Dairy industry Forces rBST-Free Label Ban

From the December 2007 Issue of Voices!

In my story I tell readers that the Ag Dept spokesperson Chris Ryder told me they didn't take attendance at the food label advisory committee meeting that was called to discuss milk labeling (even though that never shows up on the written agenda). But one attendee at the meeting now tells me that in fact there is a list of who attended - and here it is:

Food Labeling Advisory Committee Meeting 10/5/07

Please Send Your Message about Growth Hormone to Gov. Rendell NOW!

A new blog entry we posted for our friends in Oregon, Rick North and Oregon Physicians for Social Responsibility.

Left of Centre http://thorsteinveblen.blogspot.com
 

1. The level of rBGH in milk of cow treated with the hormone is too low to detect and there is no stated direct health risks to humans from rBGH..
2. Cows treated with rBGH produce elevated levels of IGF-1 which may be a health hazard in humans, however whether there are detectable levels in the milk of cows which are treated with rBGH is not unambiguously stated.
3. Cows treated with rBGH have higher rates of mastitis which requires treatment with anti-bodies which do show up in milk in detectable levels. This can lead to antibiotic resistant pathogens. This problem is not unique to cows treated with rBGH.

It is reasonable to me to require that only meaningful, objectively verifiable claims be made on food labels, because such a requirement ultimately protects the consumer. Since chemical tests cannot detect rBGH in milk, this would certainly rule out a label which states "This Milk is rBGH Free". On the other hand, a regime could be set up to verify the claim "This Milk Comes From Cows Which Were Not Treated With rBGH". For example, one could require random blood tests for the herd from which such milk came.

On the issue of IGF-1, it appears to me that, to the extent that it is a health hazard, the best approach is to deal with it directly. Set a maximum safe level for it in milk. Test milk for its presence and require that milk which exceeds the level cannot be sold.

Antibiotics in milk should be treated in a similar fashion to IGF-1.

I am left unconvinced that rBGH is a major health hazard, but if there is consumer demand for rBGH-free milk and there is no danger to the consumer from such milk, then I say give them what they want, with the proviso of meaningful, verifiable labeling.

PS. I like the new interface. 

Veblen, I have to wonder why Monsanto can test for the most microscopic of entities in their products, develop products at the genetic level, and yet hasn't developed a test for rBST - maybe because that's against its interests? Any chance of that?

But the scientific debate creates a distraction. Like you said, if it's what people want...We have certification for organics and we can develop certification for rBST-free if necessary. In fact I was speaking to folks in Harrisburg today and it looks like what Dep. Sec. Cook in my story refers to will probably happen. These labels won't go away and some kind of verification will be put in place. But I'm sure Monsanto and Co. will come up with a new objection to that (they're already scaring farmers by saying the government will come into your kitchen and check your fridge!)

There would be no minimizing the incredible victory for local organizing over corporate power if these rBST-free label folks win. As for farmers who use rBST, they have to make the same decisions they always have - how to grow a product people will buy. It's not their fault, none of this is their fault, and they deserve a fair playing field. I think it's Monsanto that has made it unfair all along.

Left of Centre http://thorsteinveblen.blogspot.com

I've continued to look into the issue. The Milkweed reports in this month's issue about a test developed at Cornell in the late 90's which tests if milk comes from cows which were given rBGH. It does not test for rBGH residue in milk. Such a test could be used to verfy the claim that the "The Milk Comes From Cow Which Were Not Given rBGH", but not the claim that "The Milk is rBGH-Free"

if this hormone was so safe, why the need to have a monsanto connection at the FDA when it was approved? (a man who wrote by the way the key word into the proposed language "significant" as in there's no significant difference between  milk from cows treated with rbst and those not treated with it). why the label a mile long warning of so many additional health problems for the cows? why do the farmers I talked to only give it to the healthiest of their cows? when i was nursing, i could have a half glass of wine and it went right through me to the kid and knocked her out for the night. you're telling me a drug administered only every two weeks yet powerful enough to make a 1500 pound animal lame isn't passing through her milk?  

look, i have to admit, i buy my milk from weis even though i drive by meyer dairy every day where i could get rbst-free milk. i bought from meyer for some time, but didn't like having to stop yet again after the food store. so there, i'm an educated consumer who still drinks the regular milk. but if a consumer wants to drink the other, how would he ever get educated? monsanto put up this straw dog of premium prices for non-rbst milk to force the state to ban the labels. now it's coming back to bite the ag sec who should've stepped just one foot outside of his comfort zone and talked to people he didn't know or agree with long enough to know this was the dumbest thing the man's probably ever done.  

