Marion Nestle
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 Thus, the agency views BGH-free as misleading because all milk contains some natural bgh. The term rBGH-free also is misleading because the recombinant and natural cow hormones cannot be distinguished. Dairy companies may use such terms only if they provide an explanation of the context: "No significant difference has been shown between milk derived from rBGH-treated and non-rBGH-treated cows."25
Vermont, which boasts of its quality dairy products, defied the FDA ruling and passed legislation requiring rBGH milk to be labeled: "Ver-monters have the right to know what is in the food they eat. . |
Samuel S. Epstein, M.D.
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 Daily injections are viewed as too time-consuming and expensive.
If bgh were ever commercially approved, a farmer would tend to inject his cows at about the same time every two weeks That could lead to the entire farm bulk tank being filled with hormonally—supercharged cows' milk.
Pathology
Following Monsanto's trials of two-week injections on 82 cows at the company's Dardenne, MO research farm in 1985-86, 35 test animals were slaughtered and necropsied. Hazleton laboratories of Madison, WI conducted pathology analyses. |
| However, should the evaluation find any room for concern with FDA's analysis of bgh, I will certainly urge a delay in FDA's decision until such concerns are adequately addressed.
Thanks again for the article. Please stay in touch. Sincerely yours, Senator Herb Kohn
From: Senator Wyche Fowler, Jr. Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry To: Dr. Samuel Epstein February 9,1990
Dear Dr. Epstein,
Thank you for sending me your article on synthetic milk hormones. This is a very important as well as controversial issue. |
| Senator Leahy has asked FDA withhold its approval of bgh until more human and animal health data have been studied. In a letter sent to the U.S. General Accounting Office, Senator Leahy asked for a review "of the biotechnology risk assessment methods used... at FDA, focusing on the review of bovine somatotropin."
I have forwarded your article to the FDA to bring this important issue to their attention and to let them know that I am concerned. |
| With the misrepresentation and inconclusiveness of animal safety claims and the unknown repercussions to human health, I request your immediate attention to this matter, in light of the imminent approval by the Food and Drug Administration of bgh for widespread use.
Sincerely yours
From: Congressman John Conyers To: The Honorable Louis W. Sullivan Secretary
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services June 25, 1990
Dear Mr. |
| We commend the states of Wisconsin and Minnesota for their recent moratoria on the sale of bgh dairy products in their states.
¦ We urge that immediate funding be made available to independent consumer-, farmers-, environmental-, animal rights and other concerned groups in order to ensure effective implementation of our recommendations. |
| But bovine growth hormone fails that test, since indicated by Monsanto's research files, tremendously higher milk hormone levels result from bgh treatments.
Over the past decade, one of the strongest trends in consumer food marketing has been the shift towards "organic" foods, away from heavy use of pesticides and herbicides. The public wants a food supply free of chemicals and hormones. |
Samuel S. Epstein, M.D.
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 Protein Science 3:1089-4 097,1994); it is chemically different from any of the natural variants of bgh.
Toutain^, J. Animal Sci. 71:1219-1225, 1993
Several dose-dependent pharmacokinetic parameters differ significantly between bacteria-made rBGH and cow-made bgh. rBGH thus differs pharmacologically from bgh.
Monsanto, 1993, Posilac Package Insert
The packing insert for Posilac (rBGH) states: "The use of Posilac is associated with increased frequency of use of medication in cows for mastitis and other health problems."
Erhardef a/, J. |
| Immunoassay 15:1-19,1994
This study demonstrated that methionyl-rBGH is immunologically different from natural BGH; however a specific assay for rBGH has not yet been required by the FDA. This finding also raises the possibility of immune interactions between human growth hormone and rBGH.
Kessler Federal Register 59(28):6279-6280, 1994
The FDA stated that there is "no significant difference" between the milks of rBGH treated and untreated cows. However, numerous statistically significant differences have been reported in the composition of rBGH milk compared to controls. |
Dr. Steven R. Gundry
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 Don't be misled by labels that say words to the effect "Our cows are not treated with bovine growth hormone (or bgh)."
All cows' milk contains bgh (another name for IGF) to make calves grow, regardless of whether or not the mothers were injected with that hormone.
What else does IGF do? It acts just like insulin in your liver and turns on the "Store Fat for Winter" program. And guess what, skim milk has even more sugar than whole milk, and that sugar promotes the release of even more insulin, which-as you now know-commands your liver to make fat. |
Larry Trivieri, Jr.
