Milkin' It

More use of growth hormones would boost sustainability of dairy industry, says study

Posted at 2:00 PM on 01 Jul 2008

Shooting up cows with artificial growth hormones increases the sustainability of the dairy industry, claims a new study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. "Giving rbST to 1 million cows would enable the same amount of milk to be produced using 157,000 fewer cows," says the study, thus easing the impact that giant dairy-cow operations have on the land, water, and air. "Supplementing cows with rbST on an industry-wide scale," says researcher Judith Capper, would "reduce the dairy industry's contribution to water acidification, algal growth, and global warming." So would getting rid of CAFOs altogether, but maybe that's just quibbling. Artificial growth hormones have been banned in the European Union out of concern for animals' health; hormones have also been linked to breast, prostate, and colon cancer.

sources: Agence France-Presse, ScienceDaily
see also, in Gristmill: Starbucks vows to make 100 percent of its milk rBGH-free

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Comments: (19 comments)

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Refuse to be cowed!

And you could get by with fewer workers without those pesky overtime laws. Some squeezes turn out bad for everybody. Bovine growth hormones are just one of those.

Eat what you grow, grow what you eat

by PermieWriter at 5:05 PM on 01 Jul 2008

Not Good News Here

Milk that has no added hormones and is antibiotic free is all I buy. The Horizon brand went under fire recently for supposedly not being organic enough in letting their cows roam free. They are a reliable source of hormone free milk and that's what I consider organic.

by raspberryberet at 5:14 PM on 01 Jul 2008

conflict of interest!

My boyfriend (being the ever diligent scientist he is) dug up the actual abstract from PNAS and saw the following CONFLICT OF INTEREST STATEMENT:

Conflict of interest statement: R.A.C. is a full-time employee of Monsanto, holding the position of Technical Project Manager for POSILAC rbST with the primary responsibility of ensuring the scientific integrity of Monsanto publications about POSILAC; he also owns Monsanto stock. D.E.B. consults for Monsanto in areas outside the environmental impact area and owns no Monsanto stock. J.L.C. and E.C.-G. have no conflict of interest.

Yup, see for yourself at http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/abstract/0802446105v1

Unbelievable!!!

by vyzl at 7:24 PM on 01 Jul 2008

"sustainability" again!

"Sustainability" is a lovely ideal, indeed a sine qua non (the non amounting to, "Without sustainability of the things that we need to live, well, many of us will just have to lie down and die, sooner or later, mostly sooner"). But let us all beware its false application for the purpose of green-washing this or that questionable activity.

As it is, given that the CAFO system is solidly in place, with no one in power trying to abolish it, dairy cows are arguably the most abused single group of mammals on Earth. The recent series of HSUS videos of abuse of "downer cows," former dairy cows, eventually exhausted and moribund at an early age (a couple more videos have been released since the attention-getting one last winter), hardly begin to scratch the surface.

So why should adding to the cows' exploitation by "shooting them up" be "sustainable"?

When we treat animals as resources, and as machines, we cannot expect the result to be "sustainability."

Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.

by caniscandida at 1:42 AM on 02 Jul 2008

Cows milk?

Calves are the only ones that need cows milk! We don't need it in any form. Please, say no to all dairy.

by kati at 7:59 AM on 02 Jul 2008

I only needed my own (human) moms milk!

I only needed my own (human) moms milk! I do not need watered down milk that should only have been to the calf - oh sorry I mean Veal!

I love all the usual sweet offerings, and I can make them all without the use of dairy. There are two books that have loads of great recipes: "Vegnomicon" and "Vegan Baking". Both excellent are books.

Anyway, US is so behind in human health concerns and animal welfare, its not even worth discussing this things.

I only have this one life, so I am going to try my very best to make a positive change. --- The Happy & Healthy Vegan ---

by javaearth at 8:19 AM on 02 Jul 2008

Aha...

Thanks, vyzl. It's good to see that someone is on top of things with regards to this issue. My hometown Company up to its usual hijinks. Unfortunately, this will show up in the Post-Fishwrap(Dispatch) as a completely uncritical press release puff piece in the Bidness section. "Monsanto stock trades higher on Bgh study" probably will be the headline. The PD is not at all atypical of American newspappers these days. Interesting, though, isn't rbST the trademarked name of Monsanto's own bovine growth hormone? Or is it merely a chemical class? 'Twould be a little odd that the study only focused on one product for scrutiny. It appears that Ms. Capper(J.L.C.) is one of the two study authors who has no "conflict of interest". I bet the marketing people advised that the person taking questions on this not have any affiliations with Monsanto. Don't want to provoke any questions from a journalist who might be willing to perform his/her job.

