R Washburn

Doc, You realize that the BGH treatment is only increasing IGF-1 levels four-fold? If BGH treated milk is dangerous than so is organic milk. We are talking about a 4-fold increase (from an average of six billionths of a gram per milliliter to 24 billionths of a gram/ml) of an orally inactive hormone. So if I drink a million liters of rBGH treated milk a day I would still be ingesting less IGF-1 than the rats did in the FDA studies, and those doses had no effect.

But you would agree that I have a better chance of obtaining the winning Mega Millions lottery ticket by holding my open hand out of my window for 10 minutes and waiting for it to land on my palm than for rBGH to be an environmental hazard?

Did she understand that rBGH is not a hormone (in Humans) but merely another bovine protein and present in only trace quantities in the milk? And that, even in animals where it is a hormone, it has no detectable activity when administered orally?

I can't say that until I see the reviews. This is not Zagat where you have to go by the numbers.

I got it now. 1) You do not concede any benefit from rBGH milk (although it presumably is cheaper to make, which most would consider beneficial). 2) You can imagine a risk, although you are unable to assess the degree of risk. 3) Therefore risk>reward, avoid rBGH milk.

Maybe he is only "there" for food critics, Michelin inspectors and VIP's. I usually spot him peering into the dining room to check on a table full of VIP's. It would be interesting if it turns out that he beat out Boulud because he just happened to be in JG on six out of eight visits. I was under the impression that Daniel spent more time in his restaurant then Jeans-Georges spends in his.

I was surprised to read this, as I was under the understanding that inspectors visit restaurants anonymously, and only care about "what's on the plate". I was also surprised to read that he was in the kitchen 6 of 8 times. Of all the times I have been there, I have not seen them there ONCE. So it sounds to me like they not only were not anonymous, but had advance notice. Am I missing something? ← I have seen J-G there two out of my last three visits and he may well have been there the other time. Why are you certain he wasn't around?

I would guess efficiency. And if that means fewer resources are used to produce an equivalent product that is a good thing.

I stand corrected. You endorse non-rBGH milk, but don't favor Organic. What is the risk again for the rBGH milk? Monsanto's involvement makes it probable that health risks are being concealed by some giant global conspiracy?

I am interested in seeing how Michelin's standards affect the way the starred restaurants are run. Will Daniel change it's practices, even if it reduces profits, to earn a third star? Will Michelin be a tougher grader in the future and end up raising the standards here? I had thought that the three stars would be ADNY, Per Se, and Masa. I am quite surprised to see Le Bernardin and Jeans-Georges included especially if Daniel was not getting a third star. Now we have to see what is in the actual reviews to determine if this guide is more useful than the Zagat or NYT.

slkinsey, I think moral arguments are also relevent, provided they are identified as such. If rBGH is making the world a worse (but not more dangerous) place then that is a valid reason to criticize the practice.

25 years worth of rBGH data. What do you define as long term? Deborah, If rBGH is hard on the cows that is a reason to reject it. I bet you guys don't have any issues with this Science paper: Note that this is good science in a peer reviewed journal finding fault with industrial practices.

I can only conclude, because the studies say that rBGH cows are less healthy, i.e., with greater incidence of mastitis, etc., etc., that non-rBGH cows are more healthy. Am I extrapolating too far? ← Have you actually seen these "studies"? Please post the references if you can find them so we can check them out. Look what i just found on Medline: A study on the anti-science kooks that reject the rBGH studies!

I don't trust Monsanto, Lilly, American Cyamid, UpJohn, the FDA etc. but i think it is far more likely their research is accurate than that there is some giant globe spanning conspiracy involving the above organizations as well as the anti-BGH factions preventing any anti-BGH research from being published. If non-BGH cows are healthier and have a better quality of life that is a good reason to choose their milk. There is no scientific data showing that it is healthier, nor even any decent theoretical argument as to why it might be safer.

That's really opening up a diminishing returns case. With the stage we are currently at with genetic engineering and genome understanding, it'll provide a lot of egghead work, but not return much, yet. To be a successful portion of agriculture, it'll take at least another decade of engineering on the technology behind how actual application of this goes. It ain't easy, yet. But it is getting easier. Back when I was a student it took me weeks to sequence a kilobase of DNA. I bet the anti-BGH crown would prefer to know whether or not their Organic cows are overproducing BGH or making some hyperactive mutant hormone. It is only a problem if we are planning on using that class of antibiotics in people. Unfortunately the review process doesn't immediately guard against fraud, but if the work is significant (and pretty much every Science and Nature paper is) other groups will try to repeat the data and the fraud will be exposed. I feel pretty good about the BGH studies since they have stood up to all these years of scrutiny.