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 The FDA's approval of bgh was in large part due to a Monsanto Corporation (the manufacturer of bgh) study of rats that had been fed milk laced with bgh. Originally, the FDA reported that no traces of bgh were found in the rats' blood, but it was later disclosed that officials from the FDA never read the entire report. It was found that 20%-30% of the rats did, in fact, have traces of bgh in their bloodstream and some of the rats developed thyroid cysts. |
Samuel S. Epstein, M.D.
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| It is also contaminated by rBGH, which differs chemically from bgh levels, by a thyroid hormone enzyme, and often by pus and antibiotics, besides by increased levels of IGF-1.
D. Increased IGF-1 LEVELS in rBGH Milk Prosser, Lancet 1:1201,1988
IGF-1 levels in rBGH milk are increased up to 20 fold.
Juskevich & Geyer, (FDA), Science 249: 875-884,1990
Based on six unpublished industry studies, FDA admitted that IGF-1 levels in rBGH milk were consistently increased and that these increases were statistically significant. These levels were still further increased following pasteurization. |
Larry Trivieri, Jr.
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| It was found that 20%-30% of the rats did, in fact, have traces of bgh in their bloodstream and some of the rats developed thyroid cysts. Other researchers are suggesting a possible link between bgh and prostate and breast cancers, though there is not yet any direct and conclusive evidence.9
However, it's difficult to avoid bgh unless you buy organic dairy products and beef, because the FDA does not require labeling of BGH-laced products (which include yogurt, cheese, and other dairy products), despite surveys showing that the majority of consumers favor labeling. |
Dr. Steven R. Gundry
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| All cows' milk contains bgh (another name for IGF) to make calves grow, regardless of whether or not the mothers were injected with that hormone.
What else does IGF do? It acts just like insulin in your liver and turns on the "Store Fat for Winter" program. And guess what, skim milk has even more sugar than whole milk, and that sugar promotes the release of even more insulin, which-as you now know-commands your liver to make fat. The exception to dairy products is cheese, particularly fresh cheeses. |
Robyn Landis
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 Tritsch concludes that "the widespread consumption of BGH-supplemented milk is, therefore, an experiment on an unsuspecting population that could have horrendous consequences," adding that "it would be difficult to dismantle a well-entrenched bgh industry."5
Use of rBGH is also known to increase the amount of pus, bacteria, and antibiotic contamination in milk, since cows given rBGH are more susceptible to disease.
Finally, bovine serum albumin (BSA, a cow's milk protein) has been strongly linked to insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus in children. |
Mike Adams
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 Four companies have learned how to isolate the strand of cow DNA that codes this hormone, insert it into the DNA of bacteria, grow the bacteria in vats, and then extract large quantities of bgh from those vats. Dairy cows that are injected with bgh can produce milk for nearly twice as long after calving. |
| Although bgh might arguably be neutral or perhaps even helpful to the health of the cows (Human Growth Hormone, or HGH, is generally considered rather helpful in adult human beings), the real problems begin to occur when BGH-laden dairy products get consumed by humans, and they start to induce a variety of hormone-related health disorders in humans:
Although many synthetic estrogens like DES are now outlawed, many livestock and poultry are still hormonally manipulated, especially dairy cows. Cows' milk contains substantial amounts of estrogen due to modern farming techniques. |
| Here's the definition of bgh from Food Additives:
BOVINE SOMATOTROPIN (BST) • Bow'ne growth hormone (BGH) is a natural protein produced by the pituitary gland of all cattle. It is a protein hormone and is not structurally or functionally related to steroid hormones. Introduced on the market in 1994, the producers of the hormone, the FDA, and some other experts claim that there is no difference in the milk of cows given the hormone since cows' milk naturally contains the hormone anyway. |
Marion Nestle
See book keywords and concepts |
| Because the naturally occurring bgh in cow's milk was indistinguishable from rBGH, the agency ruled that labeling would be misleading because the milks are the same. Monsanto and other biotechnology companies viewed disclosure as a threat to the future of agricultural biotechnology. If rBGH failed in the marketplace, the entire industry might be in jeopardy. |
Mike Adams
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| Dairy cows that are injected with bgh can produce milk for nearly twice as long after calving.
- Debra Lynn Dadd, Home Safe Home
Leave it to the mad scientists behind the scenes at the world's largest dairy companies to come up with yet another way to squeeze more profits from the glands of a cow: they've synthesized Bovine Growth Hormone (BGH) as a way to induce dairy cows to give more milk than nature intended. |
Larry Trivieri, Jr.
