This a lengthy
read on an essay that tells the story of questions that were raised about rBGH
before it was approved, and of the responses to those questions by Vermonters,
by Monsanto and by the FDA. The story told here depicts an approval process
that was good in parts but bad in others. The FDA deserves credit for its
protracted evaluation of cow safety, for the eventual disclosure of 21 side
effects, for the post-approval additional testing of POSILAC® on 24 farms for 5
years, and for the carefully reasoned initial decision on human safety….
I have included some excerpts that are of
particular importance. If you find them of interest I would advise that you
read the entire essay.
What is rBEST
ReplyDeleteRecombinant bovine somatotropin (rBST) is a hormone produced in the pituitary gland of cows. In the 1970’s Genentech patented the gene for BST. Using recombinant DNA technology (molecular cloning) companies were able to synthesize the hormone.
Monsanto and Genentech collaborated. Using genetic engineering, they cloned the rBST gene into E. coli. The bacteria were then grown in bioreactors. It was then separated from the rBST and purified to produce an injectable hormone.
Yes they use E. coli … just another FACT
..In 1979, Monsanto paid Genentech $990,000 for the rights to rBGH, along with an agreement to pay royalties and make "milestone" payments. Genentech delivered the first 600 milligrams of rBGH in December 1981. By 1990, Monsanto had spent $300 million on rBGH, including the 1988 construction of a $50 million manufacturing plant in Austria. Analysts estimated that Monsanto was spending $50 million per year on rBGH ….
ReplyDeleteA lot of money .... FACT
…While this GAO report minimized the extent to which the approval process was compromised, it found serious flaws, conflicts-of-interest, and violations of ethics rules by the FDA throughout the review process for rBGH. The FDA had named Suzanne Sechen, who had prepared rBGH studies for Monsanto under the supervision of a Monsanto consultant, as the Primary Review Officer for rBGH. "Her actions raise questions about the objectivity that she would be able to bring to her review of these articles," the GAO observed….
ReplyDeleteIn 1988, news reports covered the generic drug scandal, in which FDA officials were found to have accepted money and gifts from the companies whose drugs they were reviewing.15 A 1990 General Accounting Office report revealed that more than half the new drugs approved by FDA over the previous ten years had since been found to be unsafe, and had to be pulled from the market or relabeled to note unanticipated side effects. The GAO study also found that the more quickly new drugs were rushed to market, the more likely they would produce adverse effects.16 FDA spokesman Jeff Nesbit admitted that an important part of determining a new product's safety was monitoring adverse reactions after approval, since it takes so long for a company to move a product through the FDA approval process.17
Wow, another FACT that does not reflect highly on Monsanto.
Delete….Monsanto underwrote four rBGH studies at the University of Vermont (UVM) from 1986 to 1990 for which it paid UVM nearly half a million dollars ($459,261). UVM received nearly $140,000 in grant money from Monsanto to do the first study, which evaluated the effect of the expected dose of rBGH on 46 Jersey cows….
ReplyDelete….The third and fourth studies were pivotal studies, for which UVM received over $319,000 in Monsanto grants. Pivotal studies are defined by the FDA as "well-controlled studies designed to evaluate the efficacy and/or animal safety of a new animal drug under expected use conditions of the drug."…
Money makes the world go around.. FACT.....
Delete…Of the five cows that gave birth to deformed calves, at least three had some relationship to the rBGH experiments. Two cows were in the group injected with rBGH, and at least one was a daughter of a rBGH-injected cow…
ReplyDelete….The remaining two cows' histories are subject to controversy. They were identified as daughters of rBGH-treated cows in the original Rural Vermont report, but FDA discounted them in the now-famous "Howrigan letter."20 At least one of those cows, declared an untreated control by FDA, is stillquestionable, as there is a missing lactation curve in the individual cow records during the year she would have been a part of the experiment. Further, the cow did not milk long enough to qualify as a control animal….
Researchers reported two types of deformities in the rBGH-treated cows. One had an achondrogenic fetus, which is a type of "bulldog" calf. It is a genetic condition also known as Bovine Dwarfism, which means that cartilage and bone do not develop properly. Aborted at six and one half months, the calf had a short, thick, bulging forehead, extremely short legs, a depressed nose and an undershot jaw.
