China, America and melamine (IHT)

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China, America and melamine
By James E. McWilliams
Sunday, November 16, 2008
AUSTIN, Texas:
China's food supply appears to be awash in the industrial chemical melamine. Dangerous levels have been detected not only in milk and eggs, but also in chicken feed and wheat gluten, meaning that melamine is almost impossible to avoid in processed foods. Melamine in baby formula has killed at least four infants in China and sickened tens of thousands more.
In response, the United States has blasted lax Chinese regulations, while the Food and Drug Administration, in a rare move, announced last week that Chinese food products containing milk would be detained at the border until they were proved safe.
For all the outrage about Chinese melamine, what American consumers and government agencies have studiously failed to scrutinize is the place of melamine in America's own food system. In casting stones, we've forgotten that our house has its own exposed glass.
To be sure, in China some food manufacturers deliberately added melamine to products to increase profits. Makers of baby formula, for example, watered down their product, lowering the amount of protein and nutrients, then added melamine, which is cheap and fools tests measuring protein levels.
But melamine is also integral to the material life of any industrialized society. It's a common ingredient in cleaning products, waterproof plywood, plastic compounds, cement, ink and fire-retardant paint. Chemical plants throughout the United States produce millions of pounds of melamine a year.
Given the pervasiveness of melamine, it's always possible that trace elements will end up in food. The FDA thus sets the legal limit for melamine in food at 2.5 parts per million. This amount is indeed minuscule, a couple of sand grains in an expanse of desert that pose no real threat to public health. Moreover, the 2.5 parts per million figure is calculated for a person weighing 132 pounds - a cautious benchmark given that the average adult weighs 150 to 180 pounds.
But these figures obscure more than they reveal. First, while adults eat about one-fortieth of their weight every day, toddlers consume closer to one-tenth. Although scientists haven't measured the differential impact of melamine on infants versus adults, it's likely that this intensified ratio would at least double (if not quadruple) the impact of legal levels of melamine on toddlers.
This doubled exposure might not land a child in the hospital, but it could certainly contribute to the long-term kidney and liver problems that we know are caused by chronic exposure to melamine.
On a more concrete note, melamine not only has widespread industrial applications, but is also used to buttress the foundation of American agriculture.
Fertilizer companies commonly add melamine to their products because it helps control the rate at which nitrogen seeps into soil, thereby allowing the farmer to get more nutrient bang for the fertilizer buck. But the government doesn't regulate how much melamine is applied to the soil. This melamine accumulates as salt crystals in the ground, tainting the soil.
A related area of agricultural concern is animal feed. Chinese eggs seized last month in Hong Kong, for instance, contained elevated levels of melamine because of the melamine-laden wheat gluten used in the feed for the chickens that produced the eggs.
To think American consumers are immune to this unscrupulous behavior is to ignore the Byzantine reality of the global gluten trade. Tracking the flow of wheat gluten around the world is like trying to contain a drop of dye in a churning whirlpool.
More ominous, the United States imports most of its wheat gluten. Last year, for instance, the FDA reported that millions of Americans had eaten chicken fattened on feed with melamine-tainted gluten imported from China. Around the same time, Tyson Foods slaughtered and processed hogs that had eaten melamine-contaminated feed. The government decided not to recall the meat.
Only a week earlier, however, the FDA had announced that thousands of cats and dogs had died from melamine-laden pet food. This high-profile pet scandal did not prove to be a spur to reform so much as a red herring. Our attention was diverted to Fido and away from the animals we happen to kill and eat rather than spoil.
Frightening as this all sounds, the concerned consumer is not completely helpless. We can seek out organic foods, which are grown with fertilizer without melamine - unless that fertilizer was composted with manure from animals fed melamine-laden feed (always possible, as the Tyson example suggests).
We could further protect ourselves by choosing meat from grass-fed or truly free-range animals, assuming the grass was not fertilized with a conventional product (something that's also very hard to know).
But as all the caveats above indicate, these precautions will only go so far. Melamine, after all, points to the much larger relationship between industrial waste and American food production. Regulations might be lax when it comes to animal feed and fertilizer in China, but take a closer look at similar regulations in the United States and it becomes clear that they're vague enough to allow industries to "recycle" much of their waste into fertilizer and other products that form the basis of our domestic food supply.
As a result, toxic chemicals routinely enter our agricultural system through the back channels of this under-explored but insidious relationship.
So, sure, let's keep the heat on China. And, yes, let's take with a big dose of skepticism the Chinese government's assurances that they're improving the food supply.
At the same time, though, instead of delivering righteous condemnation, the United States should seize upon the melamine scandal as an opportunity to pass federal fertilizer standards backed by consistent testing for this compound, which could very well be hidden in plain sight.
James E. McWilliams, a history professor at Texas State University at San Marcos, is the author of "American Pests: The Losing War on Insects From Colonial Times to DDT."
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/11/16/opinion/edmcwilliams.php




