(milk) rBGH in the news

[Guest guest]

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Date Posted: 01/19/1999

Posted by: charles.margulis@...

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New York Times

January 19, 1999

Synthetic Hormone in Milk Raises New Concerns

By SUSAN GILBERT

It was the confluence of two important events that made Carol Baxter

start buying organic milk about five and a half years ago. Her oldest

daughter had just turned 1 and soon would move from breast milk to

cow's milk. And American dairy farmers had just received approval to

inject their cows with recombinant bovine growth hormone, a

genetically engineered hormone that increases milk production.

Ms. Baxter, who lives in Palisades, N.Y., knew of environmental

groups' claims that treated cows got more infections and needed more

antibiotics, which could then enter their milk. And she learned that

some scientists had raised the possibility of an increased cancer risk

in people who drank the milk. " Milk is such an important part of a

child's diet, " she said. " I didn't want my child to be a guinea pig. "

The Food and Drug Administration has long dismissed such concerns. In

the journal Science in 1990, two agency scientists concluded that " no

toxicologically significant changes " were seen in rats that ingested

the hormone. The agency's approval of the hormone in 1993 rested on

the strength of that 90-day rat study, which was commissioned by

Monsanto, the manufacturer.

Safety questions about the hormone never went away among

health-conscious consumers, and recently the old questions have

resurfaced in light of new research and a fresh examination of the rat

study.

Last week, the Canadian government said that it would not approve the

synthetic hormone. Canadian scientists reviewed unpublished data from

the study and found health effects that had not been cited in the

Science report. Canada's decision leaves the United States the only

major country to permit use of the synthetic hormone.

In its analysis of the Monsanto rat study, the Canadian scientists

found that 20 percent to 30 percent of the rats that ingested high

doses of the hormone developed antibodies to it, a sign that it was

active in the bloodstream. And some of the male rats developed cysts

on their thyroids and abnormalities in their prostates.

In December, after the Canadian researchers released their findings,

Sens. Leahy and Jeffords, both of Vermont, asked Health

and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala to investigate whether the

FDA overlooked evidence in the case. Dr. Shalala has not yet

responded.

In addition, in December, 21 dairy farmer associations and consumer

groups in the United States said they would file suit against the FDA

for failing to require additional safety studies of the hormone. " The

90-day rat study doesn't show that recombinant bovine growth hormone

is a human health hazard, " said Dr. Hanson, a research

associate for the Consumer Policy Research Institute, a division of

the Consumers Union, one of the groups. " But neither does it show that

there is no possibility of any health hazard, as FDA claimed. It's

clear that FDA has grossly misled us. "

The agency is writing a response to the concerns, said Dr.

Sundlof, director of its Center for Veterinary Medicine. He

acknowledged that the agency had not reviewed the antibody data in the

approval process " for reasons I can't explain. "

He said the agency had seen the information on the thyroid and

prostate effects, but considered them " biologically meaningless "

because they were no more prevalent in rats fed high doses of the

hormone than in those fed low doses. Ordinarily, if a substance like a

drug affects the body, the effects increase as the dose increases.

" Consumers have no reason to be concerned about the milk, " he said.

Monsanto said its product, called Posilac, is safe. Extensive

evaluations have established that the hormone supplements for cows do

not change the composition and wholesomeness of milk, Dr.

Kowalczyk and Dr. Collier, Monsanto scientists, wrote in a

statement released Jan. 12. The scientists point out that the United

Nations Joint Expert Committee on Food Additives, which determines the

safety of residues from veterinary drugs in foods, affirmed in March

that the growth hormone was safe.

Besides the Canadian investigation, two studies published last year

rekindled longstanding worries about a possible increased risk of

cancer from consuming milk from hormone-treated cows. Reports from two

continuing Harvard-based studies, the Physicians' Health Study and the

Nurses' Health Study, found that insulin-dependent growth factor 1, a

protein that is elevated in the milk of hormone-treated cows, is a

strong risk factor for breast cancer and prostate cancer.