Left of Centre http://thorsteinveblen.blogspot.com

Suzan, I'm a bit taken aback by your dismissive attitude toward science. The first step in good policy is good science. In fact, as you allude, the genesis of the problem with rBGH appears to have had its origins in conflicts of interest within the FDA when rBGH was first approved. This has placed doubt on the science from which the policy derived. If this problem is to be resolved it will require scientific studies which are free the sort of conflicts seen in the earlier ones.

Listing a series of questions which suggest a problem without actually demonstrating a problem may be a good polemical devise, but it gets us no closer to the truth. For example, you ask

when i was nursing, i could have a half glass of wine and it went right through me to the kid and knocked her out for the night. you're telling me a drug administered only every two weeks yet powerful enough to make a 1500 pound animal lame isn't passing through her milk?

The aforementioned physical factors, together with chemical characteristics such as the polarity of the compound, determine chemical transfer in milk. Figure 2 shows the uptake of benzene (a lipophilic chemical) into milk versus the protein and triglyceride concentration of milk. The uptake of the organic chemical is directly related to milk fat content. However, there is no correlation between the amount of this hydrocarbon and the milk protein level. Nonpolar compounds are easily transported across lipid membranes and can be retained in milk fat due to their lipophilic characteristics (21). Ionic compounds are not expected to partition into milk in this manner. Some weak bases can preferentially enter the milk as a result of the pH gradient that exists between the blood (pH = 7.4) and milk (pH = 8), whereas other ionic compounds are transported into the milk via active uptake mechanisms (22,23).

Additional chemical-specific characteristics that help to determine the extent to which a compound will enter milk are molecular weight, maternal metabolism before transfer to the mammary gland, and protein binding in the plasma or mammary gland. In general, smaller compounds are transferred into mammary tissue more easily than those with high molecular weights (> 200 g/mol) (24). Some chemicals are metabolized within the mammary gland, resulting in lower levels of the original substance available for transfer to the infant (25). When chemicals are bound to protein in milk, they can accumulate, resulting in higher chemical concentrations. However, if protein binding takes place in the plasma, less chemical is available to enter the mammary gland, thereby reducing the milk concentration (26,27).

The idea that what goes into the mother's mouth comes out of her milk isn't correct. Somethings she is exposed do get into the milk others do not. That point aside, I don't think the real health issue here is whether there is rBGH in milk or not. There is BGH in the milk of untreated cow, hence it would be no surprise that there is rBGH in the milk of treated cows. From what I've read both BGH and rBGH are inert in humans.

The big issue from the human health perspective is the IGF-1. There have been studies which associate an elevated level of it in in blood to breast cancer in pre-menopausal women and prostrate cancer in men. There has not been, so far as I've been able to find, any animal model studies which show causation. These studies must be done.

I think there is one issue which we can agree on. The dependency of universities on corporate funding has called into question the independence of academic scientists. It is time reestablish the firewall which once protected academic science from such conflicts. This will, of course require more federal money for academic science.

Finallly, you titled your post testing shmesting, I suppose in response to the revelation that there is a test to determine if milk comes from heards treated with rBGH. The tile seems dismissive, yet you say nothing about the possiblity of using such a test as means of objectively verifying a label. Are you opposed to such an approach?

Veblen, remember the part where for every phd there's an equal and opposite phd? That's what's going on here. The very person who did the testing for the FDA approval study, see my story, is the same one who came up with enough evidence that all these other countries have banned the use of the hormone. I'm no scientist, but I know smoke when I see it, and creating enough smoke around this issue to keep people confused is what Monsanto wants to do. So with so much smoke, who knows which science to believe?