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Now China points finger at foreign milk products (IHT)

Reuters
Thursday, November 6, 2008
BEIJING: China, embroiled in a tainted milk scandal that has made thousands of infants sick, has published a list of foreign companies that failed to meet quality standards for imported products ranging from milk powder to rosewater.
At least four children died and tens of thousands were made ill by drinking milk powder adulterated with melamine, prompting many worried parents to switch to foreign-made formula.
Melamine, a compound used in making plastic chairs among other uses, is added to food to cheat nutrition tests and has since been found in other dairy products, eggs and animal feed, prompting recalls of Chinese-made products around the world.
China's quality watchdog intercepted 191 batches of problem foreign goods in July, including milk powder and other dairy products made by Australian and South Korean companies, the Beijing News said, citing the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine (AQSIQ).
Nearly nine tonnes of "Ausnutria" brand milk powder produced by Australian dairy company Tatura Industries and supplied to an Australian-Chinese joint venture in southern Hunan province had failed a standard for E. sakazaki, a bacteria, according to a list posted on AQSIQ's website (http://www.aqsiq.gov.cn ).
A company official at Tatura said the problem batch had passed quality inspections in Australia before being seized at Chinese customs.
"The products never made it into the local market," Tony McKenna, general manager of Nutritionals at Tatura, told Reuters by telephone.
"We've absolute faith in our quality systems, but we will comply with all of (the Chinese) requirements," McKenna said.
More than 14 tonnes of "Pauls" brand milk imported from Australia had also failed a bacteria standard, the notice said.
"Pauls" milk is produced by Parmalat Australia, a wholly owned subsidiary of Italian dairy giant Parmalat.
Parmalat Australia said in a statement emailed to Reuters it had never been informed of any problems with its products by Chinese authorities.
"We are keen to assist in any way to clarify the issue but it is unusual that the issue has just been raised now and only through the media," the statement said.
"All Parmalat products are subject to stringent quality standards, passing quality inspections in Australia prior to export," it added.
Authorities also seized more than 4,000 pounds (1,970 kg) of a brand of cheese supplied by an American company to Chinese dairy producer Inner Mongolia Yili Industrial Group, and other products ranging from British biscuits to chicken feet from Argentina.
It was not clear why the customs authority posted the list more than three months after the inspections, but the publication comes as China battles to improve its food safety system in the wake of a series of food and product-safety scandals.
(Reporting by Ian Ransom)

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China's contaminated food scandal widens (IHT)

A worker among stacks of eggs at a plant in suburban Beijing.

(Andy Wong/The Associated Press)

