Two years later, researchers in Japan cloned eight calves from a single cow, but only four survived. Besides cattle and sheep, other mammals that have been cloned from somatic cells include: cat, deer, dog, horse, mule, ox, rabbit and rat. In addition, a rhesus monkey has been cloned by embryo splitting.

Clones allow farmers to upgrade the overall quality of their herds by providing more copies of the best animals in the herd. These animals are then used for conventional breeding, and the sexually reproduced offspring become the food producing animals.

Myth: Offspring of clones are clones, and each generation gets weaker and weaker and has more and more problems. No, not at all. A clone produces offspring by sexual reproduction just like any other animal. The offspring are not clones, and are the same as any other sexually-reproduced animals.

Farmers can now use cloning and other assisted breeding technologies to breed cows that produce bigger, better steaks or massive amounts of milk, and animals that resist diseases or reproduce with clockwork precision.

Will McDonald’s be made of clones? As part of the company’s recently launched ‘See What We’re Made Of’ campaign, consumers are invited to learn about the ingredients that make up McDonald’s menu. However, McDonald’s has no policy on milk and meat from cloned animals or their offspring.

There is no federal law prohibiting human cloning; as of today, federal laws and regulations only address funding and other issues indirectly connected to cloning. At the state level, however, there are laws directly prohibiting or explicitly permitting different forms of cloning.

Many countries have passed legislation banning human reproductive cloning, including Australia, Austria, Argentina, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, the Czech Republic, Costa Rica, Denmark, France, Germany, India, Israel, Italy, Japan, Lithuania, Mexico, the Netherlands, Norway, Peru, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Slovakia, South …

Because the risks associated with reproductive cloning in humans introduce a very high likelihood of loss of life, the process is considered unethical. There are other philosophical issues that also have been raised concerning the nature of reproduction and human identity that reproductive cloning might violate.