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)?
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.
Several of the largest grocery story and restaurant chains have also announced that they are going rBGH-free. Safeway reported that all of its stores in the Northwest have stopped accepting rBGH, this coming shortly after Starbucks reported all of its shops in Oregon and Washington were no longer serving rBGH products, as well as in other selected markets. Our task is now to get Starbucks to go completely rBGH-free nationwide at all of its 8,500 outlets. In Dec. Chipotle pledged to offer only rBGHÂfree sour cream at all of its 585 restaurants by the end of 2007. Rumor has it that Walmart, Krogers, and other retail giants are also putting pressure on dairy suppliers to go rBGH free as soon as possible.
Monsanto has suffered numerous rebukes for its other genetic tinkering activities over the last few years. Thanks to staunch opposition from the U.S. baking industry which knew it would lose its overseas markets, Monsanto on May 2004 withdraw its plans to introduce Round-Up Ready (RR) wheat to farm fields on the high plains. In May 2006 Indian farmers successfully argued before the Monopolies and Restrictive Trade Practices Commission that Monsanto was charging an “unjustified” technology fee on patented Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) cotton, opening the way for compensation claims. Hundreds of bankrupt farmers have been committing suicide in India as their Bt cotton yields plummeted to 200 kg/acre  far below the 1500 kg/acre promised by Monsanto. Lastly, in response to a lawsuit filed last year by farm groups, environmentalists, and consumer advocates, a federal judge in northern California issued an injunction on March 12, 2007 against further seed sales of Monsanto’s Round-Up Ready (RR) alfalfa pending a thorough USDA environmental impact statement. Besides genetically engineered papaya (which has already destroyed much of the organic papaya industry in Hawaii), RR alfalfa was the only other perennial crop that had been approved for commercial production in the U.S.
Monsanto’s public relations wing is now working overtime, trying to salvage its rBGH flagship, with a well-funded campaign to smear grassroots critics, spread doubt about labels among consumers, and to convince farmers that it is somehow their “right” to use expensive dangerous patented technologies that undermine their own economic viability. To give some examples, Dennis Avery of the rightwing Hudson Institute’s Center for Global Food Issues has created such misinformation websites as Milk is Milk and Stop Labeling Lies, while Dairy Business Communications, recently launched its “Voices for Choices” campaign, ostensibly to safeguard the public image of the dairy industry by defending Monsanto’s rBGH. Dubious front groups, such as the National Organization for African-Americans in Housing (NOAAH), have been cranking out pro rBGH opinion articles, arguing that greater access to healthier food for which farmers get a fairer price is somehow preying on lower income people. Posilac peddlers are also scouring the countryside, offering up to three months of the drug for “free” to any dairy farmer willing enough to sign Monsanto’s one sided contract and consign their cows to a short brutal life of one and half lactations.
Renewing the offensive, on Feb. 20th 2007 a citizen petition was submitted to the FDA on behalf of the Cancer Prevention Coalition, Family Farm Defenders, and the Organic Consumers Association requesting a suspension of rBGH approval pending a reevaluation of its human health hazards and citing a section of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act that enables the commissioner to proactively label products with a cancer risk warning. While no one should hold their breath expecting favorable action by the FDA, the petition has already generated more media coverage and is another opportunity to raise public awareness. With the imminent demise of rBGH, it is now time to put on trial all other genetically engineered organisms (GMOs) contaminating our food/farm system, demand a moratorium against any new introductions, and promote food sovereignty as an alternative to this corrupt industrial agribusiness model.