Death By Supermarket (20 page)

Millions of parents are asking that same question. The age of men-arche has fallen from approximately 15 or 16 in 1850 to between 12 and 13 in 1990, and the age of puberty for boys has declined from around 16 to 13 or 14.
²¹⁰
And today by age seven, 10.4 percent of white, 23.4 percent of black, and 14.9 percent of Hispanic girls have enough breast development to be considered at the onset of puberty. By age eight, 18.3 percent of white, 42.9 percent of black, and 30.9 percent of Hispanic girls are considered to have started puberty.
²¹¹
One percent of American girls now show signs of puberty before the age of three.
²¹²
Nine-year-old boys are experiencing penis and testicular maturation and pubic-hair growth. It’s only considered precocious puberty when a girl begins puberty earlier than seven, and a boy earlier than nine.
²¹³

Clearly there are many factors contributing to the rise of precocious puberty, one of which is thought to be chronic exposure to xenoestrogens, substances that have been found to mimic the actions of the hormone estrogen. Xenoestrogens are endocrine disruptors.

Female hormones, estrogens, are present in both sexes, but in larger amounts for women. Estrogens influence puberty, menstruation, and pregnancy in women, and they regulate the growth of bones, skin, and vital organs and tissues in both men and women.

Xenoestrogens are generated from a number of sources, including heating food in plastic, consuming fruits and vegetables grown with pesticides, herbicides, and chemical fertilizers, and consuming meat and dairy products from cows that were fed feed that contains pesticide, herbicide, and chemical-fertilizer residues. Chlorine and hormone residues in meats and dairy products can also have estrogenic effects. Factory dairy cows are fed soybeans, which are high in phytoestrogens (also estrogen mimickers). Estrogen mimickers xenoestrogens and phytoestrogens bind to estrogen receptors and have essentially the same effect as natural estrogen, setting up the potential to wreck havoc on reproductive anatomy and physiology and disrupting endocrine function.

Today the link between the rise of precocious puberty and the combined influences of increased body fat and prolonged high xenoestrogen exposure has been the topic of much study. Enhanced body fat implies reproductive readiness and signals the onset of puberty in both girls and boys.
²¹⁴
For girls, more body fat ensures that there is enough stored energy to support pregnancy and lactation. So it may be that excess body fat and exposure to estrogenic substances operate in concert to hasten puberty.
²¹⁵
Xenoestrogens, which are much stronger than estrogens made by the body, have been prevalent in the environment only in modern times and are thought to be a contributing factor to fertility problems, genital malformation, reduced male birth rates, precocious puberty, miscarriage, behavior problems, brain abnormalities, impaired immune function, various cancers, and cardiovascular disease. Endometriosis is an estrogen-dependant disease first defined in 1920; there were only 20 reports about it in the worldwide literature by 1921. Today this painful reproductive and immunological disease affects more than 7 million women and teens in North America alone, with nearly 80 million more worldwide.
²¹⁶

In 1990, Danish pediatric endocrinologist Niels E. Skakkebaek set up a department at the National University Hospital in Copenhagen to study the phenomenon of male infertility and children’s growth disorders.
²¹⁷
Skakkebaek gained notoriety in the 1970s for his brilliant studies of testicular cancer, a formerly rare disease in which there has been an astonishing rise in the last fifty years. In his pediatric practice, Skakkebaek was seeing numerous boys with genital malformations and others with undescended testicles, a condition with links to sterility and a higher rate of testicular cancer. Skakkebaek and his colleagues found that even supposedly healthy men had surprising low-quality sperm.

Since 1938, sperm counts of men in twenty-one countries have plunged by an average of 50 percent, and testicular cancer has tripled. Skakkebaek suspects that the culprit is men’s exposure (as fetuses and newborns) to estrogen-like chemicals found in their mother’s blood and breastmilk.

Skakkebaek concluded that the most likely villains are chemicals in the
environment, which masquerade as the female hormone, estrogen. These chemicals, which can have a temporary effect on adults, can cause permanent damage in boys whose sexual organs are not yet fully developed.

