Bovine Growth Hormone Claims
ITHACA, N.Y. - Cornell
University scientists say that
nothing in their studies supports
claims being made by a coalition of
environmentalists, farmers, and
animal rights activists opposed to
the commercial introduction of
bovine somatotropin (growth
hormone), a biotechnology product
that promises to boost the
production efficiency of dairy
animals.
In a recent petition calling on the
Food and Drug Administration to
prepare an environmental impact
statement on growth hormone, the
Foundation on Economic Trends of
Washington, DC, charged that the
use of growth hormone “will
damage the environment, cause
unnecessary suffering to cows, and
wreak havoc on the dairy
economy.”
The foundation, which is headed
by Jeremy Eifkin, a critic of
biotechnology, is joined in the
petition by a Wisconsin farm group
called the Wisconsin Family Farm
Defense Fund, the Humane Society
of the United States in Washington,
DC, and Wisconsin’s Secretary of
State Douglas LaFollette.
In a sharp rebuttal against this
and other claims made in the
petition, animal scientist Dale E.
Bauman and agricultural
economist Robert J. Kalter, both in
the New York State College of
Agriculture and Life Sciences at
Cornell, called those assertions
totally erroneous and unfounded.
Bauman, who has pioneered the
somatotropin technology, Coun
tered: “These groups cited our
studies in making these claims, but
our actual research data do not
back such allegations.”
In their petition, the groups cited
Kalter’s study on the economic
implications of the biotechnology
product for the nation’s dairy
industry and contended that,
among other things, “entire dairy
communities will be economically
and socially devastated by the
widespread commercial use of
bGH (bovine growth hormone).”
“They used our economic study
to support their claims in such a
way that it sounds as if we were
making those allegations,” Kalter
complained. “We were taken
completely out of context.”
The central issue in this con
troversy is bovine somatotropin
created through genetically
engineered microorganisms. This
laboratory-produced product has
the ability to boost cows’ milk
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yields dramatically, just as the
natural one secreted by the
pituitary gland in cattle does. In a
series of studies conducted over
the past several years, Cornell’s
Bauman and his colleagues have
discovered that the substance has
the potential for an unprecedented
increase in the efficiency of dairy
production.
The petitioners claimed that the
use of bGH “will require an in-
crease in total feed requirements,”
thus affecting agricultural land
use, with adverse effects on the
environment.
Bauman said he was astonished
that his “studies were cited as a
basis for that claim.”
“Our results show exactly the
opposite effects on total feed
requirements,” he pointed out.
“Because of the dramatic in
creases in efficiency achieved with
bGH treatment, the same quantity
of milk is produced with less total
feed and fewer cows.”
Citing the economic study
conducted in 1984 by Cornell’s
Kalter, the groups also charged
that bGH will have adverse
economic and social impacts,
claiming that “within five years,
nearly one out of every two dairy
farms will be eliminated.”
Calling that claim “totally off
the wall,” Kalter said, “There is
nothing in our study that says
anything remotely like this.”
“Over the past two decades
from 1964 to 1984- the nation has
seen a 77 percent decline in the
number of dairy farms,” he
pointed out. “This has happened
without the hormone technology,
and the trend is expected to con
tinue regardless of the hormone,
although bGH may speed up the
process a little.”
Reacting to still another claim
that bGH will create “additional
surpluses for an industry already
plagued by overproduction,”
Kalter said! that the new
technology may produce "a few
bubbles” in the short run, but the
root cause of the surplus problem
lies squarely in the long-standing
government price support
program.
Kalter, chairman of Cornell’s
Department of Agricultural
Economics, argued that poorly
designed government programs
have caused the surplus problem
to persist even without the bGH
technology.
“Surpluses would disappear and
milk consumption would increase
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if we let market forces operate
more efficiently,” he contended.
In yet another claim, the groups
opposing the use of bGH main
tained that “animals injected with
bGH will be under greater
physiological stress and will be
subject to a host of diseases, in
cluding mastitis, crippling
lameness, fatty liver disease, and
metabolic disorders including
ketosis and acetonemia. Their
resistance to infections and con
tagious diseases will also be
lowered which will increase the
probability of sickness and suf
fering.”
Rebuffing these claims as totally
groundless, Bauman said;
“Scientific evidence does not
support the idea that bGH treat
ment would incude physiological
stress or health abnormalities.”
