Doubts over UK food security as clone meat scare deepens

The Food Standards Agency (FSA) last night confirmed meat from a bull, named Parable and slaughtered on May 5 this year, had entered the food chain and been eaten.

No details about where the animal was reared were released.

It also emerged last night that there could be more than 100 animals descended from cloned cattle in the UK with the FSA also investigating the possibility of "third generation clones".

These latest revelations come just 24 hours after it emerged that meat from another animal with clone parentage had gone on sale. It came from one of two bulls, born to a cow cloned in the US and bought by a farmer in Scotland.

The FSA began investigating the concerns after allegations made several days ago that a UK dairy farmer had said he had sold milk produced by the offspring of a cloned cow and not informed the authorities – something he has since denied.

Last night, the agency said it was still unable to confirm if milk from cloned cattle or their offspring had entered the food chain.

Chief executive Tim Smith insisted, however, there were no health risks associated with eating meat or drinking milk from the descendants of cloned cows.

But despite the assurances there was strong criticism of the safeguards in place to prevent such food entering the food chain.

"This is beginning to look like a systemic failure on the part of the UK food regulatory bodies," said Joyce D'Silva, a director at Compassion for World Farming.

"The regulatory position is quite clear – meat and milk from the offspring of cloned animals should not be allowed into the human food chain. How many more cases have gone undetected?"

Emma Hockridge, head of policy with organic body the Soil Association, told the Yorkshire Post: "We need much stronger regulation.

"The mess of the situation shows there needs to be much stricter legislation around this issue and consumers need to know what is going on. The importation of cloned embryos should be investigated."

Conservative Euro MP for Scotland Struan Stevenson branded current EU rules around the import of meat and dairy products from clones and their offspring "confused and inadequate". "It's this worrying lack of safeguards that has allowed this situation to arise," he said.

Jim Begg, director of industry body Dairy UK, defended the FSA saying that current safeguards were good and it was impossible to legislate for illegal activity. But he added: "What is palpable is that the traceability system is not working quickly enough in this case."

Selling food from an animal that has been cloned or its offspring is illegal unless authorised by the FSA. To gain this, it must pass an inspection by a panel of scientists and experts. The FSA said it has received no such applications since 2007.

Yesterday, the owner of one of the bulls which entered the food chain insisted he had done nothing wrong.

Farmer Callum Innes of Auldearn, near Inverness, bought two bulls produced by the cloned cow from a farm in Shropshire in February 2008. Mr Innes's son Steven said in a statement: "We investigated whether this was legal at the time and understood that there was no issue.

"We have acted in good faith throughout and we've been fully compliant with the relevant authorities' wishes and shall continue to be fully co-operative in order to resolve the situation as soon as possible."