When I used my anecdote I was trying to illustrate the kind of common sense a consumer might use...common sense isn't always right, nor common as they say, but there are an awful lot of women out there who have the intuition - and yeah, science be damned. And that's what's driving this market, it seems. That and the confusion about the science. 

You're right - the IGF-1 is the bigger issue, and what do you do with the Wall Street Journal, which has resources Voices will never have, paying for an independent study that showed the antibiotics passing through the cows at a much higher rate than the industry or regulators will admit? That is yet another concern. So it's not that I'm dismissive of the science, it's that not being a scientist I don't know what to believe, and since I spent three weeks researching this on my "off" time and still don't know,  I doubt most other consumers do either.

So, then what? Then it is a question of: IF I can support a farmer who chooses not to shoot up his cows, (at higher risk to the cows, at a higher usage of antibiotics to treat the cows' mastitis etc)... would I? That choice doesn't exist when you remove the right to label the product. As some folks say, if rBST is so great, or no harm at all, then let the processors label THAT on their labels - "Milk produced with rBST to keep your dairy affordable" since that's what they're claiming anyway...and who knows? They might just find a market in that.

I don't have a lot of time to blog, so if I don't respond in a timely way, that's why, but I'm hoping others will join this debate. 

Left of Centre http://thorsteinveblen.blogspot.com

Organic food is produced by farmers who emphasize the use of renewable resources and the conservation of soil and water to enhance environmental quality for future generations. Organic meat, poultry, eggs, and dairy products come from animals that are given no antibiotics or growth hormones. Organic food is produced without using most conventional pesticides; fertilizers made with synthetic ingredients or sewage sludge; bioengineering; or ionizing radiation. Before a product can be labeled "organic," a Government-approved certifier inspects the farm where the food is grown to make sure the farmer is following all the rules necessary to meet USDA organic standards. Companies that handle or process organic food before it gets to your local supermarket or restaurant must be certified, too.

“We’re going to have to give them some opportunity to prove it, and that only can happen through an independent check, something short of a full-blown organics

Why didn't you try to explain that cryptic reference to organics?

Here is something else to consider about the organic label. It turns out that some dairy farms weren't living up to the spirit of the regulation governing the use of the label. An activist was able to get the USDA enforce the requirements of the organic label. This is the advantage of requiring verifiable criteria for any claim made on a food label.

One final point on consumer choice. If you want milk from cows not treated with rBGH, consider this

Wegmans’ own brand of organic milk appeared in dairy cases in late April, giving customers more choice about the kind of milk they buy and price they pay. Wegmans is one of the first retailers in the nation to offer customers pasteurized fresh organic milk under its own label. Wegmans organic milk is available in half or whole gallon sizes, and in homogenized, 2%, 1%, and fat-free varieties.

Veblen - the last thing I've ever been accused of is having a secret agenda. My agenda is up front. Voices is here to amplify the voices of people and ideas that don't get amplified elsewhere. We challenge authority and celebrate community and if Monsanto and Penn State aren't authority what is? And if these rBST-free folks haven't had their own struggles to organize their efforts, who has? And when, of all things, they beat one of the world's biggest corporations at its own game - marketing - I have to celebrate. And when free marketeers like Monsanto and Terry Etherton go crying to the government to save them from those evil do-gooders, I have to say that's news because it's a contradiction that's got to be hard to live with.

The system to certify organic is expensive. That's one reason, though not the entire reason, why organics cost so much. Monsanto et al are crying on behalf of consumers to keep food affordable (see their front group Pennsylvanians for Affordable Nutrition which deserves its own story - if only we could print all those pages!) So...if the system to certify organic, which is very complex, drives up the food price, and some folks simply want to make the choice of not having that artificial hormone in their milk, why should they have to pay organics prices?  

You Veblen have a little more faith in testing than I do. Talking to dairy farmers I get the sense that testing is sporadic and knowing how our public services get slashed daily in the name of budget cuts (notice we always have enough money to fund the war but never enough to provide safety inspections at job sites or protect our children from their abusive parents) I have to say there's some possiblity there. Again, I can't report that without more proof, but I can express my opinion, which is what this is here. Reading the information from the Wall Street Journal article where a terrifying amount of antibiotics were detected in milk off the shelves doesn't help either. Are they not a legit news organization? Do they have a secret agenda? No, like Voices their agenda is quite up front, so the last thing you expect to see is them blowing a hole through Big Dairy's case that all industrially-produced milk is safe.

