Bovine Growth Hormone, Genetic Engineering and the New World Order
by Mitchel Cohen
Recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone is a genetically engineered drug injected into cows, which increases the levels of cancer-causing and other dangerous chemicals in milk. Its manufacturer, the Monsanto Corporation, also manufactured the deadly Agent Orange.
Monsanto has been pushing farmers to inject cows with rBGH since 1994. Many small farms, however, continue to resist. Repeated injections of rBGH artificially stimulate cows to produce 10% to 25% more milk than normal, causing health problems for the cows and danger to consumers, especially kids, who drink rBGH milk or eat butter, ice cream, cheese or yogurt.
Although milk drawn from cows that have not been injected with rBGH is now widely available, New York public schools don't buy that milk. Instead, the Board of Education buys most of its daily 3/4-of-a-million half-pints of milk from Tuscan, whose suppliers inject their cows with the genetically engineered hormone. Monsanto has been fighting against consumer demands to require labels on genetically engineered products.
In mid-April of 1997, the New York City Board of Education responded for the first time to public outcry over the use of genetically-engineered hormones in school milk by announcing that, despite the protests, it will continue to buy milk and dairy products from companies that inject their cows with genetically-engineered Bovine Growth Hormone. “The FDA has given us assurances milk is safe if it contains this growth hormone,” said Board spokesperson David Golub. “This is a non-issue.”
But Golub, the Board he represents, the FDA, and the Monsanto Corporation (which manufactures the genetically-engineered hormone), are lying to us; the milk is NOT safe. And it is banned in Europe and Canada.
rBGH-derived milk contains dramatically higher levels of IGF-1 (Insulin Growth Factor), a risk factor for breast and colon cancer. IGF-1 is not destroyed by pasteurization. An article in “Cancer Research,” June 1995, shows that high levels of IGF-1 are also linked to hypertension, premature growth stimulation in infants, gynecomastia in young children, glucose intolerance and juvenile diabetes.
Dr. Samuel Epstein, professor of occupational and environmental medicine at the University of Illinois School of Public Health and chair of Cancer Prevention Coalition, Inc., reports that IGF-1, which causes cells to divide, induces malignant transformation of normal breast epithelial cells, and is a growth factor for human breast cancer and colon cancer. Yet rBGH was never adequately tested before the Food and Drug Administration allowed it on the market. A standard test of new biochemically produced products and ani45mal drugs requires twenty-four months of testing with several hundred rats. But rBGH was tested for only 90 days on 30 rats. This short-term rat study was submitted to the FDA but never published. The FDA had refused to allow anyone outside that agency to review the raw data from this truncated study, saying it would “irreparably harm” Monsanto.
In 1998, Canadian scientists managed to obtain the full studies for the first time. They were shocked to learn that the FDA never even looked at Monsanto's original data on which the agency's approval had been based. In reviewing the data, the Canadian scientists discovered that Monsanto’s secret studies showed that rBGH was linked to prostate and thyroid cancer in laboratory rats. [ New York Times, “Synthetic Hormone in Milk Raises New Concerns,” Jan. 19, 1999.]
Monsanto had actually cut the study short and omitted any mention of the cancers in their report to the FDA -- or so the agency now says! And so, a few companies which had invested hundreds of millions of dollars developing a product having absolutely no consumer benefit and which poses a severe health risk, was able to foist its dangerous product on an unprotected populace with the help of the government.
All this has outraged Green Party organizer Maris Abelson: “Recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone (rBGH) increases levels of cancer-causing hormones and other dangerous chemicals in milk. It was the first genetically engineered drug to be widely marketed through the food supply, and the few long-term studies that have been done raise serious questions about its safety. We've got to stop it, now."
Abelson urges every concerned New Yorker to call the Board of Education today: (718) 729-6100. Tell them, “Stop buying from Tuscan. Purchase milk and other dairy products only from companies that do not use rBGH, and that are, preferably, organic.”
