-
- (Note - This is a year-old story but well worth
revisiting.)
-
- Two journalists in the US are thwarted in their efforts
to tell
an important public health story -- that Monsanto's genetically
engineered milk hormone may promote cancer in humans. Their story is
killed by the very TV station that had commissioned the story, caving
in to threats by Monsanto.
-
- Two veteran news reporters for Fox TV in Tampa, Florida
have been fired for refusing to water down an investigative report on
Monsanto's controversial milk hormone, rBGH (recombinant bovine growth
hormone).
-
- Monsanto's rBGH is a genetically engineered hormone sold
to
dairy farmers, who inject it into their cows every two weeks to increase
milk production. In recent years, evidence has accumulated indicating
that rBGH may promote cancer in humans who drink milk from rBGH-treated
cows. It is the link between rBGH and cancer that Fox TV tried hardest
to remove from the story.
-
- In the fall of 1996, award-winning reporters Steve
Wilson
and Jane Akre were hired by WTVT in Tampa to produce a series
on rBGH
in Florida milk.
-
- After more than a year's work on the rBGH series, and
three days before the series was scheduled to air starting 24 February
1997, Fox TV executives received the first of two letters from lawyers
representing Monsanto saying that Monsanto would suffer 'enormous damage'
if the series ran.
-
- WTVT had been advertising the series aggressively, but
cancelled it at the last moment. Monsanto's second letter warned of 'dire
consequences' for Fox if the series aired as it stood. (How Monsanto
knew what the series contained remains a mystery.)
-
- According to documents filed in
Florida's Circuit Court
(13th Circuit), Fox lawyers then tried to
water down the series, offering
to pay the two reporters if they would
leave the station and keep mum
about what Fox had done to their work.
The reporters refused Fox's offer,
and on 12 April 1998, filed their
own lawsuit against WTVT.
-
- Steve Wilson has 26 years' experience as a working
journalist
and has won four Emmy awards for his investigative
reporting. His wife,
Jane Akre, has been a reporter and news anchor
for 20 years, and has won
a prestigious Associated Press award for
investigative reporting.
-
- The Wilson/Akre lawsuit charges that WTVT violated its
licence from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) by demanding
that the reporters include known falsehoods in their rBGH series. The
reporters also charge that WTVT violated Florida's 'whistle blower' law.
Many of the legal documents in the lawsuit -- including Monsanto's
threatening
letters -- have been posted on the world wide web at http://www.foxbghsuit.com
for all
to see.
-
- No
one will be surprised to learn that powerful corporations
can
intimidate TV stations into rewriting the news, but this case offers
an unusually detailed glimpse of specific intimidation tactics and their
effects inside a news organisation. It is not pretty.
-
- It has been well-documented by
Monsanto and by others
that rBGH- treated cows undergo several changes:
their lives are shortened,
they are more likely to develop mastitis,
an infection of the udder (which
then requires use of antibiotics,
which end up in the milk along with
increased pus), and they produce
milk containing elevated levels of another
hormone called IGF-1. It is
IGF-1 that is associated with increased likelihood
of human
cancers.
-
- The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved rBGH
for use
in cows in 1993, but the approval process was controversial because
former Monsanto employees went to work for the FDA, oversaw the approval
process, then went back to work for Monsanto.
-
- Monsanto is notorious for
marketing dangerous products
while falsely claiming safety. The entire
plant is now contaminated with
hormone-disrupting, cancer-causing PCBs
(polychlorinated biphenyls), thanks
to Monsanto's poor judgement and
refusal to be guided by early scientific
evidence indicating
harm.
-
- The
2,4,5-T in Agent Orange -- the herbicide that has
brought so much
grief to tens of thousands of Vietnam veterans -- is another
example
of Monsanto's poor judgement and failure to heed scientific evidence
to prevent harm. Critics say rBGH is just one more example of Monsanto's
monumentally poor judgement. When Wilson and Akre asked Monsanto
officials
to respond to these allegations of past poor judgement,
Monsanto had no
comment.
-
- The Wilson/Akre rBGH series (a script of which is
available
on the web site www.foxbghsuit.com) makes the following
points: * rBGH
was never properly tested before the FDA allowed it on
the market. A standard
cancer test of a new human drug requires two
years of testing with several
hundred rats. But rBGH was tested for
only 90 days on 30 rats.
