The world according to Monsanto : pollution, corruption, and

the bovine growth hormone affair, part two 109not have the authority . . . to require special labeling for milk from rBSTtreatedcows.” It is another for the FDA not to require milk producers whouse the transgenic growth hormone to inform cooperatives or distributors ofdairy products, meaning that milk from cows injected with rBGH will bemixed with natural milk, with no particular notice. And what about peoplewho are absolutely determined to drink natural milk? Well, their supplierswill not have the right to use the simple label “rBST free.” The argumentpresented by the FDA is rather surprising: “Because of the presence of naturalBST in milk, no milk is ‘BST-free,’ and a ‘BST-free’ labeling statementwould be false. Also, FDA is concerned that the term ‘rBST free’ may imply...thatmilk from untreated cows is safer or of higher quality than milkfrom treated cows. Such an implication would be false and misleading.”To be sure, this guidance had no legal force and the agency did not formallyprohibit the label “rBST free,” but it strongly suggested that it should be accompaniedby a short statement intended to “inform the consumer,” which itcalled a “contextual statement”: “No significant difference has been shownbetween milk derived from rBST-treated and non-rBST-treated cows.”And who signed the guidance? Michael Taylor. 2 “Of course I’m the onewho signed the document—it was my role to sign all the documents theFDA published—but I didn’t write it,” Taylor told me over the phone,sounding embarrassed. “And why come back to this old story fifteen yearslater?” Why? Because it sheds light on the way GMOs would in the end beimposed on the entire planet under the influence of a multinational companythat had planned everything with implacable logic. That is why I wasinterested in small details—because the company had left nothing tochance.To be precise, it is true that Michael Taylor himself had not written theguidance. And that is understandable: as number two at the FDA, he hadother things to do. As he acknowledged in the course of our conversation,his task was to “supervise the regulatory process.” The person who draftedthe document was Margaret Miller, the former Monsanto employee whohad become a deputy director in the CVM. This is what the CVM whistleblowersclaimed in their 1994 anonymous letter: “The basis of our concernis that Dr. Margaret Miller, Dr. Livingston’s assistant and, from all indications,extremely ‘close friend,’ wrote the FDA’s opinion on why milk fromBST treated cows should not be labeled. However, before coming to FDA,Dr. Miller was working for the Monsanto company as a researcher on BST.