WTO Refuses to Endorse Prosilac contaminated Dairy

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WTO refuses to endorse Prosilac in Dairy

JoAnn Guest

Jan 20, 2003 13:05 PST

 

Since 1994, every industrialized country in the world

except the U.S.

--including Canada, Japan, and all fifteen nations of the European

Union -- has banned rBGH milk.

 

The United Nations Food Standards Body refuses to certify

that rBGH is safe.

 

Even the WTO, or more specifically its food standards body,

the Codex Alimentarius, has refused to endorse Monsanto's claim that

rBGH is safe for use in the dairy supply.

In the face of facts and the majority opinion of the global political

and scientific community, Monsanto and

the United States continue to endorse rBGH milk for general

consumption,

at the same timescratching their heads about increases in breast

cancer deaths and the continually declining age of puberty for girls.

 

What about the Cash Cows?

 

Okay, so milk is bad for people. Really bad, in fact. But what of the

effect on cows producing that milk? The life expectancy of the

average cow in natural conditions is about 25-30 years; on the

typical factory farm,

where well over half of U.S. milk cows reside, they live only four to

five years.

 

The increased milk production spurred by dosing cows with Monsanto's

Posilaccauses them to suffer from mastitis, a bacterial infection of

the udder, and

widespread occurrences of cystic ovaries and disorders of the uterus.

Inaddition to harming the cows, these conditions may produce

discharges that arepassed to consumers along with the milk.

 

It turns out that keeping dairy cows constantly pregnant -- the only

way they will produce milk -- creates (surprise!) baby calves. The

veal industry wascreated because the dairy industry didn't know what

to do with male calves that

otherwise had no economic value to dairy farmers (female calves are

the future milk producers). The process is cruel from start to

finish: the cows are artificially impregnated by being bound to what

the industry terms a " raperack, " then injected with a series of bull

semen, hormones, and antibiotics;

veal calves are then immobilized in small wooden crates so that they

can'tmovearound, therefore ensuring the tenderness of their flesh

when slaughtered.

Overa million veal calves were slaughtered in the U.S. in 2001.

 

In the end, it boils down to a familiar story: Big business and the

U.S.government joining forces to dupe the American consumer. The USDA

tells us todrink more milk while subsidizing large dairy farms and

federally mandating dairy consumption for schoolchildren. The

government spends billions to buy unused milk and dairy products, one

of the biggest forms of subsidies, whilethe industry spends almost

$200 million every year promoting dairy consumption.

 

Meanwhile, The FDA and Monsanto conspire to pollute the already

unhealthfuldairy supply with a genetically engineered hormone banned

virtually everywhereelse in the world.

 

So while the American public might fairly answer the dairy industry's

ubiquitous question of whether it " Got Milk? " with a resounding,

mustachioed " Yes, " the better question might be whether people have

gotten screwed in theprocess.

 

Monsanto's Moo Juice

 

In 1990 the Monsanto Company commissioned scientists to inject a

bunch oflaboratory rats with an early variant of recombinant Bovine

Somatotropin

(rBST), also known as Bovine Growth Hormone (rBGH).

 

The 90-day study demonstrated that rBGH was linked to development of

prostate and thyroid cancerin the rats.

 

Monsanto -- the manufacturer of Agent Orange that also spent about

fourdecadescovering up the effects of PCBs -- was about to seek

approval for Posilac, the

company's commercialized form of rBGH. The study linking rBGH to

cancer was submitted to the FDA, but somehow Posilac was still

approved in 1994.

 

Withfingers pointing in both directions, those with opinions argue

about who had a bigger part in the cover-up -- Monsanto or the FDA.

 

The results of the study, in fact, were not made available to the

public until 1998, when a group of Canadian scientists obtained the

full documentation and

completed an independent analysis of the results.

 

Among other instances ofneglect, the documents showed that the FDA

had never even reviewed Monsanto's

original studies (on which the approval for Posilac had been based),

so in the end the point was moot whether or not the report had

contained all of the original data.

 

The FDA's complicity continued; Michael Taylor, a Monsanto lawyer for

manyyears, left in 1976 to become a staff lawyer for the FDA. In 1991

he was promoted to the office of FDA's Deputy Commissioner, serving

in that capacity until 1994.

 

The administration approved rBGH in 1993.

 

While at the FDA, Taylor also wrote the policy exempting rBGH and

otherbiotechfoods from special labeling, considered by most to be a

major victory forMonsanto. Ten days after Taylor's policy was

finalized, his old law firm,still

representing Monsanto, filed suit against two dairy farms that had

labeled their milk rBGH-free.

 

As soon as the GAO released a report covering all of this, Taylor was

removedto work for the USDA, as the Administrator of the Food Safety

and InspectionService, a position he held from 1994 to 1996. After

holding

positions at boththe Food and Drug Administration and the U.S.

Department of Agriculture,Taylor

then went back to working for Monsanto, this time directly, as the

corporation's Vice President of Public Policy.

 

Michael Taylor wasn't the only government employee with an obvious

conflict ofinterest. At the same time that Taylor left Monsanto for

the FDA, Dr. Margaret Miller, once Monsanto's top scientist, was also

hired by the FDA to review herown scientific research conducted

during her tenure at Monsanto. In her role

asFDA scientist, Miller made the official decision to increase the

amount ofpermissible antibiotic residues in milk by a hundred-fold,

in part to counterthe increase of mastitis in cows due to overuse of

artificial growth hormones.

 

These incestuous relationships between industry and the U.S.

government arethe norm rather than the exception. Decisions at the

FDA are made

primarily byadvisory boards comprised of scientists and executives

from the dairy and meat industries, with a few university academics

thrown in for good measure.

 

Ché Green is the founder and director of The ARMEDIA Institute, a

nonprofitresearch and advocacy organization focusing on farm animal

issues in the United States. >>

 

 

 

http://www.notmilk.com/

REVIEW of MILK:The Deadly Poison

by Jane Heimlich, author of What Your Doctor Won't Tell You

(Jane Heimlich is the wife of Henry Heimlich, MD, the " Heimlich

Maneuver " doctor.)

 

 

JoAnn Guest

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