By David Barboza
Friday, October 31, 2008
SHANGHAI: Chinese regulators are widening their investigation into contaminated food amid growing signs that the toxic industrial chemical melamine has leached into the nation's animal feed supplies, posing health risks to consumers.
The announcement came after food safety tests earlier this week found that eggs produced in three different provinces in China were contaminated with melamine, which is blamed for causing kidney stones and renal failure in infants. The tests have led to recalls of eggs and consumer warnings.
The reports are another serious blow to China's agriculture industry, which is already struggling to cope with its worst food safety scandal in decades after melamine-tainted milk supplies sickened over 50,000 children, caused at least four deaths and led to global recalls of goods produced with Chinese dairy products earlier this fall.
The cases are fueling global concerns about Chinese food. In Hong Kong, food safety officials announced this week that they would begin testing a wider variety of foods for melamine, including vegetables, flour and meat products. On the mainland, Shanghai and other cities are moving aggressively to test a wide variety of food products for melamine, including fish and livestock feed, according to the state-run news media, which has in recent days carried multiple reports on melamine in animal feed.
In the United States, worried consumers frantically e-mailed one another on Thursday and Friday about the possibility of melamine-tainted Halloween treats following a spate of news reports that some candies and chocolates made in China or with ingredients sourced in China had tested positive for high levels of melamine or been destroyed in recent weeks as a cautionary measure.
A spokeswoman for the Food and Drug Administration said the agency was adjusting a nationwide sampling of products for melamine "as necessary." The FDA, along with state and local authorities, have been sampling products in Asian markets since mid-September for traces of melamine.
"Thus far, most of FDA's testing of milk and milk-derived ingredients and products from China focused on human foods, but have included animal feeds as well," said the spokeswoman, Stephanie Kwisnek. "The FDA is currently re-evaluating its overall approach to keeping these products out of the U.S. market."
Asian food safety experts warned consumers not to grow too alarmed over the finding of tainted eggs because they contained much lower concentrations of melamine than the powdered baby formula that caused such widespread problems in China.
Hong Kong food safety officials said a child would have to eat about two dozen of the eggs in a single day to become ill.
Still, if eggs, milk and animal feed supplies are tainted, there is the specter of an even wider array of foods that could come under scrutiny, everything from pork and chicken supplies to bread, biscuits, eggs, cakes, seafood and candy.
China is also one of the world's largest exporters of food and food ingredients, including meats, seafood, beverages and vitamins.
Melamine was banned as an animal feed additive in China in July 2007. And last year, United States regulators put tough restrictions on the amount of melamine allowed in food products.
But interviews on Friday, and over the past year, with several Chinese chemical dealers who sell melamine suggests that melamine scrap, the substantially cheaper waste left over after producing melamine, continued to be added to animal and fish feed.
"I heard some melamine dealers still sell to animal feed producers," said Qin Huaizhen, manager at the Gaocheng Kaishun Chemical Co. in city of Shijiazhuang, though he insisted he has never sold melamine to animal feed producers. "In Shandong province many animal feed manufacturers buy melamine scrap."
Two other melamine dealers in east and south China said that only after the recent dairy scandal did government regulators begin to closely monitor the sale of melamine to animal feed producers.
Kidney experts said that there has been very little research into how the chemical disrupts kidney function. Dr. Fredric Coe, a professor of medicine at the University of Chicago, said that melamine is likely concentrated in the kidneys into crystals that the body cannot dissolve. Those crystals clog many of the kidney's nearly one million nephrons, which are tiny filtering units, in a process very different from the usual way kidney stones are formed, Coe said. Urination slows or ceases, and patients suffer acute kidney failure.
Some food-safety experts are perplexed as to how melamine was allowed to seep into China's food supplies after melamine-tainted animal feed exports from China were blamed last year for sickening dogs and cats in the United States, touching off international trade and food safety disputes between the two countries.
"A year ago, everybody should have been in a complete panic about it, and done something then," said Marion Nestle, a professor of food studies and public health at New York University and the author of "Pet Food Politics" (University of California Press, 2008), which examines the pet food problem in detail. "Someone should have required that melamine not be in any food product."
The pet food case led to a vast recall in the United States and other parts of the world and also sparked a lengthy food safety crackdown in China, with regulators boasting that they had closed down thousands of illegal or substandard food factories and slaughterhouses.
Still, the Chinese government never made clear last year or even this year how extensively it had tested its own food and feed supply for melamine, even though melamine dealers acknowledged it was common to sell melamine scrap into the food and feed market.
In the dairy case, Chinese investigators have arrested dozens of suspects and blamed the scandal on a group of rogue milk and melamine dealers who they accuse of intentionally adding melamine, which is commonly used to produce plastic and fertilizer, to milk supplies as cheap filler in order to save money.
High-ranking government officials, including the head of the nation's quality watchdog, have been fired in the wake of the recalls and Beijing has acknowledged that "lax regulation" contributed to the scandal.
Similarly, last year, regulators in Beijing largely blamed the pet-food debacle on a pair of small exporters, who regulators said shipped feed or feed ingredients contaminated with melamine in order to save money and cheat the buyers.
Beijing also insisted its food safety problems were exaggerated, perhaps partly as a protectionist ploy to slow the boom in Chinese imports.
But several farmers and melamine scrap dealers said in interviews last year that melamine had been used for years in animal feed, particularly fish feed. Many melamine producers say they believed melamine scrap was nontoxic and would not be harmful to animals or humans.
Melamine dealers say the government crackdown on the sale to feed producers only occurred this year, after the Sanlu Group dairy company announced that its infant milk formula was tainted with melamine. That announcement, which came in September, triggered a nationwide recall and government announcements that other major dairy brands were also selling melamine-contaminated milk.
"Before the Sanlu scandal, we were not banned from selling melamine to anyone" Niu Qinglin, manager of the Hebei Jinglong Fengli Chemical Co., said in a telephone interview Friday. "I had heard melamine dealers sell melamine to animal feed companies and food companies; it was common before the Sanlu scandal."
Niu, however, said he never sold melamine or melamine scrap to food or feed producers. And he noted that regulators had moved in on the trade. "Now, the government regulates that melamine cannot be sold to any animal feed manufacturers or food processing companies," he said.

