Health updates

The following is new information regarding Monsanto’s recombinant (genetically engineered) bovine growth hormone (rBGH), also known as recombinant bovine somatotropin (rBST), being driven off the market.

Monsanto’s bovine growth hormone being driven off the market

The Organic Consumers Association has been working to educate and mobilize consumers and retailers (Starbucks, for example) to boycott milk and dairy products derived from Monsanto’s recombinant (genetically engineered) bovine growth hormone for almost 10 years.

The synthetic hormone is banned in most of the world, due to its links to prostate and breast cancer. Although it is still being injected into thousands of dairy herds in the U.S., grassroots pressure from health-minded consumers and public interest groups have caused Starbucks, Chipotle and many supermarket chains to put pressure on their dairy suppliers to stop using the drug.

Monsanto is furious that consumers have been educated about the dangers of rBGH, but with recent polls showing that 80 percent of consumers are concerned about artificial hormones in their food, there is little the biotech giant can do to stop rBGH from being eliminated from our foods.

Recent marketplace developments regarding rBGH

• California Dairies Inc., which produces 8 percent of the U.S. milk supply, has banned the use of rBGH.

• Food retail giant, Kroger, recently announced they will be banning rBGH in all of their stores by February 2008.

• All milk produced in Oregon is now rBST-free.

• In May, Publix Super Markets, with 900 stores in the South, went rBST-free in its branded milk products.

• Starbucks Coffee Company has already committed to making 100 percent of the chain’s milk supply free of artificial growth hormones by December 31, 2007.

Resource: www.organicconsumers.org. 

Reprinted from AzNetNews, Volume 26, Number 5, October/November 2007.