In collaborative studies con
ducted with scientists at USDA’s
Agricultural Research Service and
the New York State College of
Veterinary Medicine at Cornell,
“we have never observed any
health abnormalities or evidence
of stress,” Bauman said. “In fact,
the dramatic increases in ef
ficiency we have observed with
bGH treatment would have never
occurred if cows were unhealthy or
stressed in any way. ”
A nutritional biochemist in
Cornell’s Department of Animal
Science, Bauman emphasized that
“because the discovery is new, it
has not yet been examined under a
broad range of environmental and
husbandry conditions. Such studies
are prerequisite to FDA’s
regulatory review process.”
Citing numerous technological
advances made over the past
several decades that have
dramatically improved production
efficiency of today’s dairy
animals, the Cornell scientist
stressed that the bGH technology
is yet another research milestone
that has the potential to ensure an
abundance of food at costs af
fordable to consumers.
In addition to boosting the
production efficiency of dairy
animals, the bGH technology,
according to Kalter and Bauman,
would' have several other positive
effects on the dairy industry and
consumers.
Among them is the fact that the
technology is important for small
and medium farms to survive.
“Efficient farmers can use bGHto
their advantage regardless of the
size of their operation,” Kalter
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Refuted by Scientists
said. “This technology is not
capital intensive, hence it can be
used by every fanner whether he
has 10 cows or 1,000.”
Also widespread use of bGH will
help farmers to be more com
petitive and offset rising farm
costs. In Kalter’s view, the dairy
industry should encourage this
technology because it will help
make the industry as a whole more
competitive with other sources of
food and beverages. “If the dairy
industry rejects new technological
advances that improve production
efficiency, it will suffer in the long
run,” he warned.
US Senate
on European ag trade
WASHINGTON, DC - The US
Senate recently unanimously
passed a resolution expressing the
sense of Congress in opposition to
the European Community’s latest
restrictions on U.S. agricultural
exports and urging the President
to use his authority to respond to
these actions.
Senator Jesse Helms, Chairman
of the Senate Agriculture Com
mittee, introduced the resolution.
It was cosponsored by Majority
Leader Bob Dole, Senator Edward
Zorinsky, ranking Democrat on the
Agriculture Committee, and many
other Senators of both parties.
“The United States has allowed
the European Community, through
its pernicious agricultural trade
policies, to wage economic war
fare on our farmers for too long,”
said Helms. “President Reagan
has already announced his in
tention to fight back on behalf of
our farmers, and this resolution
demonstrates the fact the
Congress backs him up in that
fight.”
Helms explained that Secretary
of Agriculture Richard Lyng and
Special Trade Representative
Clayton Yeutter leave Thursday
for negotiations with top EC of
ficials to discuss these restrictions.
The resolution, said Helms, will
strengthen the negotiating hand of
the U.S. team by “showing that
Congress is fed up with European
attacks on our farmers and their
In addition to this, the consumer
will benefit since the cost-reducing
technology will lead to lower milk
prices.
“New technology is essential for
the farmers to make a living and
for the consumer as well to im
prove the standard of living,”
Bauman emphasized.
With the world population ex
pected to double in the next 40
years, gains in agricultural ef
ficiency are even more critical in
the long run.
“The amount of food needed for
the next four decades is equal to all
the food produced in the history of
mankind,” Bauman said.
shows view
utter disregard for fair trade.”
The dispute arises out of ad
ditional restrictions placed on
American agricultural exports to
Spain and Portugal as a condition
of those two countries joining the
European Community. The new
restrictions will reduce U.S. ex
ports to the EC by as much as (1
billion annually.
On March 31, the President
announced that the United States
will retaliate by imposing quotas
and tariffs on $1 billion of EC
products entering the United
States. The resolution passed
today urges the President to im
plement this retaliatory strike
unless the EC rescinds its trade
restrictive measures or otherwise
compensates the United States for
the loss in trade resulting from the
new restrictions.
“The United States has talked,
cajoled and warned the Europeans
for the last four years, while they
have escalated their predatory
trade practices against American
farmers,” said Helms. “At some
point, Congress and the Ad
ministration must draw a line in
the dirt, and sooner is better than
later. We must demand relief on
these new restrictions so that the
EC knows there is a price to pay
for its predation, and so our
American farmers know the U.S.
government will stand behind
them to insure fair trade in world
markets.”
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