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9 families sue Chinese milk company (IHT)

By Edward Wong
Thursday, October 30, 2008
BEIJING: Nine families with babies suffering kidney problems, allegedly because of contaminated milk, have filed separate lawsuits against one of China's largest milk companies, according to lawyers representing the families. They are the latest lawsuits to be filed in China's worst food safety scandal in years.
The lawsuits were filed on Wednesday in the northern city of Shijiazhuang, the location of the headquarters of Sanlu Group, a company at the center of the milk scandal. The lawsuits demand compensation from Sanlu.
The milk scandal and the lawsuits have become politically sensitive matters, and so far no judge has agreed to hear a case in court. At least three other lawsuits had already been filed before Wednesday.
Both product liability lawsuits and class-action lawsuits are rare in China. This means that Chinese consumers have one less layer of protection against defective practices by big companies if governmental regulatory processes fail, as they have in many recent food and product safety cases, some legal scholars say.
The milk scandal first emerged in September, when it was revealed that babies drinking milk formula tainted with a toxic chemical called melamine had developed kidney stones. Melamine had been illegally added to dairy products to artificially boost protein counts to meet nutrition standards.
At least four babies have died and at least 53,000 other children have fallen ill, according to reports from official news agencies.
Since September, a wide range of food products from China have been discovered to have melamine, from yogurt and eggs to biscuits. Countries around the world have ordered recalls of Chinese-made food products suspected of being tainted with melamine.
Senior government officials and company executives have been fired as the scandal has widened, and dozens of people suspected of being involved have been arrested.
Given the Communist Party's sensitivities over the scandal, many lawyers in China do not have high hopes that the lawsuits will get a fair hearing in the courts, if they are heard at all.
The families, which are from several provinces, hope that the central government will eventually provide some sort of compensation for the ill children, said Ji Cheng, a lawyer with the Deheng Law Office, a large firm based in Beijing that is representing the nine families.
Each family had an infant that had to go to the hospital because of kidney stones, and six are still in the hospital, Ji said. The families have kept hospital records and complete records of their purchases of Sanlu baby formula, he added. The families are asking for at least 14,000 yuan, or about $2,000, per child in compensation payments from Sanlu.
Ji said the lawyers did not file a class-action lawsuit on behalf of all the parents because each case had different details.
Class-action lawsuits are highly discouraged in the Chinese legal system. Technically they can be filed, but onerous rules put in place in recent years by official legal bodies have made it difficult for lawyers to file such lawsuits. Some Chinese legal scholars say the government views class-action lawsuits as a threat to social stability.
Over the course of the milk scandal, some lawyers have been discouraged from representing families seeking damages from dairy companies or from the government.
In the first weeks of the scandal, more than 100 lawyers put themselves on a list of lawyers volunteering to dispense legal advice to the families. But at least two dozen have since dropped their names from the list; most of them are from Henan Province, where lawyers have complained of subtle pressure put on them by local officials.
Huang Yuanxi contributed research.

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Taiwan says milk powder flap adds fuel to WHO bid (IHT)

Reuters
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
TAIPEI: Taiwan, blocked for more than a decade by Beijing from joining the World Health Organisation or any other U.N. group, said Tuesday China's milk scandal shows the urgency of giving the island membership.
Taiwan has complained to the 193-member WHO three times since the milk powder flap broke out last month about the island's exclusion from the group that updates members on health issues and helps handle disease outbreaks, a Foreign Ministry official told reporters.
"If we were in the United Nations, we could have handled the tainted milk powder problem from the start," ministry spokesman Henry Chen said. "This problem has caused panic among average households.
"Of course it's urgent, just like with SARS in 2003," Chen said, referring to the severe acute respiratory syndrome virus that originated in China and went on to kill hundreds around the world.
China has claimed sovereignty over self-ruled Taiwan since the end of the Chinese civil war in 1949. Beijing has vowed to bring the island back under mainland rule, by force if necessary.
Beijing's roughly 170 diplomatic allies block Taiwan's WHO membership bids on grounds that only sovereign nations are allowed to join. Taiwan has only 23 diplomatic partners.
Toxic milk powder in China, where at least four children have died, has prompted Taiwan to ban dairy products from China and pull items from supermarket shelves.
The health minister resigned over the island's handling of the case, and Taiwan has added food safety to the next round of high-level talks with Beijing.
(Reporting by Ralph Jennings; Editing by Nick Macfie)