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| Other researchers are suggesting a possible link between bgh and prostate and breast cancers, though there is not yet any direct and conclusive evidence.9
However, it's difficult to avoid bgh unless you buy organic dairy products and beef, because the FDA does not require labeling of BGH-laced products (which include yogurt, cheese, and other dairy products), despite surveys showing that the majority of consumers favor labeling. In fact, Monsanto helped sponsor federal legislation (which passed) that prevents milk producers from labeling their products as being free of bgh even when they are. |
D. Lindsey Berkson
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 Although bgh may be good for dairy farmers because it increases milk production, it may not be good for humans. Why? Because bgh has been implicated as increasing the risk of breast cancer, although others say it is not a risk as it may not survive digestion.
Bgh also contributes to the hormone-disruptor soup through another route. Although the fda approved the drug, it admits that the use of this growth hormone often causes udder infections in cows. This leads to pus and bacteria getting into the milk. To prevent this, cows on bgh are given more antibiotics. |
Samuel S. Epstein, M.D.
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| Monsanto's rBGH stimulated twice the increase in milk yield than an equal dose of bgh.
USAN & the USP Dictionary of Drug Names, page 510,1988
Sometribove is "methionyl growth hormone (ox)." This alternative name revealed that Monsanto's rBGH does not have a natural amino acid sequence, but instead, has an extra methionine at the 191-position, which reflects manufacture by genetically altered bacteria rather than by the cow.
Baer etal, J. Dairy Sci. 72:1424-1434,1989
In milk from untreated and rBGH treated cows, "serum protein (.65,71 %) and lactose (4.7,4. |
Mike Adams
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| The contamination of cows' milk with pus
Beyond the bgh in cows' milk, there's also the issue of pjjs in cows' milk. Did I say pus? Indeed, I did. From NotMilk.com by Robert Cohen:
Pus in milk? A dairy cow filters ten-thousand quarts of blood through her udder each day and uses dead white blood cells (somatic cells) to manufacture her milk. These dead cells are pus cells. Dairy scientists are aware that when one quart of milk is tainted with 400 million or more pus cells, some 35 percent of the milking cows in the herd are infected with mastitis. |
| BGH when taxpayer money is being spent to subsidize milk production in the first place? There's a bit of a politically-motivated money shell game at work here, no doubt. And as with virtually every large food producing industry group, there's more than a hint of corruption at work when it comes to hormones for cows:
Monsanto corporation gave large research grants to the University of Florida. The ensuing positive research data led to FDA approval for the company's controversial bovine growth hormone (to increase a cows' milk production). |
Patrick Holford
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 Samuel Epstein says that "all women from conception to death will now be exposed to an additional breast-cancer risk due to milk from cows treated with bgh."
While milk naturally contains small amounts of estrogen, changes in farming practices now make it possible to milk cows continuously, even while they are pregnant. These pregnant cows produce milk with much higher levels of estrogen. If you drink milk, my advice is to stick to organic milk, which disallows this practice and the use of bgh. |
| In countries such as the United States, where cows are treated with bgh, milk from these cows develops raised levels of IGF-1, found in both the cow and those who drink the milk. This growth factor makes estrogen more potent in the body, and research is increasingly showing that it could increase the risk of breast and colon cancer. University of Illinois toxicologist Dr. Samuel Epstein says that "all women from conception to death will now be exposed to an additional breast-cancer risk due to milk from cows treated with bgh. |
Samuel S. Epstein, M.D.
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| Elevated IGF-1 Levels in rBGH Milk
In an early report relating IGF-1 milk levels to natural bgh isolated from bovine pi-tuitaries, administration of the hormone increased IGF-1 levels in goat's milk from a mean pretreatment level of 16 ng/ml to 25 ng/ml within four days.11 Normal cow's milk collected just after parturition contained high IGF-1 levels, about 150 ng/ml, which rapidly fell to about 25 ng/ml within one week and then declined to only 1 to 5 ng/ml by 200 days, when levels of IGF-1 induced by rBGH ranged from 6 to 20 ng/ml, up to a 20-fold increase. |
D. Lindsey Berkson
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| Because bgh has been implicated as increasing the risk of breast cancer, although others say it is not a risk as it may not survive digestion.
Bgh also contributes to the hormone-disruptor soup through another route. Although the fda approved the drug, it admits that the use of this growth hormone often causes udder infections in cows. This leads to pus and bacteria getting into the milk. To prevent this, cows on bgh are given more antibiotics. According to some of the scientists I interviewed, certain subclasses of antibiotics are themselves estrogenic, or hormone disruptors. |
Joseph E. Mario
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 Absorption of bgh into the blood of humans causes Nitrogen retention. May cause premature growth in infants, breast growth in children, and increase risk of breast cancer in women. |
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