for economic purposes should be banned." The European Parliament will vote on its Agriculture Committee's recommendation of a ban on cloned animals and their offspring on September 1. "This decision has implications not just for Europe, but for consumers and food producers worldwide," continued Kimbrell. "Across the globe, genetically-modified foods are making their way into the diets of millions. Many of these products could be harmful. As the EFSA has just shown, government agencies on both sides of the Atlantic must perform their due diligence prior to recommending these new foods for public consumption." The Center for Food Safety is national, non-profit, membership organization founded in 1997 that works to protect human health and the environment by curbing the use of harmful food production technologies and by promoting organic and other forms of sustainable agriculture. On the web at: http://www.centerforfoodsafety.org