And In Other News...

Question of the Month:

Can food from cloned animals be called organic?

Many clone-opposing readers of the rule are quick to note, for example, its clear statement that genetically engineered organisms cannot be organic. Surely, these opponents conclude, no animal is more engineered than a clone, which is conceived in a laboratory dish and has just one biological parent.

But the biotechnology companies that make cloned farm animals, such as Cyagra of Elizabethtown, Pa., and ViaGen of Austin, have for years been careful to distinguish between clones -- which are genetic replicas of other animals -- and genetically engineered animals, which have had genes added or subtracted to change specific traits.

This debate should only get more interesting as time goes on. Funny enough, the effort to define what a cloned cow might be a little like the problems copyright law is having with the Internet: what the hell do these old theories mean now?