Milk: How To Make It Better - Without the 'Moo'

Despite the image of the young lady gulping milk down from the bottle, let us admit that milk doesn't have the best rep or PR. While our ancestors, some 8,000 years ago, got the brilliant idea to collect and drink animal milk - leading to a kind of natural consumption - things had changed radically by the 21st century. Now, milk production is an industrial process and cows are actually administered special hormones(e.g. rBGH)  to induce higher milk production. Many (e.g. PETA) believe these hormones are responsible in large measure for many problems - including spurring adolescent females to earlier sexual maturity, and inducing prostate cancer in male milk drinkers.

PETA generated an intense campaign a couple of years ago, including an over the top video ("Milk Gone Wild") featuring gyrating young women equipped with giant udders,  dancing in a club  and  spurting milk all over the place to the delight of delirious males lapping it up. The point they wanted to try to get over is that cow's milk is bad for you and they paired the "Got Milk?" ads via parodies against "Got Prostate Cancer?", "Got Gas?", "Got Pus?" and other high impact PR, imagery.

The video - if you can stomach it- can be seen here:

http://www.peta.org/tv/videos/vegetarianism-cows/1389647429001.aspx


Carol J. Adams (The Sexual Politics of Meat: A Feminist-Vegetarian Critical Theory) and a vocal advocate of veganism has argued:

"Eating meat and ice cream is a privilege of being a human being who can oppress other animals. It comes as no surprise to me that we take something oppressive -the extraction of milk from a cow -- and extend it to women!"

She was referring to a fad whereby ice cream makers had incorporated breast milk. Citing a familiar vegan principle, she called drinking any species' milk "symbolically infantilizing."


PETA, meanwhile, asked:

“Why is it that, as adults, we find human milk distasteful, but we find animal milk palatable Humans are the ONLY species who drinks the milk of another species. Now that's distasteful!! So, if you were looking for a perspective even higher on the "gross-o-meter" than cheese made from human milk-you just found it!”

As the milk battles continue a new way may have appeared to produce milk proteins without having to worry about the adverse effects of hormones, or antibiotics.  The basic steps were reported in an issue (June 28) of New Scientist, noting first that each of the key milk proteins has a known amino acid sequence in a free database. Thus, "it is easy to convert the amino acid sequence into a DNA sequence."

It is then "simple to order this DNA from research companies". One then mixes the genes into a population of yeast using a chemical or electrical stimulus to get the DNA into the yeast cells. The internal machinery of the cells then churns out the proteins, " a lot like brewing beer."

The only remaining ingredient, but primarily for taste, is fat. Fortunately, dairy scientists have already developed healthy, plant-based oils with aromatic fatty acids - the same ones that give rich ice cream its flavor. All that remains is to combine everything with sugars, minerals and clean water in the right ratios to obtain a tasty, nutritious, white liquid which consumers will buy.

Beyond the chemistry, the transition from animal-based milk to the non-moo form is a business problem: How to scale the process up and ensure that it's economical? How to then get this milk onto shelves where it will have to compete with the real cow-extracted version?

Those are the questions to be addressed.

Will PETA and other activist groups accept this novel form, as opposed to making over the top videos about it?

That remains to be seen.

Can Parents Save Their Kids from Frankenfoods?

I wonder if it's even possible, especially after reading Dem activist Jim Hightower's latest piece, 'GMO Fiction for Children',  noting the distribution of an innocuous looking booklet, 'Looking Closer at Biotechnology' to science classes across the country. And hey, even Hitler knew that the way to get kids on board was to target them early, hence the 'Hitler Youth'!

GMOs  (genetically modified organisms) are an ever growing issue abroad, but in this country at least, most of the population appears to have accepted these foods with a mixture of resignation and inevitability. Well, I mean, where's the surprise?  More than half of America's processed grocery products (some estimates go up to 70%)  from corn flakes to granola bars to diet drinks — contain genetically altered ingredients. They are unlabeled and untested, and we're eating them without a query or complaint.

