More on Why You Should Avoid Soy

There is a lot more to this article before and after what I have posted here.  Be sure to checkout the whole thing at the link.

*SNIP*

Marketing The Perfect Food
“Just imagine you could grow the perfect food. This food not only would provide affordable nutrition, but also would be delicious and easy to prepare in a variety of ways. It would be a healthful food, with no saturated fat. In fact, you would be growing a virtual fountain of youth on your back forty.” The author is Dean Houghton, writing for The Furrow, (2) a magazine published in 12 languages by John Deere. “This ideal food would help prevent, and perhaps reverse, some of the world’s most dreaded diseases. You could grow this miracle crop in a variety of soils and climates. Its cultivation would build up, not deplete, the land…this miracle food already exists… It’s called soy.”

Just imagine. Farmers have been imagining – and planting more soy. What was once a minor crop, listed in the 1913 US Department of Agriculture (USDA) handbook not as a food but as an industrial product, now covers 72 million acres of American farmland. Much of this harvest will be used to feed chickens, turkeys, pigs, cows and salmon. Another large fraction will be squeezed to produce oil for margarine, shortenings and salad dressings.

Advances in technology make it possible to produce isolated soy protein from what was once considered a waste product – the defatted, high-protein soy chips – and then transform something that looks and smells terrible into products that can be consumed by human beings. Flavorings, preservatives, sweeteners, emulsifiers and synthetic nutrients have turned soy protein isolate, the food processors’ ugly duckling, into a New Age Cinderella.

The new fairy-tale food has been marketed not so much for her beauty but for her virtues. Early on, products based on soy protein isolate were sold as extenders and meat substitutes – a strategy that failed to produce the requisite consumer demand. The industry changed its approach. “The quickest way to gain product acceptability in the less affluent society,” said an industry spokesman, “is to have the product consumed on its own merit in a more affluent society.”

(3) So soy is now sold to the upscale consumer, not as a cheap, poverty food but as a miracle substance that will prevent heart disease and cancer, whisk away hot flushes, build strong bones and keep us forever young. The competition – meat, milk, cheese, butter and eggs – has been duly demonised by the appropriate government bodies. Soy serves as meat and milk for a new generation of virtuous vegetarians.

Marketing costs money, especially when it needs to be bolstered with “research”, but there’s plenty of funds available. All soybean producers pay a mandatory assessment of one-half to one per cent of the net market price of soybeans. The total – something like US$80 million annually (4) – supports United Soybean’s program to “strengthen the position of soybeans in the marketplace and maintain and expand domestic and foreign markets for uses for soybeans and soybean products”.

State soybean councils from Maryland, Nebraska, Delaware, Arkansas, Virginia, North Dakota and Michigan provide another $2.5 million for “research”. (5) Private companies like Archer Daniels Midland also contribute their share. ADM spent $4.7 million for advertising on Meet the Press and $4.3 million on Face the Nation during the course of a year. (6) Public relations firms help convert research projects into newspaper articles and advertising copy, and law firms lobby for favorable government regulations. IMF money funds soy processing plants in foreign countries, and free trade policies keep soybean abundance flowing to overseas destinations.

The push for more soy has been relentless and global in its reach. Soy protein is now found in most supermarket breads. It is being used to transform “the humble tortilla, Mexico’s corn-based staple food, into a protein-fortified ’super-tortilla’ that would give a nutritional boost to the nearly 20 million Mexicans who live in extreme poverty”.(7) Advertising for a new soy-enriched loaf from Allied Bakeries in Britain targets menopausal women seeking relief from hot flushes. Sales are running at a quarter of a million loaves per week. (8)

The soy industry hired Norman Robert Associates, a public relations firm, to “get more soy products onto school menus”. (9) The USDA responded with a proposal to scrap the 30 per cent limit for soy in school lunches. The NuMenu program would allow unlimited use of soy in student meals. With soy added to hamburgers, tacos and lasagna, dieticians can get the total fat content below 30 per cent of calories, thereby conforming to government dictates. “With the soy-enhanced food items, students are receiving better servings of nutrients and less cholesterol and fat.”

