The world according to Monsanto : pollution, corruption, and

the bovine growth hormone affair, part one 91uct,” Burroughs explained, “because it was the first transgenic medicationthat we had had to study.”Somatotropin is a natural hormone abundantly secreted by the pituitaryglands of cows after calving, which stimulates lactation by enabling the animal’sbody to call on reserve energy through its action on the tissues. Eversince its function was described by Soviet scientists in 1936, laboratoriestied to agribusiness had tried to reproduce it to increase herd yields. Theyhad no success: twenty cows a day had to be sacrificed to produce from theirpituitaries the daily dose of growth hormone required for a single animal. Inthe late 1970s, researchers financed by Monsanto succeeded in isolating thegene that produces the hormone. They used genetic manipulation to introduceit into a bacterium, Escherichia coli (E. coli, commonly found in thelower intestine of mammals, including humans), thereby making possible itslarge-scale manufacture. Monsanto named this transgenic hormone recombinantbovine somatotropin (rBST) or recombinant bovine growth hormone(rBGH).* In the early 1980s, the company organized tests on its own experimentalfarms or in collaboration with universities such as the University ofVermont and Cornell.The file Monsanto provided “is as tall as I am,” said Burroughs, who is fivefoot nine. “FDA rules require that we analyze data within ninety days. Thisis in fact a way for companies to discourage detailed examination: they sendtons of paper, hoping that you will merely skim through it. I very quickly understoodthat the data were intended only to demonstrate that rBGH effectivelyboosted milk production. The scientists working for Monsanto hadpaid no attention to crucial questions: What did it mean physiologically forcows to produce milk beyond their natural capacity? How must they be fedso they would survive the exploit? What diseases might it cause? They hadn’teven thought that the cows were certainly going to develop mastitis, an inflammationof the udders, a common pathology in herds with high productionlevels.”“And mastitis is also a problem for the consumer?”“Of course, because it results in an increase of white blood cells, whichmeans there’s pus in the milk! The cows have to be treated with antibiotics,*The two terms are used today, but not by the same people: anxious to erase the fact that its productis an artificial hormone, Monsanto speaks exclusively of “rBST,” while opponents use “rBGH.”