Subject:
UN Rules Genetically Modified Milk Unsafe
Date:
Fri, 20 Aug 1999 09:35:21 -0700
From:
"Bob Mueller" <bobm@lightspeed.wa.com>
Organization:
Lightspeed Design Group
To:
friends@lightspeed.wa.com

Will Genetic Engineering in Food Cost Your Children their "Soul" Force.

Awesome news! Unexpected. This bodes well for humanity versus corporate greed
regarding other food issues, such as hormone implanted beef and genetically
modified organisms.

I wonder if any charges will be filed against the FDA and Monsanto for their
complicity in hiding the facts from, and feeding this substance to an uninformed
populace for 15 years.

bOB

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> Monsanto's Genetically Modified Milk Ruled Unsafe by the United Nations
>
> CHICAGO, Aug. 18, 1999 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ -- The following
> was released today by Samuel S. Epstein, M.D., Professor of
> Environmental Medicine, University of Illinois School of Public
> Health, Chicago:
>
> The Codex Alimentarius Commission, the U.N. Food Safety
> Agency representing 101 nations worldwide, has ruled unanimously
> in favor of the1993 European moratorium on Monsanto's genetically
> engineered hormonal milk(rBGH). This unexpected ruling,
> revealingly greeted by the U.S. press with deafening silence, is
> a powerful blow against U.S. global trade policies which are
> strongly influenced by powerful multi-national corporations, such
> as Monsanto. The Codex Commission ruling has also forced the U.S.
> to abandon its threats to challenge the European moratorium
> before the World Trade Organization later this year. As
> importantly, the ruling represents the first large scale defeat
> of genetically modified foods on unarguable scientific grounds,
> apart from ethical and ideological concerns.
>
> Since the Food and Drug Administration approved the sale of
> unlabeled rBGH milk in February 1994, the U.S. has exerted
> considerable pressure on Mexico and other trading partners to
> approve rBGH in efforts to increase pressure on Europe through
> the World Trade Organization. In this, they have been strongly
> supported by reports from the Food and Agriculture/World Health
> Organization's (FAO/WHO) Joint Expert Committees on Food
> Additives (JECFA), including its latest September 1998 report,
> which unequivocally absolved rBGH from any adverse veterinary and
> public health effects. However, these JECFA committees, besides
> others such as those claiming the safety of meat from cattle
> treated with sex hormones, operate under conditions of
> non-transparency and conflicts of interest, and are predominantly
> staffed by unelected and unaccountable U.S. and Canadian
> regulatory officials and industry consultants with no expertise
> in public health, preventive medicine and carcinogenesis. The
> 1998 JECFA report on rBGH was then submitted to the Codex
> Committee on Residues of Veterinary Drugs in Foods, chaired by
> FDA's Director for Veterinary Medicine Dr. Stephen Sundloff who
> also played a prominent rolein the 1998 JECFA Committee. The
> Codex Committee promptly rubber stamped JECFA's seal of approval
> for rBGH with the confident expectation that this would be
> subsequently endorsed by the parent Codex Commission. However,
> the best laid plans of Monsanto and the FDA were aborted by an
> unexpected turn of events.
>
> Bowing to growing pressure in 1998 by Canadian advocacy
> groups, "dissident" government scientists and the Senate
> Agriculture Committee. Health Canada convened expert committees
> on veterinary and human safety under the auspices of the Canadian
> Veterinary Medical Association and the Royal College of
> Physicians and Surgeons, respectively. Based on conclusions on
> the adverse veterinary effects of rBGH, particularly an increased
> incidence of mastitis, lameness and reproductive problems, Health
> Canada reluctantly broke ranks with the U.S. in January 1999, and
> issued a formal "notice of non- compliance", disapproving future
> sales of rBGH.
>
> Meanwhile, the European Commission had commissioned two
> independent committees of internationally recognized experts to
> undertake a comprehensive review of the scientific literature on
> both the veterinary and public health effects of rBGH. The
> veterinary committee fully confirmed and extended the Canadian
> warnings and conclusions. The public health committee confirmed
> earlier reports of excess levels of the naturally occurring
> Insulin-like-Growth Factor One (IGF-1), including its highly
> potent variants, in rBGH milk and concluded that these posed
> major risks of cancer, particularly of the breast and prostate,
> besides promoting the growth and invasiveness of cancer cells by
> inhibiting their programmed self-destruction (apoptosis). Faced
> with this latest well documented scientific evidence from both
> Canada and Europe, the U.S. bowed to the inevitable and failed to
> challenge the Codex ruling in support of the European moratorium.
>
> It is now 15 years since Monsanto embarked on a series of
> large scale veterinary trials on rBGH all over the U.S., and sold
> milk from these trials to an uninformed and unsuspecting public
> with the full approval of the FDA. Since then, Monsanto and the
> FDA, strongly supported by a network of indentured university
> academics, aggressive lobbying by the National Dairy Council and
> its well organized "hit squads" targeting rBGH opponents, andan
> overwhelmingly uncritical media, have ignored or trivialized
> substantial scientific evidence on the hazards of rBGH milk,
> including a series of publications over the last decade in the
> International Journal of Health Services, the most prestigious
> international public health publication. Also ignored by the
> media have been charges in 1981 by Congressman John Conyers (then
> Chairman of the House Committee on Government Operations), on the
> basis of a leaked confidential Monsanto study revealing serious
> pathology in cows injected with rBGH, that "Monsanto and the FDA
> have chosen to suppress and manipulate animal health test data in
> efforts to approve commercial use ofrBGH".
>
> These considerations reinforce growing concerns on the
> extreme unreliability of Monsanto and other biotech industry
> claims of the safety of genetically modified soy and other foods,
> especially in the absence of comprehensive testing by independent
> scientific experts, who should be funded by industry and not
> consumers.
>
> For more Industry News -
> http://www.npicenter.com/dailynewswire/index.asp
> --
> Nichole Hastings
> Director
> NPICenter.com