Cornucopia Institute Slams Monsanto Front Group for Spreading Disinformation on rBGH

Hormone Wars: Right-Wing Think Tank Chimes in by Denigrating Oregon Farmers
Cooperative and Their Customers (Letter to the Oregonian Newspaper,
Portland, Oregon)

Your recently published op-ed, submitted by the ultraconservative Hudson
Institute and Oregonians for Food and Shelter, Contriving a Controversy
Concerning Tillamook's Milk, is a slap in the face to Tillamook‹a
democratically controlled, farmer-owned cooperative‹and their customers.

As someone who has spent the past 15 years tracking the socioeconomic
impacts of genetically engineered bovine growth hormone (rBGH) and its
widespread adoption, primarily on factory-scale farms, I felt compelled to
respond to the overall misinformation and factual errors included in
Hudson's blatant attempt to smear the reputation of one of the country's
premier cheese producers. After all, the farmer-owners of the Tillamook
County Creamery Association carefully weighed this issue and, as good
entrepreneurial managers, decided to side with their consumers who had
concerns regarding this technology.

The first bald-faced and outrageous bit of propaganda that this think tank
presented was their claim that the genetically engineered rBGH is a ³carbon
copy² of what the cow naturally produces, and that use of the drug ³doesn¹t
change the milk one bit.² Although the drug, produced through recombinant
DNA technology, is quite similar to what the cow¹s pituitary gland
manufactures, its chain of amino acids and genetic makeup are "novel." The
FDA readily admits this, and of course Monsanto‹the drug¹s developer‹used
these unique characteristics to win a patent for their product.

As for the milk itself, which Consumers Union has said received inadequate
human safety testing, is, in fact, materially different. Furthermore, I
have never heard scientists articulate concerns about rBGH¹s link to
precocious puberty, as Hudson claims. However, some cancer researchers are
concerned that levels of a key component of rBGH-produced milk, IGF-I, an
insulin-like growth factor, are elevated, and further testing on how that
might affect cell growth‹especially in women's breast tissue‹is warranted.

Hudson also claimed that reports by Physicians for Social Responsibility
concerning cows having serious health problems were unfounded. I can
testify that this simply is untrue and is a gross disservice to Oregonian
readers. In 1995, while doing policy work for the Farmers Union, I was
asked by the East Coast farm advocacy group Rural Vermont to write a report
outlining my experience documenting cases of widespread health problems with
cattle. The report (available at
http://www.mindfully.org/GE/Down-On-The-Farm-BGH1995.htm) details
catastrophic problems farmers had encountered after initially trying rBGH.
Sometimes these profound health problems led to the wholesale slaughter of
their dairy herds. These revelations led Monsanto to change their marketing
practices and bring in more technical advisers to help farmers mitigate the
risks of their drug.

But you don't have to trust groups like the Farmers Union, Rural Vermont, or
The Cornucopia Institute, all of which unabashedly support family-scale
farmers in their fight to survive the draconian agribusiness juggernaut that
has forced so many farmers off the land in Oregon and other states. All you
have to do is read the warning insert that the FDA requires in every package
of Monsanto's artificial hormone. Based on preapproval testing, it lists
numerous serious dairy cow maladies that can result from use. Preapproval
testing revealed virulent mastitis infections, commonly requiring stronger
and increased treatments with antibiotics, and sometimes causing the death
of the cow, among a number of other serious problems related to the cow¹s
metabolism and reproduction. Besides increasing milk production, this drug
causes an exponential increase in the stress on the animal and statistically
shortens its lifespan.

Your readers might also be interested in knowing that the Hudson Institute
has received funding from Monsanto and other huge agrichemical corporations.
With the resources available to Hudson and some of their partner
organizations, like Oregonians for Food and Shelter, is it any wonder that
they are promoting their pro-industrial agriculture agenda, and campaign to
discredit organic food, at the expense of farmers dedicated to growing
methods that protect Oregon and its citizens?
__________________________________________________________________________

Contriving a controversy concerning Tillamook's milk
Friday, March 25, 2005 ‹ The Oregonian

ALEX AVERY
and TERRY WITT

Oregon has witnessed a prime-time assault by activist wolves in consumer
clothes, with the Tillamook County Creamery Association, one of the state's
best food ambassadors, as the victim. While private groups or companies
should, of course, have the right to respond to their customers' concerns as
they see fit, there is plenty of evidence that the recent Tillamook
controversy was contrived.

At issue was the use of recombinant bovine somatotropin -- or rbST -- the
FDA-approved cow productivity supplement. Tillamook says it received
"thousands" of complaints from "concerned consumers" demanding its farmers
stop using rbST.

Sold by Monsanto Co. and marketed as Posilac, rbST is a genetically
engineered carbon copy of a cow's natural milk-production hormone, bST.
Farmers use it because it helps increase milk production without additional
feed, water and associated animal wastes. The supplement also cuts costs,
important for many family farmers in today's tight market.
Sadly, activists have been attacking rbST for more than a decade, alleging a
range of human health and animal welfare scares. But that's all they are,
scares.

Using rbST doesn't change the milk one bit. So say the scientists with the
Food and Drug Administration. All cows produce bST naturally, and the milk
from supplemented cows is indistinguishable from milk from non-supplemented
cows. The urban myth that your daughter will go into puberty at the age of 8
by drinking milk from supplemented cows is just that, a myth.

Another baseless scare is that rbST harms cows. The scientific, animal
welfare and medical evidence supporting the use of this product is
overwhelming and comprehensive, explaining why the FDA approved rbST more
than 10 years ago.
Having failed to hoodwink the FDA, anti-biotech activists have switched to
directly attacking companies. Over the past year, the Tillamook Creamery,
the second largest cheese producer in the United States, has been the
target. Rick North of Oregon Physicians for Social Responsibility led the
campaign. With the help of an army of fellow activists -- many backed by
organic food companies -- they inundated Tillamook with so-called "consumer
complaints."

It worked. Hours after Tillamook caved, North sent out an e-mail bragging
about their newest victim. Anyone can verify all of this with a simple Web
search under the terms "Tillamook," "rbST" and "action alert."

North wrote, "If ever there was a demonstration that this genetically
engineered hormone has nothing to offer but increased disease rates in cows
and health risks to consumers, this was it." Isn't it interesting that these
activists believe a few thousand fear-driven complaints are "proof" of
disease and health risks that years of actual scientific research have
failed to identify?

North even admitted that his group never really cared about which way the
Tillamook vote went, writing: "It's funny. But regarding what Oregon PSR
will do now, it really didn't make any difference which way Tillamook voted.
We'll just keep developing our grass roots efforts and continue to educate
the public so they can make well-informed decisions about buying dairy
products. In many ways, we're just getting started."

The vast majority of consumers care about fresh, safe, nutritious,
affordable dairy products. Without prompting, consumers rarely, if ever,
mention farm production issues such as rbST -- unless they are the target of
a fear-based propaganda campaign.

As long as companies allow themselves to be coerced by social activists,
their demands will continue.
Alex Avery is director of research at the Hudson Institute's Center for
Global Food Issues in Churchville, Va. Terry Witt is executive director of
Oregonians for Food and Shelter in Salem.



Mark A. Kastel
The Cornucopia Institute
kastel@cornucopia.org
608-625-2042 Voice
608-625-2043 Fax