Anyway, I gotta go do some payin' work. more later. 

Left of Centre http://thorsteinveblen.blogspot.com

Reading the information from the Wall Street Journal article where a terrifying amount of antibiotics were detected in milk off the shelves doesn't help either.

...[A] Wall Street Journal investigation found 20 percent of milk tested independently had illegal antibiotics in it, according to a report by Chris Bedford of the Animal Welfare Institute. “Other studies have found 38 percent higher levels. These antibiotics can contribute to antibiotic resistance in human consumers,” Bedford reported.

Are traces of these drugs turning up in milk? The FDA, despite its assurances, doesn't have a clue. Last winter, we decided to look for ourselves. We used a testing method that is more comprehensive and more sensitive than the one recommended by the FDA. Independently, The Wall Street Journal decided to do the same. The results became front-page news: residues turned up in four of the 20 milk samples we had collected in the Washington D.C. area, and in 19 of the 50 samples collected by the Journal in ten cities around the country. The drugs that showed up were sulfas, penicillin, streptomycin, and erythromycin.

The "we" in that passage is the Center for Science in the Public Interest. The 19 out of 50 is 38%, hence Mr Bedford's claim that,"Other studies have found 38 percent higher levels," is likely a poorly written reference to the CSPI study, but we really don't know for sure.

The reason for all the interest, during the winter of 1989-1990, in antibiotics in milk is that in 1988 the FDA done some testing which revealed that some milk had antibiotic residue in it. The FDA then embarked on a two year educational program to change farming practices so as to reduce the contamination. It also mandated that the states must each begin to test for antibiotics in milk starting in 1989. These reports were just checking to see if the FDA program worked. Did these report indicate that the FDA had failed?

The FDA did its own study after these reports were made public.

The Food and Drug Administration said today that its most reliable test had found no residues of potentially harmful antibiotics in a nationwide survey of milk, contrary to the findings of earlier tests. But critics immediately challenged the latest results. Concern about the safety of milk was raised in March 1988, when the agency reported that more than half of 70 samples of milk taken in 14 cities were contaminated with antibiotics, which are not permitted in milk.

[...]

The F.D.A. said the new tests showed contamination in the preliminary rounds done with a test called Charm 2 and another test by high-pressure liquid chromatography, which are usually considered reliable. But in a third test, which the F.D.A. considers the most precise, no contamination was found. That test used mass spectrometry, a high-technology method that relies on counting atomic weights. In that test, none of the 70 samples showed any traces of contamination. The F.D.A. said in its statement that it had concluded that the first two tests had produced false results, and that it had complete confidence in the third and ''more specific'' method. It said that the F.D.A. had been perfecting tests for antibiotic residues and that the third method represented the most accurate method available.

Mass spectrometry is an extremely sensitive analytic tool which I would trust over the other methods. ( Are there any analytic chemists out there that want to weigh in this?)  None the less, these discrepancies between these tests begs for additional studies. So what happened?

There were congressional hearings and and a lot of pressure on the FDA to do something. The papers in the early nineties had many stories on the issue. If you have a Schlow Library card, go to their website and search News Bank to read all of the coverage. By the mid-nineties the story drops off the radar. So again, what happened?

Did the FDA get its act together? Did the public loose interest? Without a definitive story which says that the FDA solved the problem, one cannot rule out that it was a loose of interest on the part of the public. However, there is one piece of evidence which suggests that the FDA got its act together. If you serach the CSPI web site you will find nothing about antibiotics in milk. Had this remained a problem, I think the CSPI would not have dropped it.

Perhaps now the time is right for another independent study. This time out the investigation could look to see if there are differences in antibiotic levels in milk amongst regular milk, rBGH-free milk, and organic milk. Should there be any nutrition grad students out there looking for an MS thesis topic, there's one for you.