Soy milk has posted the biggest gains, soaring from $2 million in 1980 to $300 million in the US last year. (10) Recent advances in processing have transformed the gray, thin, bitter, beany-tasting Asian beverage into a product that Western consumers will accept – one that tastes like a milkshake, but without the guilt.

Processing miracles, good packaging, massive advertising and a marketing strategy that stresses the products’ possible health benefits account for increasing sales to all age groups. For example, reports that soy helps prevent prostate cancer have made soy milk acceptable to middle-aged men. “You don’t have to twist the arm of a 55- to 60-year-old guy to get him to try soy milk,” says Mark Messina. Michael Milken, former junk bond financier, has helped the industry shed its hippie image with well-publicized efforts to consume 40 grams of soy protein daily.

America today, tomorrow the world. Soy milk sales are rising in Canada, even though soy milk there costs twice as much as cow’s milk. Soybean milk processing plants are sprouting up in places like Kenya.(11) Even China, where soy really is a poverty food and whose people want more meat, not tofu, has opted to build Western-style soy factories rather than develop western grasslands for grazing animals. (12)

Cinderella’s Dark Side
The propaganda that has created the soy sales miracle is all the more remarkable because, only a few decades ago, the soybean was considered unfit to eat – even in Asia. During the Chou Dynasty (1134-246 BC) the soybean was designated one of the five sacred grains, along with barley, wheat, millet and rice. However, the pictograph for the soybean, which dates from earlier times, indicates that it was not first used as a food; for whereas the pictographs for the other four grains show the seed and stem structure of the plant, the pictograph for the soybean emphasizes the root structure.

Agricultural literature of the period speaks frequently of the soybean and its use in crop rotation. Apparently the soy plant was initially used as a method of fixing nitrogen. (13)

The soybean did not serve as a food until the discovery of fermentation techniques, some time during the Chou Dynasty. The first soy foods were fermented products like tempeh, natto, miso and soy sauce. At a later date, possibly in the 2nd century BC, Chinese scientists discovered that a purée of cooked soybeans could be precipitated with calcium sulfate or magnesium sulfate (plaster of Paris or Epsom salts) to make a smooth, pale curd – tofu or bean curd. The use of fermented and precipitated soy products soon spread to other parts of the Orient, notably Japan and Indonesia.

The Chinese did not eat unfermented soybeans as they did other legumes such as lentils because the soybean contains large quantities of natural toxins or “antinutrients”. First among them are potent enzyme inhibitors that block the action of trypsin and other enzymes needed for protein digestion. These inhibitors are large, tightly folded proteins that are not completely deactivated during ordinary cooking. They can produce serious gastric distress, reduced protein digestion and chronic deficiencies in amino acid uptake. In test animals, diets high in trypsin inhibitors cause enlargement and pathological conditions of the pancreas, including cancer. (14)

Soybeans also contain haemagglutinin, a clot-promoting substance that causes red blood cells to clump together.

Trypsin inhibitors and haemagglutinin are growth inhibitors. Weanling rats fed soy containing these antinutrients fail to grow normally. Growth-depressant compounds are deactivated during the process of fermentation, so once the Chinese discovered how to ferment the soybean, they began to incorporate soy foods into their diets. In precipitated products, enzyme inhibitors concentrate in the soaking liquid rather than in the curd. Thus, in tofu and bean curd, growth depressants are reduced in quantity but not completely eliminated.

Soy also contains goitrogens – substances that depress thyroid function.