The mellotron is your friend.

by archigeek at 8:24 AM on 02 Jul 2008

This is your milk and beef lunch and dinner

This is your milk and beef lunch and dinner.

http://video.hsus.org/index.jsp?fr_story=27958d7bf4de8b77 ...

I only have this one life, so I am going to try my very best to make a positive change. --- The Happy & Healthy Vegan ---

by javaearth at 8:25 AM on 02 Jul 2008

major flaw of the study

is rather obvious. For some reason the authors assume that less cows with more production equals to less feed needed. A bizzare assumption, considering that the cows will increase their food intake, since they get bigger and bigger: both in size and udder size. So, umm, how is 832,000 fat cows better than 1,000,000 normal cows, when they weigh an equal amount, which means they eat the same. Made no sense to me when I first read the study, but now that I saw the conflict of interest statement, I realize that it's just BS. Plus it's not exactly a top-tier journal to begin with.

Baloney.

by atreyger at 9:27 AM on 02 Jul 2008

Soy milk?

Maybe for a "control," they should have used soy milk instead. Something tells me you can get a lot more "milk" from an acre of soy than from an acre of soy fed to cows, regardless of how fat, diabetic, and hormonal they are.

The BS continues. But if it makes you all feel better about continuing to support the dairy industry, go ahead and believe it.

How we Americans survived before homogenized, pasteurized, mass-produced, industro-milk was invented is a complete mystery to me.

Il faut cultiver notre jardin.

by John former Marine at 11:12 AM on 02 Jul 2008

Quite a betrayal.

I noticed the Conflict-of-Interest statement also. I cannot believe Grist ran this story without mentioning it explicitly. I am deeply disappointed with Grist. I am absolutely stopping my financial support of this site if they don't make clear what happened. How could they do this? They can get support from Monsanto if they want to run advertising for them. This is absurd.

--Russell Dale

"The executive of the modern state is but a committee for managing the common affairs of the whole bourgeoisie." Karl Marx, from the Communist Manifesto.

by russelleliotdale at 5:59 PM on 02 Jul 2008

HSUS video; Grist's culpability (?)

Thanks, JavaEarth, for the link to that video. I too had recently seen it, and had it in mind. The shot of the cow on the ground, lashed by a hind leg to a tractor and being dragged, is surely about as pathetic and revolting as a video can get.

To Russell:
Grist is certainly not shilling for Monsanto. They can explain what happened, if they wish, but my guess is they know their readers well enough to assume that we will not take the claim of the study seriously.

(There is, by the way, a vertebrate paleontologist named Dale Russell, who last I know was associated with the National Museum of Natural History in Ottawa. He is the one who, back in the late 1970s, came up with the idea that had the non-avian dinosaurs not gone extinct 65 million years ago, a very intelligent dinosaur such as the small theropod Saurornithoides might have become ancestral to a lineage of hominid-like descendants, i.e. fully upright, with tail absent and opposable thumbs. The renowned dino sculptor Stephen Czerkas created a full-sized interpretation of what such a being might have looked like. The idea bore much fruit in science fiction, where many alien races are presented as intelligent reptiles.)

Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.

by caniscandida at 11:26 PM on 02 Jul 2008

Grist and Monsanto.

Thank you for your thoughts caniscandida. My point is that for Grist to report the way it did about this report is highly irresponsible. They write at the end of the piece some things that make it clear to those "in the know" that there are real problems with rBST, but they pitch the story as if there is some reason to take the report at its face value when it is really a piece co-researched and co-written by people paid by Monsanto. For Grist not to report this is unconscionable. I send many young students to Grist. Not everyone is going to understand what is going on with this piece and I can't understand the rhetorical process that the writers and editors went through to put this piece out. It seems a bizarre concession to Monsanto, as if saying, "Well, okay, perhaps rBST does help with the question of sustainability," without a single critical word on that issue or on the straightforward relevant facts of the report the Grist piece is based on (the conflict of interest statement).

Yours,
Russell

"The executive of the modern state is but a committee for managing the common affairs of the whole bourgeoisie." Karl Marx, from the Communist Manifesto.

by russelleliotdale at 6:15 AM on 03 Jul 2008
[ Parent ]

(Oh, yes, and Dale Russell.)