Since 1990, nearly fifteen million new cancer cases have been diagnosed, with a new cancer diagnosed every thirty seconds. Breast, prostate, and colon cancers have risen the most dramatically in the past twenty years. One out of eight American women will develop breast cancer, and one out of nine men will develop prostate cancer. One in twenty (men and women) will develop colon cancer. Could there also be a link between the rise of these cancers and the introduction twenty years ago of rBGH into our milk supply?

In 1980, this cheap variant of natural bovine growth hormone was created by Genentech, Inc., by inserting
E. coli
bacteria into the cow gene that creates bovine growth hormone. In 1981, Genentech sold the rights to recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone (rBGH) to Monsanto. In 1985, when Monsanto needed to conduct large-scale veterinarian trials on rBGH, the FDA approved of this study and also approved the sale of rBGH beef and milk from Monsanto’s research herds and dairies to the public without disclosing the fact that the milk was obtained from rBGH-treated cows. The FDA based its approval on extremely short-term (28- to 90-day) experiments in which rats were fed rBGH. Monsanto claimed the rats suffered no apparent ill effects, so it was OK for humans to ingest rBGH milk. They neglected to mention details like thyroid cysts and changes to rats’ prostate glands.
²¹⁸

FDA scientists who recognized the problems with the FDA approval process of Monsanto’s trials were deemed potential whistleblowers, were treated with hostility and threats, and were even fired.
²¹⁹
Although a handful of FDA scientists resorted to anonymously protesting to Congress, the sale of rBGH meat and milk from Monsanto’s research farms and ranches was ultimately green-lighted. So American families were hapless guinea pigs, consuming rBGH meat and milk.
²²⁰

One problem that couldn’t be glossed over was the severe increased
mastitis (infection of the udders), which required treatment with high levels of antibiotics. To address this problem, Margaret Miller, Ph.D., at the FDA, pushed through a dramatic increase in the allowable levels of antibiotics in milk. Dairy farmers were then free to crank up antibiotic treatments of their rBGH cows, and the heavily antibiotic laced rBGH milk was then sold to an unsuspecting public.
²²¹

Antibiotics don’t distinguish between harmful and healthy bacteria. So consuming antibiotics for long periods of time can severely disrupt the balance of your healthy intestinal bacteria, causing gastrointestinal and immune function problems as well as yeast overgrowth. Chronic antibiotic intake from milk and meat products can also result in the harmful bacteria in your body becoming resistant to the effects of prescription antibiotics.

Back in 1989, cancer expert Dr. Epstein (introduced on
page 63
), who is the author of the investigative journalist-oriented
Got (Genetically Engineered) Milk? The Monsanto BGH/BST Milk Wars Handbook
, was alerted to the use of rBGH by dairy farmers who came to him inquiring about consumer risks. Dr. Epstein began to analyze the scientific literature and to write about the dangers of rBGH. Although Monsanto has done everything in its power to keep the truth about rBGH from the public, Epstein has fought to reveal the truth. From time to time, he’s had help from unexpected sources. “Over the last thirty years, people in agencies and industries have sent me confidential documents,” he told me. “Sometimes they give me their names. Sometimes they don’t.”
²²²

The first box containing extensive “company confidential” Monsanto files arrived anonymously, shortly after Epstein began his research into rBGH. The files detailed the extensive adverse health effects in cows treated with rBGH, including a high incidence of reproductive failure; cows injected with rBGH had much higher rates of infection and suffered from infertility, extreme weight loss, heat intolerance and lactational burnout, gastric ulcers, arthritis, and kidney and heart abnormalities. The files also documented the high level of rBGH in milk.

Although Dr. Epstein forwarded copies of these files to Congress, an investigation was launched, and Monsanto and the FDA were charged with
conspiring to manipulate critical health data, it was no more irritating than a buzzing gnat in the nostrils of Monsanto and the FDA. Ultimately cows continued to be treated with rBGH, and that milk was sold to the public.

By 1990, overwhelming scientific evidence demonstrated the health hazards of rBGH to both humans and cows. Incredibly, the FDA claimed “milk and meat from [rBGH] treated cows are safe and wholesome for human consumption.”
²²³
What is true is that the injection of rBGH increases levels of a potent hormone called insulinlike growth factor one (IGF-1), which is then passed to the cows’ milk. Although natural cow’s milk contains natural growth hormone—as does human breast milk—Dr. Epstein writes that rBGH milk is “supercharged with high levels of abnormally potent IGF-1, up to ten times the levels in natural milk and over ten times more potent.” Worse is that when rBGH milk is pasteurized, IGF-1 increases by up to 70 percent.