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meat, fish, poultry, eggs, milk and nutritional yeast and B12 (IHT)

Studies hint at protective role of vitamin B12 (IHT)
By Jane E. Brody
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
It has long been known that vitamins must be obtained from sources outside the body - food and drink, and for vitamin D, exposure to sunlight - and that failing to get enough of a vitamin can result in well-defined and sometimes deadly diseases.
But in recent decades, epidemiological studies have linked deficiencies of several nutrients, especially vitamins C and E, beta carotene and folic acid, to chronic ills including heart disease and cancer. That led people to take large doses in hopes of warding off dire consequences.
But when scientifically designed clinical trials were conducted, most early promises proved false. Now another vitamin, B12, is being discussed as a factor in several ailments that commonly afflict older people, including heart disease and stroke, Alzheimer's disease and dementia, frailty, depression, osteoporosis and even some cancers.
As with the other vitamins, the evidence for the role that low levels of B12 may play in these problems comes almost entirely from epidemiological studies - those that follow a population of people, in this case measuring their B12 levels to see whether there are correlations with health. For example, a continuing study of 2,576 adults in Framingham, Massachusetts, linked low blood levels of B12 to bone loss in men and women; a study of 703 women in their 70s living at home in Baltimore linked markers of B12 deficiency to frailty; and a study published this year, of 107 community-dwelling people over 60 who were followed for five years, linked low levels of B12 to shrinkage of the brain.
This latest finding has attracted much attention, given the problem of Alzheimer's and the fact that B12 protects the nervous system.
Without B12, permanent neurological damage can occur.
In many of the studies, symptoms were seen in people with B12 levels just slightly below normal. In some cases, symptoms were seen in people with B12 levels considerably above the levels that cause the best-known disease of B12 deficiency, anemia. The findings have prompted some experts to question whether blood levels of B12 now considered normal are really optimal.
The studies suggest considerable benefits from the increasing of B12 levels, especially in adults over 50. But these types of studies cannot prove cause and effect. Until placebo-controlled clinical trials are conducted, it is not known whether artificially increasing levels of B12 among people at the low end is safe and beneficial.
Still, a growing number of experts, who cite well-established explanations for drops in B12 levels, especially in older people, are urging everyone over 50 to increase their B12 intake through supplements or fortified foods. These experts believe it cannot hurt and may help to keep people hale and hearty.
Donald Jacobsen, a biochemist at the Cleveland Clinic who has studied B12 for 40 years and is a consultant for a company developing a new B12 supplement, explained that this vitamin is needed by every cell in the body.
Since it is water-soluble and only a small fraction of the amount consumed is absorbed by the body, taking large doses of it appears to be safe, Jacobsen said in an interview.
The only dietary sources are animal products and bacteria: meat, fish, poultry, eggs, milk and nutritional yeast.
Vegans, who consume no animal foods, must take a B12 supplement or eat plant foods fortified with the vitamin. But there are other health factors that lead to a need for supplementation.
The body has a complicated means of acquiring naturally occurring B12. In animal foods the vitamin enters the body attached to protein; to be absorbed, it must first be separated from protein by stomach acid. The vitamin then combines with a substance in the gut called intrinsic factor, which enables it to pass through the small intestine into the bloodstream.
People with low levels of stomach acid or who lack intrinsic factor are at risk of developing a B12 deficiency. Among them are many millions of older people who develop atrophic gastritis, a loss of acid-producing stomach cells, and those who chronically take acid-lowering drugs like Prilosec, Prevacid and Zantac to control reflux. Because the body has a temporary storage system for B12 in the liver, a deficiency may not show up for several years after acid levels fall.
Others who are at serious risk of a B12 deficiency are those who lose major parts of their stomachs or parts of their small intestine, through, for example, surgery for weight loss or ulcers. They must take daily B12 supplements to stay healthy.
But more often it is the elderly - as many as 30 percent over age 65 - who are found to have B12 levels that are less than ideal.
"It's a huge problem," Dr. J. David Spence, a neurologist and stroke specialist at the Robarts Research Institute in London, Ontario, said in an interview.
"Close to 80 percent of older adults with a B12 deficiency don't know it," he said. "Neither do their doctors. Doctors tend to think 'normal' means adequate."
Spence said that the low end of normal for B12 - commonly 160 to 250 picomoles per liter of blood serum - was hardly optimal.
That level, he said, could result in a host of chronic ailments, including cardiovascular disorders and damage to the nervous system, which becomes permanent if not caught and treated early. Spence, among others, considers 350 picomoles to be adequate.
Although it was proved long ago that people who lack enough intrinsic factor to absorb B12 can benefit from oral doses of the nutrient, most physicians were taught, and many still think, that it has to be given by injection as often as weekly to prevent life-threatening pernicious anemia.
Dr. Godfrey Oakley, a research epidemiologist at Emory University in Atlanta, said pernicious anemia could be cured with oral doses - 1,000 micrograms of B12 a day. For most people 50 and older who still have intrinsic factor but perhaps not enough stomach acid to benefit fully from B12 in animal foods, a daily intake of five or six micrograms of synthetic B12 from a supplement or fortified foods, like breakfast cereals with added B12, can correct the deficit, he said in an interview.
Oakley is a staunch advocate of adding B12 to flour, as is now done with another B vitamin, folate. "If B12 were required in flour, the problem of low stomach acid would essentially disappear," he said. "These people are not particularly sick but may be at increased risk of developing dementia, osteoporosis and cardiovascular disease."
But another longtime researcher in the field, Dr. Ralph Carmel, a hematologist and director of research at New York-Methodist Hospital in Brooklyn, cautions against such recommendations. "The associations found in the studies are potentially important, but no one has yet shown that if you give B12 it will make a difference down the road," he said. "We need clinical trials."

