Monsanto's Genetically Modified Milk Ruled Unsafe by The United Nations

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Monsanto's Milk Ruled Unsafe by The United Nations

http://www.preventcancer.com/press/releases/aug24_99.htm

 

CHICAGO, /PRNewswire/ — The following was released today by Samuel

S. Epstein, M.D., Professor of Environmental Medicine, University of

Illinois School of Public Health, Chicago:

 

The Codex Alimentarius Commission, the U.N. Food Safety Agency

representing 101 nations worldwide, has ruled unanimously in favor

of the 1993 European moratorium on Monsanto's genetically engineered

hormonal milk (rBGH). This unexpected ruling, revealingly greeted by

the U.S. press with deafeningsilence, is a powerful blow against

U.S. global trade policies which are strongly influenced by powerful

multi-national corporations, such as Monsanto.The Codex Commission

ruling has also forced the U.S. to abandon its threats to challenge

the European moratorium before the World Trade Organization later

this year. As importantly, the ruling represents the first large

scale defeat of genetically modified foods on unarguable scientific

grounds, apart from ethical and ideological concerns.

 

Since the Food and Drug Administration approved the sale of

unlabeled rBGH milk in February 1994, the U.S. has exerted

considerable pressure on Mexico and other trading partners to

approve rBGH in efforts to increase pressure on Europe through the

World Trade Organization. In this, they have been strongly supported

by reports from the Food and Agriculture/World Health Organization's

(FAO/WHO) Joint Expert Committees on Food Additives (JECFA),

including its latest September 1998 report, which unequivocally

absolved rBGH from any adverse veterinary and public health effects.

However, these JECFA committees, besides others such as those

claiming the safety of meat from cattle treated with sex hormones,

operate under conditions of non-transparency and conflicts of

interest, and are predominantly staffed by unelected and

unaccountable U.S. and Canadian regulatory officials and industry

consultants with no expertise in public health, preventive medicine

and carcinogenesis. The 1998 JECFA report on rBGH was then submitted

to the Codex Committee on Residues of Veterinary Drugs in Foods,

chaired by FDA's Director for Veterinary Medicine Dr. Stephen

Sundloff who also played a prominent role in the 1998 JECFA

Committee. The Codex Committee promptly rubber stamped JECFA's seal

of approval for rBGH with the confident expectation that this would

be subsequently endorsed by the parent Codex Commission. However,

the best laid plans of Monsanto and the FDA were aborted by an

unexpected turn of events.

 

Bowing to growing pressure in 1998 by Canadian advocacy

groups, " dissident " government scientists and the Senate Agriculture

Committee. Health Canada convened expert committees on veterinary

and human safety under the auspices of the Canadian Veterinary

Medical Association and the Royal College of Physicians and

Surgeons, respectively. Based on conclusions on the adverse

veterinary effects of rBGH, particularly an increased incidence of

mastitis, lameness and reproductive problems, Health Canada

reluctantly broke ranks with the U.S. in January 1999, and issued a

formal " notice of non- compliance " , disapproving future sales of

rBGH.

 

Meanwhile, the European Commission had commissioned two independent

committees of internationally recognized experts to undertake a

comprehensive review of the scientific literature on both the

veterinary and public health effects of rBGH. The veterinary

committee fully confirmed and extended the Canadian warnings and

conclusions. The public health committee confirmed earlier reports

of excess levels of the naturally occurring Insulin-like-Growth

Factor One (IGF-1), including its highly potent variants, in rBGH

milk and concluded that these posed major risks of cancer,

particularly of the breast and prostate, besides promoting the

growth and invasiveness of cancer cells by inhibiting their

programmed self-destruction (apoptosis). Faced with this latest well

documented scientific evidence from both Canada and Europe, the U.S.

bowed to the inevitable and failed to challenge the Codex ruling in

support of the European moratorium.

 

It is now 15 years since Monsanto embarked on a series of large

scale veterinary trials on rBGH all over the U.S., and sold milk

from these trials to an uninformed and unsuspecting public with the

full approval of the FDA. Since then, Monsanto and the FDA, strongly

supported by a network of indentured university academics,

aggressive lobbying by the National Dairy Council and its well

organized " hit squads " targeting rBGH opponents, and an

overwhelmingly uncritical media, have ignored or trivialized

substantial scientific evidence on the hazards of rBGH milk,

including a series of publications over the last decade in the

International Journal of Health Services, the most prestigious

international public health publication. Also ignored by the media

have been charges in 1981 by Congressman John Conyers (then Chairman

of the House Committee on Government Operations), on the basis of a

leaked confidential Monsanto study revealing serious pathology in

cows injected with rBGH, that " Monsanto and the FDA have chosen to

suppress and manipulate animal health test data in efforts to

approve commercial use of rBGH " .

 

These considerations reinforce growing concerns on the extreme

unreliability of Monsanto and other biotech industry claims of the

safety of genetically modified soy and other foods, especially in

the absence of comprehensive testing by independent scientific

experts, who should be funded by industry and not consumers.

 

Source: Samuel S. Epstein, M.D.

 

Contact: Samuel S. Epstein, M.D., Professor of Environmental

Medicine at the University of Illinois School of Public Health,

Chicago, and Chairman of the Cancer Prevention Coalition, 312-996-

2297 Web site: http://www.preventcancer.com

 

 

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Postscript to PR Newswire, August 18 Press Release on " Monsanto's

Genetically Modified Milk " .

 

August 23,1999

 

In response to the strong interest and supportive calls, apart from

some narrow legalistic questions, on this press release, I would

like to further clarify the Codex ruling.

 

Since 1995, the U.S. has pressured the Codex Commission to adopt a

standard, based on tolerances or Maximum Residue Limits, for

residues of rBGH in milk in attempts to prove its safety and promote

its international export. At its June 30 meeting, the Commission

unanimously rejected further consideration of this U.S. proposal,

particularly in light of the recent Canadian ban or " notice of non-

compliance " , and of recent reports to the European Commission by two

committees of independent international experts on the cancer and

other risks of Monsanto's milk. By such action, the Commission

explicitly ruled that national governments have absolute rights to

decide whether or not to permit imports of rBGH milk in view of well

based public health concerns. My August 18 press release is clearly

consistent with these events, notwithstanding the self -interested

protestations by spokesmen for the FDA, the highly flawed and

unaccountable Joint Expert Committee on Food Additives and Monsanto.

 

It may be further noted that the premier health and science U.K.

journalist George Monbiot in his July 22 article in The Guardian,

reported that " three weeks ago the European Union routed an American

attempt to force - - (Europe) to accept (rBGH milk) since safety

concerns about rBGH milk could not be ignored " . Monbiot also

commented on the " deluge of absolutely no coverage at all " with

which this unprecedented and momentous ruling against genetically

modified food has been greeted.

 

Samuel S. Epstein, M.D.