When humans drink IGF-1 milk, the hormone is absorbed through the gastrointestinal tract (and infants’ gastrointestinal tracts are much more permeable than adults). Because IGF-1 causes cells to divide and because IGF-1 also behaves like insulin—another growth factor—when it is absorbed into the bloodstream, it can exert rapid cell growth on colon, breast, and prostate cells. IGF-1 also blocks the programmed self-destruction of cancer cells and enhances their growth and invasiveness. Numerous studies have demonstrated that unnatural levels of IGF1 dramatically increase your risk of developing breast, prostate, lung, colon, and gastrointestinal cancers.
²²⁴

Nevertheless, in February 1994, the FDA granted approval for general use of rBGH and pushed through regulatory labeling guidelines, composed by Dr. Margaret Miller and Deputy FDA Commissioner Michael Taylor. The guidelines effectively banned the labeling of rBGH milk as “containing rBGH” or even “rBGH free” so that consumers would not be alerted to the fact that they were consuming rBGH milk—or even given the choice.
²²⁵

These public servants were not focused with single-minded passion on your health or the welfare of your children. Miller, for example, was the laboratory supervisor at Monsanto and left the biotech firm to be deputy
director of human food safety at the FDA where she was still publishing papers for Monsanto when she wrote the bovine growth hormone guidelines. Taylor was the former chief counsel for the International Food Biotechnology Counsel and Monsanto. Taylor’s FDA guidelines were used by his former law firm to sue dairies that dared to label their dairy products “rBGHfree.”
²²⁶
After the fact, Michael Friedman, M.D., who was deputy commissioner of the FDA from 1995 to 1999, went on to a position as the head of clinical research at Monsanto Co.’s G.D. Searle & Co. unit, which produces rBGH.
²²⁷

Three concerned FDA scientists, Joseph Settepani, Alexander Apostolou, and Richard Burroughs, made numerous attempts to thwart the rBGH approval process but were stymied by internal intrigue, hostility, and threats. A month after the FDA approval of rBGH, they resorted to writing an anonymous letter to members of Congress. “We are afraid to speak openly about the situation because of retribution from our director, Dr. Robert Livingston,” they write. “Dr. Livingston openly harasses anyone who states an opinion in opposition to his.”
²²⁸

Monsanto continued raking in the dough, and Americans unwittingly glugged rBGH milk. Meanwhile, by 1999, Canada had banned the use of rBGH. That same year, the Codex Alimentarius Commission—the U.N. food safety agency that represents 101 nations—unanimously ruled in favor of maintaining the 1992 European moratorium on Monsanto’s rBGH milk.
²²⁹

The American Medical Association (AMA) has dismissed rBGH critics as “fringe groups.” The American Cancer Society (ACS) has trivialized the link between IGF-1 and cancer and come out in support of the use of rBGH.
²³⁰
And the FDA persists in their claims that rBGH milk is safe and wholesome. (The AMA is a partnership of physicians and professional associations dedicated to promoting the art and science of medicine and the betterment of public health, and the ACS is a national, voluntary cancer organization founded to eliminate cancer.)

Dr. Epstein added that the ACS has in the neighborhood of 340
“Excalibur industry donors” that each donate more than $100,000 per year. “Key amongst them are the techno chemical industries and agribusiness,” Dr. Epstein told me. “The American Cancer Society is more interested in accumulating wealth than savings lives. Their CEOs have high salaries. They have a billion dollars of cash assets in reserves. They have major internal conflicts of interests. The National Cancer Institute and the American Cancer Society fail in their mandated responsibility to inform the public of avoidable risks of cancer.” (The NCI is a government agency created for cancer research and education.)

Dr. Epstein is an outspoken critic of cancer organizations’ focus on cancer drugs rather than prevention. “The National Cancer Institute’s budget has increased from 200 million in 1971 to 4.6 billion today,” he said. “Paralleling this increase is the increasing incidence of nonsmoking cancers. Very little money is spent on preventing cancer. The overwhelming emphasis of the National Cancer Institute is producing miracle drugs that possibly increase life expectancy by a month or two.”