In fact, years ago, bells ought to have gone off big time after Scot Arpand Pusztai's study in which he fed lab rats potatoes that had been genetically engineered to contain lectin (from a snowdrop bulb to make them pest resistant). When he digested and processed the results he found that the rats which consumed these high-tech potatoes showed evidence of organ (liver, stomach) damage and poor brain development. Pusztai's study went down as the very first independent study (i.e. one not sponsored by a biotech corporation)  to examine the effects of bio-engineered food on mammals.

But because big bucks were involved, and lots of doctors already had shares in biotech, the PR meisters, their allies and hangers-on went ape shit. The bastards even got to Pusztai's Director Philip James  (at the Rowett Institute) , who had approved a Pusztai  TV appearance regarding his findings, but subsequently said the research results "didn't exist".  According to a report -article from In These Times (Jan. 10, 2000);

"He fired Pusztai, broke up his research team, halted the six other similar projects his team was then working on and seized his data"

Further:

"Val Giddings, of the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO) in Washington, applauded Pusztai's dismissal. Speaking to Biotechnology Newswatch, an industry journal, he damned the press for not being more skeptical of Pusztai's statements, pointing out that his results had never been published in a peer-reviewed journal. "This is a study that should never have seen the light of day," he said.
At Monsanto, the only corporation producing transgenic potatoes, spokesman Alyssa Hollier told Biotechnology Newswatch, "This really has nothing to do with us," adding that the company's transgenic potatoes, which are different than those used in the study, are "not approved in Europe right now." In February, however, it came out that the Rowett Institute had received a $224,000 grant from Monsanto prior to Pusztai's interview and subsequent firing. "

Connections anyone? Interested readers can read more on the expose of the PR muggers and their hands in  the Pusztai debacle here:

http://www.inthesetimes.com/issue/24/03/bleifuss2403.html

Meanwhile, Hightower observes that the propaganda gimmick booklet now circulating in schools (be sure to check that your kid doesn't have one - if s/he does, explain the nature of propaganda, or at least PR,  one is never too young to learn) comes in colorful, funny pages as it chirpily begins:

"Hi, kids! This is an activity book for young people like you about a really neat topic!"

Hightower asks 'Why is it so neat?' and quotes the booklet once more to provide the answer:

"As you work through the puzzles in this book, you will learn more about biotechnology and all the wonderful ways it can help people live better lives in a healthier world."

To quote Hightower again: "Fun? With genetically engineered food? Who's behind this book of fairy tales?"

Whereupon he identifies the "Council for Biotechnology Information" . Who or what are they?

"A PR and political front for the biotech industry, financed by such multi-billion dollar giants as Monsanto, Bayer, Dupont and Dow."

But he has reason to be concerned about this influence on kids, as well as the power of PR to snooker them. (Hey, I really like Hanks' word, so now choose to use it in the proper context of attacking PR!)

Consider the case of milk, specifically rBGH  (Recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone ) milk. Recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone is a genetically engineered copy of a naturally occurring hormone produced by cows. Manufactured by Monsanto Company, the drug is sold to dairy farmers under the name POSILAC. When rBGH gets injected into dairy cows, milk production increases by as much as 10-15%. The use of rBGH on dairy cows was approved by the Food and Drug Administration in late 1993 and has been in use since 1994.

Never mind that rBGH is banned in Europe and Canada, and has been boycotted by 95 percent of US dairy farmers, the FDA, Environmental Protection Agency and Department of Agriculture continue to license the drug (and other new genetically engineered foods) without pre-market safety tests. Thanks to industry pressure, genetically engineered foods are NOT required to carry identifying labels (Hightower notes that even as I write this "hundreds of thousands of dollars are being funnelled into a deceitful political campaign in California"  to kill a 'Right to Know'  ballot initiative that "would require food giants to label all products containing genetically modified organisms."