(Yes, I know of Dale Russell. :D I am the philosopher, Russell Eliot Dale, though.)

"The executive of the modern state is but a committee for managing the common affairs of the whole bourgeoisie." Karl Marx, from the Communist Manifesto.

by russelleliotdale at 6:17 AM on 03 Jul 2008
[ Parent ]

Looking at the real cost of rBGH

The news that rBGH may help to reduce carbon footprints was certainly a surprise to me and many others I am sure. Aside from the Monsanto connections in the study, the overall analysis presents several problems. First and foremost, is that none of the emissions created by producing, packaging and transporting rBGH were considered in the overall analysis. Without a supporting life cycle analysis of rBGH it is too early to claim that it can reduce overall emissions and "hoofprints" based solely on production. As well, the study assumes that organic milk production drops 20% (not necessarily true) and does not take into account sequestration from pasture raised animals. Bottom line- the study is premature and fails to consider a variety of factors that are traditionally necessary in peer-reviewed life cycle analysis'.

Meredith Niles Cool Foods Campaign Coordinator The Center for Food Safety www.coolfoodscampaign.org www.centerforfoodsafety.org

by Meredith Niles at 7:40 AM on 03 Jul 2008

Yum yum bring on the pus in my milk!

How ridiculous! rBGH causes mastitis in cow which leads to pus in their milk. If you want more of that by all means inject away! (tongue very much in cheek)

"For as long as space endures, and for as long as living beings remain, until then may I too abide, to dispel the misery of the world." - Shantideva

by mtvyfan at 7:50 AM on 03 Jul 2008

mmm....breast cancer is so creamy...

Have any of you noticed that Race for the Cure's main sponsor is Yoplait? How ironic since the growth hormones in milk are known to be one of the main causes of breast/colon/prostate cancer.

I'd like to see Pepsi and Coke come up with a campaign to cure diabetes and Exxon come up with a plan to wean us off foreign oil

Il faut cultiver notre jardin.

by John former Marine at 8:50 AM on 03 Jul 2008

Response to comments

As the first author on the paper, I find it interesting that the majority of comments in response to this article have no factual or scientific basis, and indeed do not criticize the science, instead making personal attacks on the authors and institutions involved. The purpose of the peer-review process is to ensure that papers have a sound scientific basis and draw valid conclusions - papers that make invalid or biased assumptions do not make it to publication unchallenged. The paper is freely available here: http://www.pnas.org/content/105/28/9668.full.pdf+html and therefore can be read by anybody.

Please note that the conclusions that we have drawn, i.e. that rbST use enables the US dairy industry to produce the same amount of milk using fewer cows, feed, cropland and therefore less greenhouse gases, are not unique to our paper. Scientific reports from the National Research Council/National Academy of Sciences, Environmental Protection Agency, and the Executive Branch of the Federal Government have all come to the same conclusion.

Regulatory agencies in more than 50 countries have confirmed that rbST use is safe and does not represent a human health concern. Worldwide, no country has `banned' rbST use and there are no import/export restrictions on dairy products from cows supplemented with rbST. There are always issues where knowledgeable scientists disagree, but the safety of milk produced by rBST-supplemented cows is not one of them.

Dr Jude Capper Animal Science Department Cornell University

by DrJudeCapper at 1:47 PM on 23 Jul 2008

Response to specific comments

In response to specific comments:

Archigeek - I was quoted as the lead author, regardless of Monsanto connections

Atreyger - Please read the paper. You'll see that we did account for the extra feed intake of rbST-supplemented cows. However, to suggest that cows eat enough to become 'fat' and weigh as much as one million unsupplemented animals is nonsensical. The increase in feed intake only serves to produce the extra milk, not to lay down fat.

Meredith Niles - 1) If you read the paper, you'll see that we did account for rbST manufacture. 2) We researched a number of scientific studies comparing organic and conventional milk production and the drop in yield with organic ranged from 14% to 42%. 20% was therefore a conservative estimate. 3) Pasture sequestration only occurs in the first 20-25 years following conversion from cropland and our organic comparison was for 2040. We did not include the sequestration data in the paper, but using published rates, organic production only reduced its carbon footprint by 1.7% through pasture sequestration.

Dr Jude Capper Animal Science Department Cornell University

by DrJudeCapper at 1:50 PM on 23 Jul 2008
[ Parent ]

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