Doc, Either accept the experts (authors and reviewers) opinion or read the various studies and come up with some criticisms. You should then submit a letter for publication in Science pointing out the flaws in the research. Send a copy to me and, if I agree with them, I will gladly sign it along with you. You are basically saying that we should give your "faith based" argument greater weight than 45 years worth of scientific evidence. I am not an expert in this field, but I am unbiased and I did actually read some of the research and found it quite convincing. You may be right that "organic" milk is safer than that from BGH treated milk cows but the scientific evidence does not support your claims. Regarding your lack of understanding of "relative risk", I was referring to your deciding that a product that has been exhaustively tested (BGH milk) is less safe than an untested product (Organic milk from various mutant dairy cows). Why are you so concerned about the risk of the former but not the latter? In these days of DNA sequencing shouldn't we be pushing for genetic monitoring of our livestock? Is it possible that you are deeply biased and that this is influencing your risk assessment? Do you think that all scientific evidence is so unreliable. Are there cases of Government "approved" drugs with highly deleterious effects, supported by questionable science? Definitely, but of the ones I am aware of a review of the scientific literature makes these quite obvious. (N.B. Be especially cautious of vaccines). With a food product such as milk no level of real (not hypothetical) risk is acceptable because the benefit is so small. Milk is NOT saving any lives. Regarding antibiotic resistance: When I worked in the Microbiology department in SmithKlineBeecham (now GSK) the general opinion (IIRC) was that vancomycin resistant Staphylococcus aureus probably arose in Europe from antibiotic resistance being picked up from drug resistant Enterococcus faecalis in livestock. Certainly the drug companies don't mind resistance to off-patent drugs cropping up, and it helps their business of selling new drugs. Should we give prophylactic doses of antibiotics to our livestock? I think this is again a case for careful "risk versus benefit" analysis. I suspect that their are certain classes of drugs we should protect for human use alone (vancomycin is one example as it is the last defense against Staph), and others that will have no impact if used in cattle. One of my favorite antibiotics (for purely scientific reasons) is bicyclomycin which is not used clinically in humans but has been used in cattle feed in Japan. An antibiotic such as bicyclomycin poses no risk if overused, because it has too narrow of a spectrum for human use. Perhaps we should use or develop highly selective antibiotics just for animal husbandry. Should we pump cattle full of our latest and greatest antibiotics? I don't think so. Developing new classes of broad spectrum antibiotics has been very difficult, and so we should be cautious about developing drug resistant pathogens that will render them obsolete. The studies showed that BGH raises IGF-1 levels in cattle. We are not worried so much about possible cancer risks in cattle as to affects on Humans which have been carefully evaluated. No, they were unable to detect any rBGH in rats after giving large doses of rBGH orally (studies done by UpJohn, Monsanto and American Cyanamid). These confirmed that, as expected, there is no mechanism for the rBGH to be both protected from digestion and absorbed into the bloodstream. Even if you were right and a trace amount of rBGH from the tiny amount in the milk you consume made it into your blood stream, it couldn't possibly be significant compare to the many times larger amount of Human Growth Hormone present in your body. There is a ggo reason why the cattle are injected with rBGH rather than given it orally. It has no effect given orally.

I just made the creme filled Devil's Food cupcakes from Brachman's book: Cream- Filled Devil's Food Cupcakes And they were great. I used really strong coffee and Valrhona cocoa. These were much moister then the recipe I normally use from the "Cake Bible".

"r" in rBGH refers to recombinant Read again what Nathan stated. Dairy cows are mutants that were selected for their high milk yield which may or may not be derived from high BGH levels. None of these animals are natural nor does natrual=safe. In fact unnatural may be safer because there is no natural evolutionary pressure to make these animals safer to eat; in fact the opposite is true. Animals becoming more noxious and poisonous is more natural than the opposite.

Read the article. It reviews all the scientific data at the time of publication (1990). Also realize that negative results are not normally published. Your proposed longer term study would only be published if it revealed a safety risk. You can correctly assume that no data in the ensuing 15 years has appeared contradicting their conclusions. How much time do you need to be reassured? Why is your standard the "true" scientific standard rather than that of the reviewers and editors of "Science"? There have been some scientifically very risky animal husbandry techniques used, such as feeding animal byproducts to farm animals, that I would reject on a purely theoretical basis, but I don't see any problem with rBGH. That doesn't mean it is completely safe, but at least it has been rigorously tested and there is no obvious theoretical flaw in using it.