Suzan, since we are assuming that you didn't read the WSJ article and Mr. Bradford doesn't mention the concentrations of antibiotics found in the milk, where did you get the idea that,"a terrifying amount of antibiotics were detected in milk off the shelves"? Here's what the CSPI wrote about the antibiotic levels which they found in their samples,

The amounts of animal drugs found in milk are too small to justify a recommendation to stop drinking. But the risk is unnecessary

You know what Veblen? You must be both retired and bored. I, on the other hand, am trying to build an independent newspaper on my off time, (which translates into mentoring a large number of young people and organizing a large number of older people into doing things for the paper on THEIR off time), while I raise a family, hold down a job, promote a book coming out in January and run a household. I asked you once to write for us, and I ask you again, but you won't come out from behind your mask long enough to do that. So continue to spend hours a day digging up great stuff, because if we have readers willing to come to this blog they'll get to see it and that will be a GOOD thing. You're not your best though, when you get insulting (I noticed with the SHV folks as well) not just informative. You're a condescending snob when you get like that, and you don't do your pen name justice.

So track down those primary sources and dig up more and more because that's what Voices readers need. It's great stuff. But there is nothing in writing that will tell you what I found out about the industry organizing to force regulators to jack up milk prices if they didn't find another solution to the problem. That's the fact and we have it in Voices and no place else. THAT's the news. Then there's the fact that these nature-lovin', sandal-flappin, tree-huggin' liberals won the marketing wars against Monsanto. That's big news too, which is why I refused to spend days and days digging up the so-called science on either side of the debate. I expect Voices readers to be a lot like you actually - if they're interested, they'll dig it up for themselves. Thankfully, they have you.

When you're ready to come up with your own stories, and stand by them in print, with a real name at the top let me know. As it is I've indulged this enough. I have to get back to my life now, the one in the real world. Keep up the great work - we love having you here!

This post comes from Voices Reader Bob Baillie -

Governor Rendell's Secretary of Agriculture has proposed banning milk labels
from saying that the milk is free of artificial boving growth hormones - even
when those labels are truthful!

An initial public outcry forced Rendell and Secretary Wolff to back down -
temporarily. However, the ban is still scheduled to go into effect February 1.

It is critical that as many people as possible write to Rendell and demand that
he stop this outrageous order from going into effect. We should demand that the
labels be left alone, that we consumers be treated like adults and given the
information we want so we can make our own choices.

I can't prove that Wolff is taking payoffs from Monsanto, the sole manuracturer
of these artificial hormones. What is certain is that both Wolff and Rendell
are selling out the public to Monsanto.

This is starting to happen in other states, too. At least Ohio and New Jersey
had the decency to hold public hearings. By contrast, in PA, Wolff convened a
phony, stacked, advisory committee comprised of cronies who did what Wolff told
them to do.

There's more info at
http://www.pasafarming.org/milk.htm
PASA has a direct link to the Governor's email:
http://sites.state.pa.us/PA_Exec/Governor/govmail.html

This issue has been covered in the December 'Voices' and on blogs. For example,
http://www.unbossed.com/index.php?itemid=1914

Robert Baillie
State College

As someone who is very much pro-science, it is with some hesitation that I write a title like that.

But the point is, Veblen, that I don't give a rat's ass whether there's any trace of recombinant bgh in the milk or not.

The issue is that I have a right to know the process by which my milk was made. I choose to support farmers who use less of these artificial ingredients. I want the labels to give me the information, so that, as an adult, I can make my own decision.

A blogger did some basic research. They called the phone number on the website of Pennsylvanians for Affordable Nutrition, and guess who answered? Trisha Roberts at Triad Strategies, a lobbying firm. You can read all about it here:

http://www.unbossed.com/index.php?itemid=1866

Voices readers were among the  many who helped Gov. Rendell decide that his secretary of ag's decision to ban rbst-free milk labels was a BAD idea. Freedom of choice and of speech and consumers' right to know all were at issue. One of our readers reported that when he called the governor's office the woman stopped him mid-sentence and said, "Did you read this in Voices?" and he said yes and she said, there will be an announcment later today that will probably please you . She had heard from that many of our readers!

This is what a free press is all about. And this is what a community newspaper is all about. Let's keep it going!