DeleteThe other rBGH-treated cow was unable to calve and had to be killed during labor. An abnormal fetus was removed, which was undefined by the university in its records22 but described by Ms. Lyang as a "dipygus", or calf with nine legs. A dipygus fetus has "two rumps" or a double pelvis with extra legs....
DeleteA third deformity was an encephalocoele fetus, born to an untreated cow that was a daughter of a rBGH-treated cow. This type of deformity involves the birth of a calf with a large fluid-filled hole in its head...
Two facts make the incidence of these deformed calves particularly disturbing. First, these are deformities rarely seen on the farm. While difficult births and a misshapen hoof or leg might occur now and then, severe deformities of this type are extremely rare. Second, the university did not keep accurate records on these deformities' occurrence, and there was no mention of them in the individual cow health records. This, along with other problems with the health records, was noted in a report from a veterinarian whom the Vermont Legislature hired to review the UVM cow health records...
DeleteDo you really want milk or meat from an animal that is not healthy? Think!!
ReplyDeletedo do,,do do
ReplyDeletedo do,,do do
You are now entering the twilight zone.
do do,, do do
MYTH: rbST is unsafe for humans.
ReplyDeleteFACT: rbST use in dairy cows poses no human health risk.
Extensive human studies have established that humans are biologically unaffected by rbST. It is noted that even if rbST is absorbed intact, the growth hormone receptors in the human do not recognize rbST and therefore, rbST cannot produce effects in humans.1
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MYTH: rbST is a hormone, and therefore milk from rbST-supplemented cows is harmful to the human body.
FACT: There are two types of hormones: steroids and proteins. rbST is a protein hormone, which means that it is inactive when taken orally, just like insulin, because it is broken down in the digestive system.2
rbST is not active in the human body.
MYTH: rbST is a steroid hormone given to cows.
FACT: rbST is not a steroid hormone, it is a protein. Because it is a protein it is digested like any other protein when consumed.
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MYTH: Milk from rbST-supplemented cows contains hormones while organic milk is free from hormones.
FACT: All milk contains hormones, and the levels of those hormones are not biologically different between organic, rbST-free, and regular milk.
bST, from which rbST is derived, occurs naturally in milk at minuscule levels, normally less than 1 part per billion. That’s equivalent to one drop in 22,000 gallons of milk. This amount does not increase in the milk of rbST-supplemented cows.3, 4
MYTH: rbST-supplemented milk contains antibiotics.
FACT: All milk, regardless of production practice, is tested and milk determined to contain antibiotics is discarded.
Federal and state monitoring programs require all milk to be tested to ensure the safety and wholesomeness of milk. Milk is one of the most monitored products in the American food supply, and every shipment of milk is tested and thoroughly inspected several times during the journey from the farm to the grocery store. In all instances, the milk supply meets stringent government-established safety standards.
Then by all means drink up...
DeleteMYTH: rbST use causes breast cancer in humans.
ReplyDeleteFACT: Drinking milk does not increase breast cancer risk, regardless of whether the milk is organic, rbST-free or regular. In fact, milk contains many elements that have the potential to protect against breast cancer, such as rumenic, vaccenic, butyric and branched chain fatty acids, whey protein, calcium and vitamin D.5
rbST was approved by the FDA in 1993. There has actually been a decline in the rate of breast cancer during the time period that rbST has been approved for commercial use.5
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MYTH: rbST greatly increases the amount of insulin-like growth factor (IGF-1), a polypeptide protein hormone found in all milk, which is said to cause cancer.
FACT: IGF-1 (insulin-like growth factor-1) is present in all milk at slightly varying levels. Even if the content of IGF-1 in rbST-supplemented milk is increased twofold, the amount of IGF-1 contained in the daily recommended amount of milk would be very, very low — less than 1% of the amount that is present in intestinal secretions and less than one ten-thousandth of that produced by the human body.6, 7 By comparison, the daily IGF-1 level in human saliva and other digestive secretions is equal to the amount of IGF-1 in 270 glasses of cows’ milk.8 Therefore, there is no evidence that this amount of IGF-1 would pose a health hazard.
Additionally, IGF-1 has never been shown to transform a healthy cell into a cancer cell. Digestive secretions, such as saliva, contain IGF-1 which has never been shown to cause intestinal cell transformation. 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16
MYTH: Milk from rbST-supplemented cows contains IGF-1.
