Cameron clones call for action

Published 06/08/2010

On Friday 6th August, Londoners were confronted with the sight of 40 clones of David Cameron, as Compassion delivered a letter to the Prime Minister calling for an EU ban on the cloning of animals for food.

Over 7,000 people signed our letter in just two days helping to build crucial momentum towards a new EU law on cloning, following last month's initial European Parliament vote in support of a ban on food products from clones.

Video Diary from the David Cameron Clones Event

David Cameron clones protested in central London yesterday about the dangers and animal welfare implications of animal cloning. Enjoy the video diary!

Compassion Chief Executive Philip Lymbery delivers our letter signed by over 7,000 supporters. Read Philip's blog here >>

Compassion's campaign Cloning = Cruelty highlights the intrinsic animal welfare issues of selective breeding in animals for food - i.e. meat and dairy - and gave the concerned consumer a place to register their opposition to the cruel practices involved in cloning.

Supporters can still add their names to the petition calling for David Cameron to take decisive action against meat and dairy from cloned offspring entering our food chain.

Is cloning cruel?

Cloning for food is widely recognized as causing unacceptable levels of suffering to farm animals. It is at the sharp end of the common intensive farming practice of selective breeding for more meat and milk. This is a practice that the European Food Safety Authority sees as "the major factor causing poor welfare" in dairy cows. For those animals that survive the process, cloning is, in effect, being used to guarantee excessively fast growth and high production. It is yet another technique that is being exploited to push animals beyond their natural physical limits. For example, most dairy cows are so 'spent' after 5 years they are prematurely culled.

We believe that intensive farming already leads to significant welfare issues, with cows bred for very high milk yields at risk of lameness and infertility. Apart from the high mortality rate of cloned animals, cloning will result in ever greater yields and more severe accompanying health issues.

Compassion supporter
Jo Brand said:
"There's no doubt in my mind that British consumers want to support a ban on using cloned animals for food. I support Compassion's cloning = cruelty campaign and encourage others to sign up because I certainly wouldn't knowingly eat any food produced from a cloned farm animal of their offspring. It's unnatural and not only bad for farm animal welfare but we still aren't sure about the human health implications. The British public deserve to know where their food comes from."

The European Parliament has only recently voted for a ban on the sale of meat and milk from clones and their offspring. Compassion is calling on the Coalition Government and the rest of the EU to follow the Parliament's lead and prohibit the sale of food from cloned animals and their offspring.

Thank you to everyone who signed our letter to David Cameron. Together we can help bring an end to the unnecessary and unacceptable cruelty of cloning for food.

If you would like to contribute towards our ongoing campaign against cloning and all forms of factory farming, please do consider making a donation today:

Donate here >>

Additional information:
Cloning Q & A ( 134.97KB)
Download factsheets & reports on cloning