BGH (“bovine growth hormone”) is produced in cows’ pituitary glands. “Recombinant bovine somatotropin,” or rBST, is a genetically modified version of this hormone. Injecting the GM hormone causes cows to produce about 10 percent more milk. The FDA approved the GM hormone in late 1993, saying there was “no significant difference” in milk from injected and uninjected cows. Its ruling meant that dairies could not label their milk as coming from uninjected cows, because doing so, the FDA said, suggested that there is a difference.25
There is a difference. Injections of rBST in cows raise levels of the naturally occurring IGF-1, (insulin-like growth factor 1), a protein that stimulates cell growth. The IGF-1 in milk from injected cows is easily absorbed in the small intestine. Dr. Samuel Epstein, Professor Emeritus at the School of Public Health, University of Illinois Medical Center in Chicago, has warned for more than 20 years that high levels of IGF-1 raise the risk of cancer, especially breast, colon and prostate cancer. He has said that rBST milk is “super-charged with high levels of abnormally potent IGF-1, up to 10 times the levels in natural milk and over 10 times more potent.”Monsanto began selling rBST in 1994. Later, in 2003, the FDA charged several dairies with “mis-branding,” and Monsanto sued Oakhurst Dairy in Maine for labeling its milk from cows not injected with GMO hormones!As many people reacted to rBST by reaching for organic milk instead, American retailers began to pledge not to sell rBST milk in response to consumer demands.
The synthetic hormone is illegal in Japan, Australia, New Zealand and Canada, and the European Union banned it permanently in 1999.In 2008, a group of rBST-using farmers formed a group called American Farmers for the Advancement and Conservation of Technology, or AFACT, with help from Monsanto. AFACT tried to ban no-rBST labeling claims in many states, but dropped those efforts in most—except Ohio, where the ban effort ended in a lawsuit. An Ohio circuit court found in 2010 that there is a compositional difference between rBST milk and milk from untreated cows, and that the FDA’s position was “inherently misleading.” The court found higher levels of a cancer-causing compound, lower-quality milk because of higher fat and lower protein, and higher white cell counts, which makes milk spoil faster.Injecting cows in the same places over and over increases the chance of infection, plus rBST-injected cows frequently suffer from chronic mastitis, an infection of the udder. Mastitis causes the cow’s udder to swell and makes it painful. Both of these infections must be treated with antibiotics.