Soybeans are high in phytic acid, present in the bran or hulls of all seeds. It’s a substance that can block the uptake of essential minerals – calcium, magnesium, copper, iron and especially zinc – in the intestinal tract. Although not a household word, phytic acid has been extensively studied; there are literally hundreds of articles on the effects of phytic acid in the current scientific literature. Scientists are in general agreement that grain- and legume-based diets high in phytates contribute to widespread mineral deficiencies in third world countries. (15) Analysis shows that calcium, magnesium, iron and zinc are present in the plant foods eaten in these areas, but the high phytate content of soy- and grain-based diets prevents their absorption.

The soybean has one of the highest phytate levels of any grain or legume that has been studied, (16) and the phytates in soy are highly resistant to normal phytate-reducing techniques such as long, slow cooking.(17) Only a long period of fermentation will significantly reduce the phytate content of soybeans. When precipitated soy products like tofu are consumed with meat, the mineral-blocking effects of the phytates are reduced. (18) The Japanese traditionally eat a small amount of tofu or miso as part of a mineral-rich fish broth, followed by a serving of meat or fish.

Vegetarians who consume tofu and bean curd as a substitute for meat and dairy products risk severe mineral deficiencies. The results of calcium, magnesium and iron deficiency are well known; those of zinc are less so.
Zinc is called the intelligence mineral because it is needed for optimal development and functioning of the brain and nervous system. It plays a role in protein synthesis and collagen formation; it is involved in the blood-sugar control mechanism and thus protects against diabetes; it is needed for a healthy reproductive system. Zinc is a key component in numerous vital enzymes and plays a role in the immune system. Phytates found in soy products interfere with zinc absorption more completely than with other minerals. (19) Zinc deficiency can cause a “spacey” feeling that some vegetarians may mistake for the “high” of spiritual enlightenment.

Milk drinking is given as the reason why second-generation Japanese in America grow taller than their native ancestors. Some investigators postulate that the reduced phytate content of the American diet – whatever may be its other deficiencies – is the true explanation, pointing out that both Asian and Western children who do not get enough meat and fish products to counteract the effects of a high phytate diet, frequently suffer rickets, stunting and other growth problems. (20)

Soy Protein Isolate: Not So Friendly

Soy processors have worked hard to get these antinutrients out of the finished product, particularly soy protein isolate (SPI) which is the key ingredient in most soy foods that imitate meat and dairy products, including baby formulas and some brands of soy milk.

SPI is not something you can make in your own kitchen. Production takes place in industrial factories where a slurry of soy beans is first mixed with an alkaline solution to remove fiber, then precipitated and separated using an acid wash and, finally, neutralized in an alkaline solution. Acid washing in aluminum tanks leaches high levels of aluminum into the final product. The resultant curds are spray- dried at high temperatures to produce a high-protein powder. A final indignity to the original soybean is high-temperature, high-pressure extrusion processing of soy protein isolate to produce textured vegetable protein (TVP).

Much of the trypsin inhibitor content can be removed through high-temperature processing, but not all. Trypsin inhibitor content of soy protein isolate can vary as much as fivefold. (21) (In rats, even low-level trypsin inhibitor SPI feeding results in reduced weight gain compared to controls. (22) But high-temperature processing has the unfortunate side-effect of so denaturing the other proteins in soy that they are rendered largely ineffective. (23) That’s why animals on soy feed need lysine supplements for normal growth.

Nitrites, which are potent carcinogens, are formed during spray-drying, and a toxin called lysinoalanine is formed during alkaline processing. (24) Numerous artificial flavorings, particularly MSG, are added to soy protein isolate and textured vegetable protein products to mask their strong “beany” taste and to impart the flavor of meat. (25)

In feeding experiments, the use of SPI increased requirements for vitamins E, K, D and B12 and created deficiency symptoms of calcium, magnesium, manganese, molybdenum, copper, iron and zinc. (26) Phytic acid remaining in these soy products greatly inhibits zinc and iron absorption; test animals fed SPI develop enlarged organs, particularly the pancreas and thyroid gland, and increased deposition of fatty acids in the liver. (27)

Yet soy protein isolate and textured vegetable protein are used extensively in school lunch programs, commercial baked goods, diet beverages and fast food products. They are heavily promoted in third world countries and form the basis of many food giveaway programs.