WHY would they do that? Hell, why would our trustworthy CIA (and National Archives)  withhold files on perhaps the key linchpin to the JFK assassination? Because THIS is what the powers that be do when allowed too much power, beyond what their legal authority provides! They get away with it on account of weak, useless laws, weak politicos or both. Not to mention lobbyists and PR factories that have the power to buy doctors, scientists, legislators.... anyone they want.

Let's return to rGBH milk: In the PR demolition book, ‘Toxic Sludge is Good for You’ the authors note (p. 57) that:

“Monsanto’s own tests showed increased levels of mastitis, a painful udder infection, in cows injected with rBGH. According to food safety experts, increased mastitis would force farmers to use more antibiotics which would then be more likely to contaminate the cow’s milk.”

Also (ibid.):

“Treated cows had to consume more protein – usually rendered animal protein (from carcasses of other cows) . These animals are then susceptible to bovine spongiform encephalopathy. “

Of course, nine years before the publication of 'Toxic Sludge'  the PR industry – led by Burston –Marsteller – had swung into action. Before long, the PR meisters began using polling and focus groups to try to milk the view that rBGH milk was "identical to that from untreated cows".

Alas, the people weren’t buying it and (p. 58. op. cit):

the “pro rBGH Dairy Coalition responded by setting up consumer telephone hotlines and designated over 250 ‘regional experts’ – including doctors, nutritionists and animal scientists, to act as media contacts. This coalition also prepared media resource kits for distribution to over 5,000 target recipients including dairy retailers, state and national trade associations, national and state consumer media and the National Association of Science Writers"

The PR campaign didn’t stop there (ibid.)  but also "lined up the American Academy of Pediatrics and the National Institutes of Health. It also arranged for the American Medical Association to publish articles and editorials (written by scientists who’d recieved grants from (where else?) Monsanto)  to claim that “all available evidence showed that rBGH was safe”

The rest, as they say, is history. Despite nationwide protests by consumer groups, Monsanto and the FDA, on Feb. 4, 1994,  forced  the world's first GE animal drug, recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone (rBGH, sometimes known as rBST) onto the US grocery consumer market. Only years later was it also realized and reported (e.g. by  Dr. Michael Hansen from the Consumers Union and Dr. Samuel Epstein from the Cancer Prevention Coalition) that milk from rBGH- injected cows contains substantially higher amounts of a potent cancer tumor promoter called IGF-1 (which can  incept breast, colon and prostate tumors), and despite years of cumulative evidence that rBGH milk contained  higher levels of pus, bacteria, and antibiotics, the FDA continued to give the hormone its seal of approval, with no real pre-market safety testing required. 

Interestingly, as more and more news has since circulated concerning premature onset of puberty, especially in young adolescent girls, attention turned to rBGH as a prime culprit. Even as early as 1989,  the 'Toxic Sludge'  authors John Stauber and Sheldon Rampton noted(ibid.) : “particularly parents with children under 18, reported a fear that ill effects caused by rGBH would be discovered in the future.”.

As it turned out, the future didn't take long to arrive after millions of gallons of the stuff were imbibed over years - often underscored with parents best intentions:  giving milk to kids as a healthy alternative to sugary soft drinks. Parents now rightly ought to be concerned about their kids ingestion of these GMO products, especially in terms of the effects on their kids' bodies. One can therefore fully endorse Hightower's end question:

"What are we going to do about corporate powers that are so avaricious and arrogant that they're willing to tamper with our food supply, our kids' minds, and our basic consumer rights?"

Perhaps an even better question is: 'What are we to do with a government that allows these kind of blatant corporate travesties, and refuses to protect its own citizens?"

Many will find the answers in my book: The Elements of the Corporatocracy!

The central premise of which is that we no longer have a government "of the people, by the people and for the people", but "of the corporations, by the corporations and for the corporations."

If you don't believe it, you're not paying attention!