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Recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone (rBGH or rBST) is a Monsanto product (known as Posilac) which modifies the normal rate of growth in cattle. rBGH is a probable cancer risk and can cause infections in cows and allergies.[1] However, Monsanto is quite unhappy with anyone who dares tell people about the lack of rBGH in their milk.
- Monsanto despises the labels, has sued some companies that use them, and now wants the FDA and Federal Trade Commission to crack down on them. The company recently sent letters to the agencies stating, “For years now, deceptive milk labeling practices have misled consumers about the quality, safety, or value of milk and milk products from cows supplemented with rBGH.” Monsanto goes so far as to claim that the rBGH-free labels “present a serious regulatory and public health concern.” Doesn’t Monsanto realize that many consumers view rBGH as a “public health concern?”
Monsanto is thus responsible for the stupidest labeling requirement in the United States. if you don't have rBGH in your milk and you wish to tell people so, some state health departments require you to put the following warning on your milk (and in any case Monsanto will likely sue you if you don't):
- FDA States: No significant difference in milk from cows treated with artificial growth hormone
Apparently whether a non-infected, non-chemically bloated cow might produce better milk, or whether people might like to buy milk made from happy cows, is utterly irrelevant.
Currently, rBGH is banned from milk at Kroger's supermarkets, Starbucks, Ben & Jerry's, and local co-ops around the country-- ask yours what their policy is.
The rest of this article is paraphrased from the Sept. 2007 issue of The Milkweed.
http://www.themilkweed.com/Feature_07_Sep.pdf
Contents |
1990 Science article on rBGH
The 1990 article in Science has the following scary problems:
- It cited as proof of "human safety" of the aritifical rBGH an old study where dwarfs were injected with a natural cow growth hormone. But that previous article had noted that a large percentage of those dwarfs died of Creutzfeld-Jakobs Disease-- that is to say, "mad cow".
- In the 1980s, French children injected with human growth hormone also developed degenerative brain-wasting diseases.
- A study was cited showing that pasteurization breaks down hormone byproducts of rBGH... but this study was done by a then-undergraduate, P.P. Gronewegen. Gronewegen used a very small sample size and pasteurized the milk twice as long as commercial processes do.
- rBGH boosts the amount of Insulin-like Growth Factor-1 (IGF-1), a hormone identical in cows and humans. IGF-1 is not destroyed by pasteurization. The 1990 Science article admitted this, but claimed that IGF-1 is broken down by human stomach acids. But in 1995 an article in the Journal of Endocrinology showed that IGF-1 does not break down because it is protected by milk proteins. IGF-1 is one of the leading suspects involved in the development and spread of cancers.
Dr. Samuel S. Epstein has published a series of articles and books about the effects of IGF-1, which allegedly induces rapid multiplication of human breast cells.
Why was the name changed to rBST?
Monsanto changed the name of rBGH to recombinant bovine somatotropin (rBST). This is because a steroid hormone called DES had caused a lot of bad press just as rBGH was coming out. DES was banned for use in humans because it was a carcinogen. US drug companies dumped their excess DES on Puerto Rican farmers, who put it in their cattle, swine, and poultry. The DES made the animals grow bigger, but Puerto Rican children who ate the animals underwent puberty as young as two or three years old. DES was also demonstrated to cause cancer-- that is to say, out-of-control cell growth.
What did the National Dairy Board say?
The National Dairy Board-- an industry group-- recommended in 1986 that:
- Concern, as well as attack, lies in the assumption that the milk ingested is somehow different from non-BST milk. Communications should be concentrated in persuading the consumer, through credible authorities, that milk from BST-treated cows is identical in regard to milk from non-treated cows.
Monsanto's own reports
- The health of first lactation dairy cows subjected to injections of Posilac was adversely affected. Data collected from post-slaughter analyses detailed how key glands and organs of rbGH-injected animals, on average, were oftentimes much larger than similar glands and organs from “control” animals in the 1985-86 study of 80 cows at Monsanto’s research farm in Dardennes, Missouri. Hearts, livers, ovaries, pituitaries and lungs … were all dramatically larger in rbGH-treated animals. Such data should have clued FDA to inherent health problems for rbGH-injected dairy cows.
- Tables detailed daily levels of amounts of hormones in blood of rbGH-treated animals during several 14-day injection cycles. These tables incorporated data from seven different versions of rbGH that Monsanto had been testing in the 1980s. Wild swings in the blood-borne hormones showed tremendous variation in hormone levels within the 14-day injection cycle. Some of these blood hormone level swings registered as high as nearly 1000X above pre-injection levels! With some such hormones transferring from blood to milk, these wild swings in daily blood hormone levels ought to have keyed FDA officials to likely surges in hormone levels in milk. If blood hormone levels rose during injection cycles, some of those hormones would have transferred to the milk of injected cows.