In spite of poor results in animal feeding trials, the soy industry has sponsored a number of studies designed to show that soy protein products can be used in human diets as a replacement for traditional foods. An example is “Nutritional Quality of Soy Bean Protein Isolates: Studies in Children of Preschool Age”, sponsored by the Ralston Purina Company. (28) A group of Central American children suffering from malnutrition was first stabilized and brought into better health by feeding them native foods, including meat and dairy products. Then, for a two-week period, these traditional foods were replaced by a drink made of soy protein isolate and sugar. All nitrogen taken in and all nitrogen excreted was measured in truly Orwellian fashion: the children were weighed naked every morning, and all excrement and vomit gathered up for analysis. The researchers found that the children retained nitrogen and that their growth was “adequate”, so the experiment was declared a success.

Whether the children were actually healthy on such a diet, or could remain so over a long period, is another matter. The researchers noted that the children vomited “occasionally”, usually after finishing a meal; that over half suffered from periods of moderate diarrhoea; that some had upper respiratory infections; and that others suffered from rash and fever.

It should be noted that the researchers did not dare to use soy products to help the children recover from malnutrition, and were obliged to supplement the soy-sugar mixture with nutrients largely absent in soy products – notably, vitamins A, D and B12, iron, iodine and zinc.
*SNIP*

Much more found here

Codex Threatens Health of Billions

 

Codex Threatens Health of Billions

by Barbara Minton, Natural Health Editor
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(NaturalNews) Your right to eat healthy food and use supplements of your choice is rapidly vanishing, but every effort has been made to keep you in the dark about the coming nutricide. Codex Alimentarius is scheduled for full global implementation on December 31, 2009, and not a word has been spoken in main stream media about this threat to humanity. Yet, according to the projections based on figures from the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), a minimum of 3 billion people will die from the Codex mandated vitamin and mineral guideline alone.

Former Nazi is father of contemporary Codex

Codex is the enemy of everyone except those who will profit from it. Codex has an association with those who committed crimes during the Nazi regime. At the end of World War II, the Nuremberg tribunal judged Nazis who had committed horrendous crimes against humanity and sentenced them to prison terms. One of those found guilty was the president of the megalithic corporation I.G. Farben, Hermann Schmitz. His company was the largest chemical manufacturing enterprise in the world, and had extraordinary political and economic power and influence with the Hitlerian Nazi state. Farben produced the gas used in the Nazi gas chambers, and the steel for the railroads built to transport people to their deaths.

While serving his prison term, Schmitz looked for an alternative to brute force for controlling people and realized that people could be controlled through their food supply. When he got out of prison, he went to his friends at the United Nations (UN) and laid out a plan to take over the control of food worldwide. A trade commission called Codex Alimentarius (Latin for food code) was re-created under the guise of it being a consumer protection commission. But Codex was never in the business of protecting people. It has always been about money and profits at the expense of people.

In 1962, the timetable was set for Codex to be fully implemented on a global level by December 31, 2009. Under Codex, committees were established to create guidelines on such topics as fish and fisheries, fats and oils, fruits and vegetables, ground nuts, nutrition, food for specialized uses, and vitamins and minerals. There were 27 committees in all, creating a huge bureaucracy. Under Codex there are over 4,000 guidelines and regulations on everything that can be put into your mouth with the exception of pharmaceuticals which are not regulated by Codex.

Codex is a weapon being used to reduce the level of nutrition worldwide

Codex is an industry dominated regulation setting organization, and as such has no legal standing. Participation in Codex is said to be voluntary. But Codex has risen to the level of de facto legal standing because Codex is administered by the WHO and FAO. They fund it and run it at the request of the UN. Since the WHO and FAO are supposed to be about health, there is conflict of interest. The committees of Codex work up guidelines, rules and regulations, and present them to a Codex commission for ratification. Once they are ratified and approved by consensus, they become mandatory standards for any country that is a member of the WHO.