-
- This short-term rat study was submitted to the FDA but
was never published. The FDA has refused to allow anyone outside the FDA
to review the raw data from this study, saying it would 'irreparably
harm' Monsanto. Therefore the linchpin study of cancer and rBGH has never
been subjected to open scientific peer review.
-
- * Some Florida dairy herds
grew sick shortly after starting
rBGH treatment. One farmer, Charles
Knight - who lost 75% of his herd
- says on camera that Monsanto and
Monsanto-funded researchers at the
University of Florida withheld from
him the information that other dairy
herds were suffering similar
problems. He says Monsanto and the university
researchers told him
only that he must be doing something wrong.
-
- * The law required Monsanto to
notify the FDA if they
received complaints by dairy farmers such as
Charles Knight. But four
months after Knight complained to Monsanto,
the FDA had heard nothing
from Monsanto. Monsanto's explanation?
Despite a series of visits to Knight's
farm, and many phone
conversations, Monsanto officials say it took them
four months to
figure out that Knight was complaining about rBGH. * Monsanto
claims
on camera that every truckload of milk is tested for excessive
antibiotics - but Florida dairy officials and scientists on camera say
this is simply not true.
-
- * Monsanto says on camera that Canada's ban on rBGH
has nothing to do with human health concerns - but Canadian government
officials speaking on camera say just the opposite. * Canadian government
officials, speaking on camera, say they believe Monsanto tried to bribe
them with offers of $1 to $2 million to gain approval for rBGH in
Canada.
Monsanto officials say the Canadians misunderstood their offer
of 'research'
funds.
-
- * Monsanto officials claim on camera that 'the milk
has not changed' because of rBGH treatment of cows. As noted earlier,
there is abundant evidence - some of it from Monsanto's own studies --
that this is definitely not true.
-
- * On camera, a Monsanto
official claims that Monsanto
has not opposed dairy co-ops labelling
their milk as 'rBGH-free'. But
this is definitely not true. Monsanto
brought two lawsuits against dairies
that labelled their milk
'rBGH-free'. Faced with the Monsanto legal juggernaut,
the dairies
folded and Monsanto then sent letters around to other dairy
organisations announcing the outcome of the two lawsuits - in all
likelihood,
for purposes of intimidation. (Conveniently, the FDA
regulations that
discourage labelling of milk as 'rBGH-free' were
written by Michael Taylor,
an attorney who worked for Monsanto both
before and after his tenure as
an FDA official.)
-
- At the web site http://www.foxbghsuit.comwww
.foxbghsuit.com,
you will find the version of the Wilson/Akre rBGH
series as it was rewritten
by Fox's attorneys. It has been laundered
and perfumed. Most importantly,
nearly all of the references to cancer
have been removed from the script.
Instead of cancer we now have
'human health effects' - whatever those
may be.
-
- The Wilson/Akre lawsuit comes
at an especially good time
to publicise the relationship between rBGH
and human cancer because new
evidence has come to light.
-
- In January 1998 a
Harvard study of 15,000 white men published
in SCIENCE reported that
those with elevated -- but still normal -- levels
of IGF-1 in their
blood are four times as likely as average men to get
prostate cancer.
The SCIENCE report ends saying, 'Finally, our results
raise concern
that administration of GH [growth hormone] or IGF-1 over
long periods,
as proposed for elderly men to delay the effects of aging,
may
increase risk of prostate cancer.'
-
- By analogy, Monsanto's current
efforts to increase the
IGF-1 levels in America's milk supply raise
the question: if little boys
drink milk from rBGH-treated cows over
long periods, will the elevated
levels of IGF-1 increase their
prostate cancer rates? This is not a question
that should be answered
by a wholesale experiment on the American people
- but that is
precisely what Monsanto is currently doing. It is difficult
to put a
happy face on this, try as Fox might.
-
- The Wilson/Akre story is one of
talented, hardworking
journalists trying to tell an important public
health story, exposing
lies and corruption by Monsanto, by the FDA,
and now by Fox, too. If
nothing else, perhaps the courage of Steve
Wilson and Jane Akre will awaken
many more of us to the potential
dangers of Monsanto's latest experiment
on America's children. - Third
World Network Features
- _______
-
- Peter Montague, PhD, is director of the Environmental
Research Foundation in Annapolis, Maryland, USA. This article first
appeared
in Rachel's Environmental and Health Weekly.
-
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