The two main U.S. cloning companies, Viagen Inc. and Trans Ova Genetics, already have produced more than 600 cloned animals for U.S. breeders, including copies of prize-winning cows and rodeo bulls. They agreed to USDA's call for a continued moratorium Tuesday, but stressed that it applied only to clones themselves, not those animals' conventionally produced offspring, which can begin selling immediately.

The FDA spent six years tracking the safety of cloning, and its decision was long expected, but it came after an emotional fight by opponents. Congress passed legislation last month urging further study of the issue, a call echoed by consumer advocates who also asked that foods from cloned animals be labeled as such.

Their objections aren't just about food safety but also include animal welfare since many attempts at livestock cloning still end in fatal birth defects.

"If you have moral objections to a particular food, or ethical objections to them, FDA's saying, 'Tough, you've got to eat it,'" said Carol Tucker-Foreman of the Consumer Federation of America, who pledged to push for more food producers to shun clone-derived ingredients.

"The FDA did not give adequate consideration to the welfare of these animals or their surrogate mothers," said Wayne Pacelle of the Humane Society of the United States.

The administration, Carmona said Tuesday, would not allow him to speak or issue reports on the subjects of stem cells, emergency contraception, sex education or prison, mental or global health issues. Top officials tried to "water down" a landmark report on secondhand smoke and delayed it for years, he said. Released last year, the report concluded that even brief exposure to cigarette smoke can cause immediate harm.

Carmona said he was ordered to mention President George W. Bush three times on every page of his speeches. He also said he was asked to make speeches to support Republican political candidates and to attend political briefings.

Administration officials even discouraged him from attending the Special Olympics because, he said, of that charitable organization's longtime ties to a "prominent family" that he declined to name. "I was specifically told by a senior person, 'Why would you want to help those people?' " Carmona said.

The Special Olympics is one of the nation's premier charitable organizations to benefit disabled people, and the Kennedy family has long been deeply involved in it. When asked after the hearing whether that "prominent family" was the Kennedys, Carmona responded, "You said it. I didn't."

Today's guidelines are partly based on a recent study of how 44 cities fared in the 1918 epidemic conducted jointly by the C.D.C. and the University of Michigan’s medical school. Historians and epidemiologists pored over hospital records and newspaper clippings, trying to determine what factors partly spared some cities and doomed others.

While a few tiny towns escaped the epidemic entirely by cutting off all contact with outside, most cities took less drastic measures. These included isolating the sick and quarantining homes and rooming houses, closing schools, churches, bars and other gathering places, canceling parades, ball games, theaters and other public events, staggering factory hours, barring door-to-door sales, discouraging the use of public transport and encouraging the use of face masks.

The most effective measure seemed to be moving early and quickly. For example, said Dr. Howard Markel, a medical historian and one of the study's leaders, Philadelphia, the worst-hit city, had nearly three times as many sick and dead per capita as St. Louis, which had was hit weeks later by the virus moving inland from the Eastern Seaboard and had time to react as soon as flu cases rose above averages.

"No matter how you set up the model," Dr. Markel said, "the cities that acted earlier and with more layered protective measures fared better."

As part of a pilot program, the Food and Drug Administration will issue drug “report cards” that would detail unexpected side effects that emerge only after a drug has been approved. The reports also would include follow-up studies and details about how the drugs are being used.

The proposal is one of roughly a dozen initiatives, new and ongoing, that the FDA unveiled Tuesday in response to a recent report by a committee of experts at the Institute of Medicine that criticized the agency's handling of drug safety in the wake of the Vioxx case.

It comes just days before Sens. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., and Mike Enzi, R-Wyo., introduce legislation to overhaul how the FDA handles drug safety.

"Today's report is thoughtful and provides important recommendations for administrative action, but only legislation can give FDA the tools it needs to ensure that FDA is the gold standard for safety," Kennedy said in a statement.

"The eight major food allergens account for 90 percent of all documented food allergic reactions, and some reactions may be severe or life-threatening," said Robert E. Brackett, PhD, Director of FDA's Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition. "Consumers will benefit from improved food labels for products that contain food allergens."

A 1999 FDA study in Minnesota and Wisconsin found a quarter of the baked goods, ice cream and candy its scientists sampled failed to list peanuts or eggs as ingredients.

Food labels must now list the common name of the product as well as the name of the specific allergen it contains. A product containing a protein derived from milk called casein, for example, must list both "milk" and "casein" on its label. Labels also must specify the type of fish, crustacean or tree nut the product contains.

The NIH review suggested the agency's ethics issues are widespread, the lawmakers said in a statement. A Congressional inquiry last year uncovered potential conflicts of interest among senior NIH scientists, as many supplemented their incomes with thousands of dollars from consulting contracts with companies including Pfizer Inc., the world's largest drugmaker.

``These findings indicate that the ethical problems are more systemic and severe than previously known,'' Barton said in the news release. ``They also demonstrate the need for NIH to issue the final ethics rule as soon as possible.''