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Monsanto to sell its dairy hormone business

NEW YORK: After struggling to gain consumer acceptance, Monsanto has announced that it will try to sell its business of producing an artificial growth hormone for dairy cows.
The company, which made the announcement on Wednesday, will focus instead on its thriving business of selling genetically modified seeds and developing ways to improve crops.
The decision comes as more U.S. retailers, saying they are responding to consumer demand, are selling dairy products from cows not treated with the artificial hormone.
Monsanto, the leader in agricultural biotechnology, said the decision was not related to the retail trend and that business for the artificial hormone, sold under the brand name Posilac, remained brisk. Monsanto, which is based in St. Louis, Missouri, and is the only commercial manufacturer of the hormone, declined to provide sales numbers.
Selling Posilac "will allow Monsanto to focus on the growth of its core seeds and traits business while ensuring that loyal dairy farmers continue to receive the value of Posilac in their operations," Carl Casale, Monsanto's executive vice president for strategy and operations, said.
The growth hormone, approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in 1993, was one of the first applications of genetic engineering used in food production. When the artificial hormone, which is made in genetically modified bacteria, is injected into cows, it increases milk production by about a gallon, or four liters, a day. A 2007 survey by the Department of Agriculture said 17 percent of the dairy cows in the United States were receiving it.
Despite the government's approval, many advocacy groups have long maintained that Posilac is bad for the health of cows. Some even claim it could pose a cancer risk in people, though little scientific evidence has emerged to support that view. Their concerns have been fueled by the refusal of many countries, including Canada and members of the European Union, to permit the use of the hormone.
"I think they saw the handwriting on the wall and gave up," said Andrew Kimbrell, executive director of the Center for Food Safety, a consumer advocacy group based in Washington. "It's a major victory for consumers."
Kimbrell said the original idea of marketing a growth hormone for milk production was flawed because milk is so emblematic of childhood. Fear of the effects of the artificial hormone was one of the primary drivers behind the growth of the organic dairy industry, he said.
But Elena Gonser, a dairy farmer in Everson, Washington, contended that consumers had been misled by misinformation. She added that Posilac, which is also known as bovine somatotropin or BST, was safe and effective.
"I believe it's just catering to ignorance to tell people it's BST-free, and it's better for you," said Gonser, who along with her husband runs a farm that has 70 cows.
But she added: "I'm not surprised to find they want to step back from it. It's gotten a bad rap for so long."
Monsanto will continue to sell and market the product until a buyer is found, said Christie Chavis, who leads commercial development and strategy for the company's animal agriculture business unit. Posilac is sold in 20 countries.
Chavis said the artificial hormone was safe and also good for the environment, saying that it takes fewer cows and less resources to produce the same volume of milk.http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/08/07/business/bovine.php




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