What's All the Ruckus?
The Monsanto Corporation, manufacturer of rBGH (also known as BST and Posilac), has hundreds of millions of dollars invested in biotechnology development. It insists that IGF-1 levels are not elevated in milk from rBGH-treated cows and that rBGH is perfectly safe. “Satisfied customers across the United States, many with three years experience, attest to the product's safety. Further, the FDA confirms that no unusual or unexpected concerns about cow or human safety have been raised since Posilac's introduction.” [Protiva: A Unit of Monsanto Company “Status Update,” Feb. 3, 1997. ]
But Monsanto's own studies refute that position. In its 1993 application to the British government for permission to sell rBGH in England, Monsanto itself reported that “the IGF-1 levels went up substantially [about five times as much].” [B. Mepham et al., “Safety of milk from cows treated with bovine somatotropin,” LANCET, vol. 344 (Nov. 19, 1994), pp.1445-1446.] The U.S. FDA acknowledges that IGF-1 is elevated in milk from rBGH-treated cows. [Judith C. Juskevich and C. Greg Guyer, “Bovine Growth Hormone: Human Food Safety Evaluation.” Science, Vol. 249 (1990), pp. 875-884.] Even proponents of rBGH admit that it at least doubles the amount of IGF-1 hormone in the milk. [William H. Daughaday and David M. Barbano, “Bovine somatotropin supplementation of dairy cows: is the milk safe?” Journal of the American Medical Association, Vol. 264, No. 8 (August 22, 1990), pp. 1003-1005.]
The earliest report in the literature found that IGF-1 was elevated in the milk of rBGH-treated cows by a factor of 3.6. [C.G. Prosser and others, “Increased secretion of insulin-like growth factor-1 into milk of cows treated with recombinantly derived bovine growth hormone,” Journal of Dairy Science, Vol. 56 (1989), pp. 17-26.]
How could the company honestly assert there have been “no unusual or unexpected concerns”?
The mass outpouring of protests and growing technical data indicate otherwise; clearly, the company intentionally lied about rBGH and falsified its reports to recover its investment.
Since 1994, Monsanto has been pushing every which way to get farmers to inject rBGH into their cows. Bi-weekly injections of rBGH cause an increase in the amount of milk cows produce -- on average from 10% to 25%. The market is flooded with too much milk as it is, enabling middle-men to pay farmers below their costs, bankrupting dairy farms in record numbers while retail prices remain around the same. (This, of course, enables agribusiness giants to purchase their farms at a song.) Some farmers have even had to kill their cows because it cost them more to feed and maintain the animals than they'd gotten back in sales.
With the addition of rBGH, small farmers are caught between a rock and a hard place. They know that the so-called “extra” money they're promised for squeezing more milk out of each cow with rBGH is a delusion. The market is already glutted. How could increasing the total volume of milk possibly help them compete with giant agribusiness conglomerates who can afford lower prices per gallon or even go into debt for a time and absorb the cost of antibiotics to treat the increased instances of diseases such as mastitis brought on by rBGH and more frequent replacement of their cows to win a larger share of the market?
Monsanto has no sensible answer. Instead, it swings its mighty stick: Fear.
“Soon everyone else will be using rBGH. It's like any new machine employed in production. It will lower the price of milk even more, and increase the quantity. If you don't use it, you'll go bankrupt. But,” and here's the carrot, “if you start using rBGH now, before everyone else, you'll get the jump and do all right."
That's quite a powerful blow -- the threat of bankruptcy and the looming shadow of bank foreclosure. To counter it, Green activists have joined dairy farmers and other local consumer groups in coalitions across the country to stop Monsanto from achieving the “critical mass” it needs to apply its new genetic engineering techniques to milk production. Once Monsanto reaches that point, farmers fear, they will be driven by market forces to use any means available -- including rBGH -- to increase the amount of milk their cows produce just to chase the ghost of breaking even as the wholesale price plummets.