FACT: IGF-1 is present in all milk regardless of the farm production practice — including from those cows that are rbST-supplemented, rbST-free and organic. Furthermore, IGF-1 levels in milk from rbST-supplemented cows are within the normal range of levels found in the milk of non-rbST-supplemented cows.3
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MYTH: rbST use causes the onset of early puberty in girls.
FACT: Many factors influence the age of puberty in boys and girls,17, 18 but specific foods or non-nutrient substances in foods, such as hormones, are NOT associated with changes in the age of puberty.
Since all milk — regular, organic or rbST-free — has the same composition, there are no differences in the dairy products from rbST-supplemented cows that could affect the age at which puberty begins.
The increasing weight and height of boys and girls over the past century due to improved health and nutrition has been associated with earlier onset of puberty. While, malnutrition, high altitude, chronic infections, and chronic illnesses, such as inflammatory bowel disease and cystic fibrosis, in which nutritional status and weight gain are impacted, have all been associated with a delay in the onset.
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MYTH: Milk from rbST-supplemented cows is not as “good” — not as nutritious or tasty — as milk from non-supplemented cows.
ReplyDeleteFACT: Milk produced by cows supplemented with rbST is indistinguishable from milk produced by other cows — all milk is the same. Regardless of the farm production practice, milk from cows that are rbST-supplemented, rbST-free, and organic is compositionally similar.19
The nutritional and taste characteristics remain the same for all milk as it comes from the cow.
MYTH: rbST use is not “green.”
FACT: Improving milk productivity improves environmental sustainability. Six cows supplemented with rbST will produce the same amount of milk as 7 non-supplemented cows (image). Therefore the farmer needs less feed, water, and resources to make the same amount of milk.20 Increasing productivity is the key element in environment stewardship.
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MYTH: rbST increases mastitis incidence in cows and may cause antibiotic resistance.
FACT: The risk that cows receiving rbST may experience mastitis (infection in the udder) is much smaller than the risk from the environment and milking procedures and can be managed like all other risk factors on the dairy.21
There have been post-approval publication of studies involving hundreds of commercial dairy herds and publication of large experimental data summaries. Variables have included mastitis incidence, cultures for mastitis organisms, somatic cell counts, culling rates and veterinary costs. These studies found no evidence that commercial use of rbST represented a significant concern for mastitis or antibiotics.22
Scientific evidence does not support a widespread, emerging resistance among mastitis-causing bacteria to antibitotics.23
Milk pasteurization further helps ensure milk safety.
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MYTH: rbST is harmful to the welfare of animals.
FACT: rbST is not harmful to the welfare of animals.
rbST does not alter the stayability (the length of time a cow stays in the herd) and herd-life of animals. A field study of 340 herds, more than 80,000 cows and 200,000 lactations reported on the positive well-being of the animals, through variables such as cow performance and average age, which are the best indications of well-being.24
https://www.globaldairyinnovation.com/dairy-milk-production/rbst-treated-cows.aspx#good
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ReplyDeleteLet's try this another way William. Your willingness here to engage endlessly on the "facts" about whether this is healthy or not is a nice distraction. So instead of continuing that, why not give us a breakdown of what good has come from using rbst?
ReplyDeletePart of what annoys me so much about our current ag system is that we have gone to using unnatural methods to increase yields only to then enact a government program of some kind of to help shore up the falling price of commodities due to increased production. Of course, Libertarian types decry such things, but it's not like they do anything to end them. Big ag corporations have broken the concept of family farms. rbst use is only one of multiple interventions by corporate America to to make animals or the earth overproduce and then taxpayers make up the difference when supply drives the price down. Oh, and of course, big ag corps own a lot of farms.
Angie, while I appreciate your efforts here to highlight what's out there regarding negative effects rbst can have on animals, I'm not sure you realize the sheer volume of cruelty that is inflicted on farm animals that are grown purely to be food. We don't have an ounce of respect for their well being and if you say a genuine prayer of thanks to God for the animal that gave its life to feed you, then good on you. I don't think the majority of Americans give a fuck what happens to the animals as long as they can get cheap hamburgers or chicken breasts.
Yes Max facts can be a distraction to a Marxist. As far as a breakdown please reread the various texts that I transcribed for numerous reasons why rbST and GMO's have benefit.
DeleteYour disdain for people banding together to form corporations to create large scale profitable enterprises that produce immeasurable benefit to society is well documented.
For once why not produce facts that contradict my arguments instead of talking in circles Max?