• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 1325 0

as part of a mixture called rennet, which had to be extracted from the stomachs of calves and was expensive and of inconsistent composition. Scientists bioengineered the gene for chymosin into bacteria, and the FDA approved the recombinant enzyme in 1990. Such drugs and enzymes elicited few objections from critics of biotechnology, mainly because of the obvious advantages. Transgenic chymosin, for example, does not require the slaughter of baby calves. Also, manufacturers did not publicize its origin, as they saw “little to gain from waving the biotech flag.”4 Transgenic drugs did not become controversial until they affected food more directly, as was the case with the cow growth hormone, recombinant bovine somatotropin (rbST)—a drug that affects milk. Because the approval process for this drug was so evidently political—interweaving considerations of science, safety, commercial objectives, and societal issues—and because it paved the way for subsequent FDA approval of transgenic foods, the case of bovine growth hormone is worth close examination.

The Politics of Bovine Growth Hormone (BGH): More Milk

The politics of this animal drug begin with its very name. Proponents of the drug use the scientific term bovine somatotropin (bST), whereas critics tend to use the more recognizable bovine growth hormone (BGH). Both put an r in front to distinguish the genetically engineered drug from the natural hormone in cows. For simplicity, this chapter uses rBGH. Whatever it is called, the recombinant hormone increases milk production in cows by 10–20%. It proved controversial from the start, and questions about its safety continue to be debated, especially in Canada and Europe. Monsanto developed the bioengineering capacity to create rBGH in the early 1980s, and the company quickly promoted it as a means to increase the efficiency of dairy farming. Although this use might appear to be of great benefit to consumers as well as to farmers, critics soon raised questions about the possibility of adverse effects of the drug on human health, animal welfare, and the economic viability of small dairy farms. Furthermore, consumers would have no choice about whether to buy products resulting from use of the hormone, as milk from cows treated with rBGH (shorthand: rBGH milk) would not be labeled as genetically engineered.5

When the FDA approved rBGH as a new animal drug in 1993, available analytical methods could not easily distinguish milk from treated and untreated cows.6 Because the naturally occurring BGH in cow’s milk was indistinguishable from rBGH, the agency ruled that labeling would be misleading because the milks are the same. Monsanto and other biotechnology companies viewed disclosure as a threat to the future of agricultural biotechnology. If rBGH failed in the marketplace, the entire industry might be in jeopardy. The industry extolled rBGH and the equivalent hormone in pigs as “biotechnological miracles that would give consumers more for their money at less cost to the environment,” but worried that “ignorance, nostalgia and a Luddite view of technology” would prevent the drugs—but also transgenic foods in general—from reaching the marketplace.7

Industry leaders had grounds for concern. By 1989, when Monsanto was testing rBGH on commercial farms in nearly every important dairy state, the drug was already under attack by groups concerned about family farms as well as by those suspicious of any kind of genetic engineering. Several supermarket chains refused to carry milk from rBGH-treated cows, and the owners of Ben & Jerry’s announced that they would label ice cream packages with a statement opposing use of the hormone. Before the drug had even been approved for commercial use, the state legislatures of Wisconsin and Minnesota temporarily banned sales of rBGH. By 1992, four major supermarket chains, two large manufacturers of dairy products, and the nation’s largest dairy cooperative joined the boycott, as did many small farmers, dairy cooperatives, and grocery chains.8

The Safety Issues. Bovine somatotropin stimulates milk production.