April 16

Did you know that last year Wal-Mart announced that its store-brand milk, Great Value, will only come from dairies that have pledged not to treat its cows with rBGH (recombinant bovine growth hormone aka rBST)?

Wal-Mart is the lastest of the retailers that are responding to consumer demand and changing its products. Safeway, Inc also changed its store brand milk. Sam's Club will also being offering milk choices from cows not treated with the hormone.

Thank G-d, there are now options.

Conventional, non-organic milk mostly comes from cows treated with rBGH. So, what's the problem?

RBGH/Posilac is an animal drug manufactured by Monsanto. It's injected into cows to increase milk production. Treated milk has "higher levels of the hormone insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF-1). IGF-1 is one of the most powerful growth hormones in the human body and is naturally present in cows' milk."
There have been evidence showing that a link b/w rBGH and breast, colectoral, and prostate cancer.

Check out the Harvard study:
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/279/5350/563

Not only that, injected cows get mastitis infections which are treated with antibiotics. The antibiotics doesn't just go away, folks. We become more anti-biotic resistant-which causes other problems!

RBGH is banned in the European Union, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and Japan.

This cancer link prompted the "American Nurses Association to call for the elimination of rbGH in dairy production. The American Medical Association's past president urged hospitals to serve only rbGH-free milk, and over 160 hospitals have already pledged to do so. Schools nationwide have also banned drugged milk."
(I'm hoping these include schools in African American neighborhoods...)

I am thrilled for retailers like Wal-Mart and organizations that are making changes. Since last year, Starbucks have been only using rBGH free milk!

There is still more work to be done.

On April 3, a bill was passed in Kansas. Milk products that are from non-injected cows will be labeled as such. OK. Here's the catch: In the similar font and size will be an accompanying label stating "The FDA has determined that no significant difference has been shown between milk derived from rbGH-supplemented and non-rbGH-supplemented cows."

Is that really true?
"Studies normally used to determine whether a drug is carcinogenic will test two different species for about two years--the lifetime of mice or rats. But Monsanto tested rbGH on rats for 28 or 90 days. FDA official John Scheid later admitted to the Associated Press that the agency had never actually examined the raw data from Monsanto's rat feeding study; rather they based their conclusions on a summary provided by Monsanto."

Check out http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeffrey-smith/fda-promotes-unsafe-milk_b_184886.html

This can cause a lot of confusion in consumers.

There have been 29 groups writing letters to Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebilius (who was chosen by Obama to become Secretary of Health and Human Services) to veto the bill.

The deadline to veto this bill is April 16.

Here's a copy of the letter:
http://www.consumersunion.org/pub/core_food_safety/010910.html

Consumer protest IS effective. It has made changes already, and it can do MORE. Not just for us but for future generations.

You can take action by either writing a letter to Governor Sebilius or sending an email via website http://www.responsibletechnology.org/GMFree/TakeAction/GovernorSebilius/index.cfm


G-d bless!