Monsanto In Our Milk
The mad geniuses at Monsanto have found yet another way to sell us poisoned food for profit. Not
only have they given us genetically altered corn, wheat and beans, they now have figured out a way to taint our milk.
It was announced only days ago that the U. S. Food and Drug Administration has approved the company's
production of a powder called Posilac at its $180 million manufacturing plant in Augusta, Ga.
Posilac, a genetically-engineered bovine growth hormone known as rBGH, is touted by the company
as a natural substance that increases milk production in cows by about eight to 12 pounds per day and thus allows dairy farmers
to increase their income.
What the promotions don't say is that the FDA obviously rolled over for the powerful Monsanto Corporation
on this product, as it appears to have done for the company's many other GMO inventions. The government agency failed
to take a close look at what rBGH could do to milk consumers and possibly even the livestock that receive it.
One investigative report states that Monsanto lied when it listed the various amino acids within
the 191 amino acid chain structure of BST. It said amino acid No. 144 was lysine, when, in fact, it was a freak new creation
produced in the process of making the product.
The error was discovered by Monsanto scientist Bernard Violand and published in the July 1994 issue
of the journal Protein Science. Instead of the natural lysine, the company created a freak amino acid now identified as epsilon-N-acetyllysine.
And the FDA never examined this substance, Violand charged. It has allowed this new "frankenfood" to enter our food chain.
The Cancer Prevention Coalition has warned that rBGH research has already indicated that consumption
by humans may speed the growth of human breast and prostate cancers.
The Consumers Union carries the warnings even farther. It believes the hormone accelerates puberty
in children and causes bone disease and other problems in cows. The product is already banned in Canada, the European Union
and numerous other countries. But cattle in the US are free to receive it.
Here is what is alarming the scientists outside of the Monsanto labs who are taking a close look
at rBGH:
--The stuff, when injected in cows, induces a 70 to 1000 percent increase in the levels of a hormone
called IGF-1. This volume of IGF-1 is not destroyed by digestion and gets absorbed into the body. The hormone is known to
stimulate the proliferation of cancer cells, especially in the breast and prostate areas of the human body.
--An article in Cancer Research (June 1995) states that tests in a Philadelphia laboratory by Renato
Baserga shows that IGF-1 not only establishes the maintenance of tumors, it may also stimulate the progression and aggressiveness
of childhood leukemias "to a point that chemotherapy could not be effective."
--George L. Tritsch, a now retired cancer research scientist, warned in yet another article: "The
widespread consumption of BST [rBGH] supplemented milk is therefore an experiment on an unsuspecting population that could
have horrendous consequences and overwhelm the health care system. . . I can conceive of no animal experiments to test this
and to provide hard data to predict the magnitude and time frame for this effect. The risk to benefit ratio of this experiment
is clearly not in favor of the consumer."
--Cows injected with rBGH are prone to mastitis, an infection of the udder. This leads to an increase
in pus in the milk plus antibiotic residues. This could lead to an increase in antibiotic resistant diseases in people who
consume milk and milk products.
--Also pasteurization does not destroy rBGH so people who consume milk from injected cows also receive
the hormone directly in their bodies.
How can we avoid getting rBGH contaminated milk? Because of lawsuits filed by the corporate giant
Monsanto, and threats of lawsuits, it may not be possible to know.
For example, Monsanto is suing family-owned Oakhurst Dairy in Maine because of a label that reads:
"Our Farmers Pledge: No artificial growth hormones." Ironically, it is the FDA, which is in place to protect the consumer,
that gives Monsanto the grounds for this law suit. The FDA takes the position that there is no significant difference between
milk produced by treated and untreated cows. Thus dairies may not say that their milk is "rBST-free."
This means that not only the milk in your grocery store, but even in the local health food store,
may contain this stuff. It also will show up in dairy products like yogert, butter, ice cream and cheese.