Those are valid reasons to go "organic" if there are differences in the quality of life for the animals or the worker. Tasting better is also an excellent reason. Claiming unsubtantiated health risks for consumers of a product are not. Most scientists are in the "tree hugger" camp, but they still want to see logical reasons for doing or not doing things. A gut feeling that something is "unnatural" is not enough for us, partially because we have a better understanding of the difference between unnatural and unfamiliar. Basically all of our agricultural products are unnatural, but consumers are not afraid of that which they are familiar with.

So your view is that one opinion is as good as another? Why is my opinion of equal or lesser weight than that of someone who has not even read the paper in question? This doesn't seem logical to me. Please point out the flaws in the studies cited in the Science paper if you are going to make a case for rBGH milk being more risky than organic milk. Pointing out that something is possible (unforseen flaws that the researchers and expert reviews failed to see, or giant conspiracy), does not make for a strong argument without some evidence that these things are actually occuring. Seriously, if you understood the rigors of the review process at Science, you would not be so quick to discount the paper sight unseen. I think you also fail to understand how much a rival scientific group would desire to discount the study in question and publish a paper or at least a letter in Science showing that the eariler reports were wrong! I don't think you have a good feel for relative risk. Why is a product which has been thoroughly tested more risky than Organic milk from untested sources? Shouldn't we be carefully evaluating the various mutant cattle that are producing milk? Maybe consuming milk period is risky and we should evaluate the risk versus benefit of milk consumption. I believe your arguments, like most of the organic proponents, are based on faith rather than reason. That is fine, but don't pretend that they are based on logic.

Yes, that is how I feel; If the producer or Corporation is so confident about their product, how would it hurt to say what is in it. In Canada food companies must list the ingredients in a product. Monsanto wants to use GMO's but they also do not want to tell the public that they are there. What are they afraid of?? steve ← I am all for it, but in fairness all milk should be labelled, "products of mutant cattle strains whose safety may or may not have been evaluated". We should do our best to inform the public and educate them in evaluating "risk vs. benefit". Yes, but not all theories are equal and there is a huge difference between possible and probable. I think Organic milk is reasonably safe but it wouldn't surprise me if it turned out to be more of a health risk than the rBGH milk. As slkinsey said above, I will choose organic milk if it tastes better or if I think there is some moral reason, but not out of unsubstantiated fear. Then I would think you would know enough to actually look up the paper read it as well as all the studies it cites before you decide that it is worthless. If you were a professional scientist such as myself you would have a much deeper understanding of these matters. Would I trust Monsanto to evaluate there own products safety? Of course not. Am I impressed by that Science paper? Very much so, and until I see evidence to the contary I will consider rBGH safe.

That is why we pump them full of antibiotics. I am also for irradiating the milk instead of pasteurizing. Pasteurizing doesn't get all of the bacteria, which is why milk spoils. Irradiate it and it kills EVERYTHING.

I would be more concerned about choking to death on a steak or getting Q-fever from my organic milk then with risks associated with rBGH. It is not that it is a single study; you will not see another publication on the subject in a reputable journal unless it refutes the first study. That is the way science is done. I found a copy of the August 24th, 1990 issue of Science and read Juskevich and Guyer's "Bovine growth hormone; Human food safety evaluation". They conclude that no rbGH can make it into the blood stream from an oral dose. They also looked at the possibility that milk from rbGH treated cows could have deleterious effects from the increased levels of IGF-1 (insulin growth factor) in the milk and concluded that "biologically significant amounts of IGF-1 would not be absorbed".

Deborah, You won't see a second study getting published in a major journal unless it refutes the first study. 1990 is to far back for me to access it online, but i could look it up in our departmental library if you are really interested. I think sacharine is back, for the reasons you cited. As my Organic Chemistry professor used to say, "Too much of anything will kill you, you drink too much water you drown". Do any of the rBGH critics understand that this is a peptide hormone (small piece of protein) and that unless you inject it (like they do to the cows) it is going to be harmlessly digested? I doubt that you can possibly consume enough animal products to measurably raise your own growth hormone levels. Shouldn't you avoid all animal products (from Organic sources as well) since they are loaded with hormones, including steroidal ones which are probably much more likely to make their way into your body? Nathan, Excellent points. Unfortunately the public is easily frightened by what they don't bother to understand.