Subject: Re: rBGH - Laugh OF THE DAY!

From: [email-masked] (Rich Young)
Date: 27 Jan 1996 15:10:38 GMT

The following may be of some interest in Betty Martini's continuing
	efforts to make the world believe her fairy tale.

	Note follow-ups.

===========================================================================

Subject: SAMUEL EPSTEIN NEWS
Date: Wed, 24 Jan 1996 21:37:06 -0600

Groups Defend BST, Assail Study, St. Louis Post-Dispatch,
January 23, 1996, by Robert Steyer
*****************************************************************

Prominent health organizations Monday assailed as inaccurate
an Illinois physician's allegations that Monsanto's cow drug BST can
increase the risk of certain cancers in humans.
"There is no convincing information that would warrant
frightening the public like this," said Dr. M. Roy Schwarz, group
vice president for professional standards at the American Medical
Association.  "This paper is just bunk."
Schwarz was referring to an article published by Dr. Samuel
S. Epstein, professor of occupational and environmental medicine at
the University of Illinois Medical Center in Chicago.
Epstein did not conduct new research.  He has compiled other
articles to support his contention that milk from cows injected with
BST is a "potential risk factor" for breast cancer and colon cancer.
"His conclusions are based on assumptions that we consider
to be blatantly false," said Dr. Stephen Sundlof, director of the
Food and Drug Administration's Center for Veterinary Medicine.
The FDA says milk from BST-treated cows has the same
nutritional value and composition as milk from untreated cows. The
FDA says there is "virtually no difference" in the milk.
"There are no valid scientific findings to indicate a risk
of human carcinogenesis," the Cancer Society said Monday, repeating
its 1994 evaluation.

===========================================================================

Subject: Consumer Group Backs Off Milk Health Risk Claim
Date: 27 Mar 1995 16:11:48 GMT

Source: PR Newswire

WASHINGTON, March 22 /PRNewswire/ via NewsPage -- Consumers Union (CU), a
leading activist against the use of the synthetic rBST protein hormone that
boosts cows' milk production, has backed off claims that milk from BST-
supplemented cows poses a health threat to humans.

In what appeared to be a major concession to the dairy industry, CU president
Rhoda Karpatkin stated in a letter to Time editors (3/13/95): "We do not
consider bovine somatotropin (BST) an imminent health hazard, and do not think
its use in cows should make consumers afraid to drink milk." While CU still
advocates mandatory labelling of milk from BST-supplemented cows, the
concession on health risks contradicts earlier claims by Michael Hansen, who
leads CU's battle against rBST.

The Dairy Coalition, which represents U.S. dairy producers and processors,
neither endorses nor opposes the use of rBST. The Coalition maintains that the
safety of milk was never in question. "Every leading scientific body reviewed
the research and said it is safe," said Jim Barr, CEO of the National Milk
Producers Federation. "When you ask the Food and Drug Administration, the
National Institutes of Health, the American Dietetic Association, the World
Health Organization, and the Journal of the American Medical Association, they
all say the science is clear. The milk is the same."

The concession by CU comes after an FDA report that no unusual problems were
found among cows given rBST last year, despite activist predictions to the
contrary. Conceding that the risks to humans are "largely theoretical."
Karpatkin appeared to retreat from earlier CU claims that the hormone led to
increased mastitis in cows and, therefore, increased the risk of antibiotics in
our milk.

According to E. Linwood Tipton, president and CEO of the International Dairy
Foods Association, the retreat by Consumers Union is warranted. Citing recent
data from the Milk Industry Foundation (MIF), Tipton criticized the activists
for not being up-to-date on their science. An MIF study showed that only 0.07
percent of the 1.7 million drug residue tests conducted in 1993 was positive;
that milk was destroyed. This study, according to Tipton, resolves concerns
raised in a 1992 GAO report cited often by Hansen. "After the GAO report," said
Tipton, "we upgraded milk monitoring significantly. Hansen just hasn't
acknowledged that."

"Every tanker of milk is tested for antibiotics before it reaches the plant,"
said Tipton. "Milk is tested for `off-label' drugs, as well as those most used
in treating mastitis. If the milk tests positive for antibiotics, it is
destroyed and the farmer is penalized. No food is more closely monitored today
than milk."

Barr indicated that since FDA approval of rBST last year, consumer confidence
in milk remains strong. "Sales went up when compared with a year ago," he said.
"It was a good year for the dairy industry."
===========================================================================

--

- Rich Young

(E-mail will be posted publicly as I see fit.  You have been warned.)