Researchers in the study say this protein circulates naturally in the

human body at such high levels that the added amount in treated milk

is unlikely to be noticed. Also, it occurs in breast milk in higher

amounts than in the milk of hormone-treated cows. And, the researchers

say there is no evidence that consuming the substance in food

contributes to cancer risk.

Last January, scientists with the Physicians' Health Study reported in

Science that men with the highest levels of IGF-1 in their blood were

four times as likely to develop prostate cancer as men with the lowest

levels. In May, scientists with the Nurses' Health study reported in

The Lancet that premenopausal women with high levels of IGF-1 had up

to a seven-fold increase in breast cancer risk over those with low

levels. They said the findings suggest " that the relation between

IGF-1 and risk of breast cancer may be greater than that of other

established breast-cancer risk factors, " except for family history and

dense breast tissue.

Dr. Pollack, who was involved with both studies, noted that

the difference between the IGF-1 in milk from untreated cows and

treated cows is relatively small. Levels range from 1 to 9 nanograms

per milliliter of milk from untreated cows and 1 to 13 nanograms per

milliliter of milk from treated cows, the FDA said. And because levels

in human milk are slightly higher, " if there's a biological

difference, one would be most concerned with human milk, " said

Pollack, a professor of medicine and oncology at McGill University

He said that, according to Canadian scientists, the amount of IGF-1

that people consume in cow's milk is less than 1 percent of the total

amount of IGF-1 that naturally circulates in the body, regardless of

what people eat.

Still, he said he could not rule out the possibility that daily

exposure to the small additional amounts of IGF-1 in milk over a

lifetime could increase a person's cancer risk. " It's a hypothetical

concern, " he said.

For one thing, scientists cannot tease out the human health risk of

IGF-1 from foods until they know how much of it remains active in the

body after digestion. But that point is also in dispute.

" When you consume any peptide, like IGF-1, very little of it is

absorbed in an active form, " said Dr. Carolyn Bondy, chief of the

developmental endocrinology branch of the National Institute of Child

Health and Human Development. Dr. Bondy's research found a connection

between abnormal mammary gland growth in female monkeys and high

levels of IGH-1 given to the monkeys, but these IGF-1 levels were far

greater than people get from drinking milk, she said.

Even though the increased amount of IGF-1 in treated milk is small,

Hanson said the possible health effects could not be dismissed. He

cited a 1995 study in the Journal of Endocrinology showing that the

breakdown of IGF-1 in rats is slowed in the presence of casein, a

protein in milk. " If casein increases the half life of IGF-1, the

effects could be dramatic, " he said.

Several experts agree with the Consumers Union and the other parties

in the planned lawsuit against the FDA that more testing is needed to

establish whether bovine growth hormone supplementation is safe. " More

studies need to be done, " said Dr. n Nestle, director of the

department of nutrition at New York University, who opposed the

approval of the hormone as a representative on the drug agency's

advisory panel that approved it.

" The science on the effects of oral ingestion of IGF-1 is incomplete, "

the American Medical Association said in a statement last month, in

response to a reporter's questions.

In the climate of uncertainty, one thing is for sure. Many consumers

want milk without added hormones and antibiotics. Sales of organic

milk nearly doubled to almost $31 billion in 1997, from about $16

million in 1996, according to dairy industry figures.

And Gordon, executive director of Mothers and Others for a

Livable Planet, said demand was strong for its list of milk

manufacturers, organic and nonorganic, whose dairies pledge not to use

the synthetic hormone.

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Copyright 1999 The New York Times Company

Margulis

Greenpeace Genetic Engineering Campaign

736 West End Avenue #8D

New York, NY 10025

fax

charles.margulis@...

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[Guest guest]

To let you all know, VT has been a leader in the fight against rBGH. Ben and

Jerry's uses NO rBGH contaminated products in their ice cream, and there are

several school systems that will not allow rBGH contaminated milk in their

school lunch programs. Just recently, the Hartland, VT school system made

this ruling.

Sheryl