Monsanto - How Now Brown Cow?

[nosmokes]

original-infoshop

After decades of being consumed in the U.S., Monsanto's recombinant bovine growth hormone (rBGH) may be headed to the technological dustbin due to human health concerns. Will this be the fate of other genetically modified organisms (GMOs)?



Monsanto - How Now Brown Cow?

By: John E. Peck
Executive Director
Family Farm Defenders

In May 2006 the Journal of Reproductive Medicine revealed problems among expectant U.S. mothers who consumed recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone (rBGH) milk due to elevated levels of Insulin-like Growth Factor One (IGF-1). Subsequent media coverage about “human twinning” left processors and retailers scrambling to cut back on their rBGH milk supplies in hopes of limiting liability. For those of us who have been working to expose the rBGH fraud for the last 20 years, this was the opportune moment to bring back together concerned farmers, consumer advocates, and scientists, pool our expertise, strategize, and help drive the final nail into the coffin of the first genetically modified organism (GMO) allowed to enter the human food chain.

Over 20 years ago when experimental rBGH dairy products were sold illegally, without FDA approval, to students, staff, faculty, and patients at the University of Wisconsin – Madison, Dr. David Kronfeld was one of the first to prove that much of the published research on this patented technology was fraudulent. Dr. Kronfeld was then targeted for ridicule by the drug companies, the researchers, and even university officials themselves. He was ultimately demoted and his career nearly destroyed. At that time his support network was very small, just a handful of farmers and consumers. Many other ethical people who stood up against the corporate driven perversion of the public research agenda of the land grant college system were also punished and silenced. Those who survived those difficult years can take heart in how far the movement has come.

The grassroots resurgence in anti-rBGH activism can be credited to the incorruptible persistence of several key figures. John Kinsman, the dairy farmer who first exposed rBGH fieldtrials at UW-Madison and who now serves as secretary of the National Family Farm Coalition has never given up the ghost on this issue. Neither has Dr. Samuel Epstein, chair of the Cancer Prevention Coalition, who recently compiled years of research on the human health dangers of rBGH in his latest book, What’s in Your Milk?” Richard North of Oregon Physicians for Social Responsibility was instrumental in getting Tillamook to go rBGH-free back in March 2005. Despite years of vicious attempts by Monsanto and Fox News to silence her since her 1997 expose of rBGH use on farms in Florida, Jane Akre remains an inspirational whistleblower. Pete Hardin and his gadfly dairy paper, the Milkweed, have been giving Monsanto's rBGH scathing coverage from the very beginning. Patty Lovera and her colleagues at Food and Water Watch have been equally relentless in their anti-rBGH campaign against Starbucks, as has been longtime anti-GMO activist, Ronnie Cummins, with the Organic Consumers Association. And, of course, there are many others.

When California Dairy Inc. (CDI) President and CEO Richard Cotta, announced that they were going rBGH-free as of Aug. 1st, 2007 based upon “strictly consumer demand,” this sent shock waves through the industry. CDI processes 45% of California’s milk and joins a growing list of other processors who are rejecting Monsanto’s technology, including Dean Foods, Darigold, H.P. Hood, Oakhurst Dairy of New England, United Dairymen of Arizona, and Shamrock Farms of Arizona. Recently dairy farmers shipping to one of the largest dairy cooperatives in the Midwest report that they have have been approached by the co-op’s fieldmen urging them to stop using Posilac (Monsanto’s brandname rBGH) if they are, and to certainly not start using it if they don’t already. Co-op insiders say the decision has already been made to go completely rBGH-free by year’s end.
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complete article and links to further resouces/information here

[fed-up]

1. score ONE for the activists if rBGH finally gets shelved nt

[MorningGlow]

2. Monsanto again!

Day-um--Satan's minions run that company. Speaking of, does Rumsfeld still pull some profit from his ol' alma mater?