On Sat, 26 Aug 2000 11:52:48 -0400 siobhan <[log in to unmask]> writes:
> <<I have read that dairy products contain a naturally occurring
> growth
> hormone
> IGF-1 (in addition to man-made growth hormones that are given to
> cows to
> purportedly increase milk production) that may be detrimental to
> humans.  >>
Article I share with many friends,  there is more, but too long to share
all at once......will send via several posts
Trish
Monsanto's Genetically Modified Milk Ruled Unsafe by the United Nations

CHICAGO, Aug. 18, 1999 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ -- 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 the1993 European moratorium on Monsanto's genetically
engineered hormonal milk(rBGH). This unexpected ruling,
revealingly greeted by the U.S. press with deafening silence, 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 rolein 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, andan
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 ofrBGH".

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.
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