Codex was accepted when the WTO was formed in 1994 as a means of harmonizing food standards globally for easy trade between countries. As a result, countries must harmonize with Codex if they want to have any standing in a trade dispute. When disputes arise and countries are pulled in to WTO, the one that is Codex compliant automatically wins, regardless of the merits of its case.
Codex has become a weapon to make every nation scurry to become compliant to its mandated decline in nutritional standards. Compliance in the U.S. will mark the end of its consumer protection laws. Codex will not serve consumers. Codex will serve the interests of the medical, pharmaceutical, biotechnology, chemical, and big agricultural industries.

Under Codex, nutrients are classified as poisons

The Dietary Substances Health and Education Act (DSHEA), was signed into law in 1994 for the purpose of ensuring that safe and appropriately labeled products would remain available to those who wanted to use them. In the findings associated with this law, Congress stated that there may be a positive relationship between sound dietary practice and good health, and a connection between dietary supplement use, reduced health-care expenses, and disease prevention. Under DSHEA, nutrients and herbs are classified as food. There is no upper limit set, and access is freely given. Americans are allowed to have any nutrients they want, because under English common law, anything that is not expressly forbidden is permitted.

Codex, on the other hand, is based on Napoleonic law and is much more restrictive. In 1994, the same year DSHEA was signed, Codex had nutrients declared to be toxic and poisonous. And as poisons, they claimed people must be protected from them through the use of toxicology and risk assessment, under which scientists test small doses on animals until they are able to discern an impact. They then take the first sign of the most minimal impact and divide this amount by 100 to establish a safety margin required from these poisons. This means that the largest dose of any nutrient allowed under Codex is 1/100th of the amount shown to produce the first discernable impact.
Nutrients allowed under Codex are limited to those on the positive list, expected to contain only 18 nutrients, one of them being fluoride. Although fluoride has no biological benefit whatsoever, it does make people complacent.
The Codex proponents now have several bills before Congress designed to overturn and get rid of DSHEA. Once this is accomplished, the U.S. will have been harmonized with the vitamin and mineral guidelines of codex. High potency, therapeutically effective, significant nutrients will then be illegal in the way that heroin is illegal. They will not even be available by prescription.

Codex supports toxic food additives, pesticides and GM foods

Codex poses a significant threat to the food supply, according to Dr. Robert Verkerk, founder and director of the Alliance for Natural Health. About 300 dangerous food additives that are mainly synthetic will be allowed under Codex, including aspartame, BHA, BHT, potassium bromate, tartrazine, and more. Dr. Verkerk is particularly concerned that no consideration has been given to potential risks associated with long-term exposure to mixtures of additives.

Codex sets limits for the dangerous industrial chemicals that can be used in food, but they are incredibly high, and the list of chemicals that can be used is long. In 2001, 176 countries including the U.S. got together and decided that 12 highly toxic organic chemicals, known as persistent organic pollutants (POPS), were so bad that they had to be banned. There are many more than 12 toxic chemicals used on food, but these 12 were unanimously declared to be the worst. Of these, 9 are pesticides.

Under Codex, 7 of the 9 forbidden POPS will again be allowed in the production of food. All together, Codex allows over 3,275 different pesticides, including those that are suspected carcinogens or endocrine disrupters. There is no consideration of the long-term effects of exposure to mixtures of pesticide residues in food.

Organic food governance will be dumbed down to suit the interests of large food producers. Various synthetic chemical additives and processing aids will be allowed, and food labeled as organic may be irradiated. Labeling will permit the use of hidden, non-organic ingredients.
Monsanto, a member of Codex, will benefit greatly as production of genetically modified (GM) foods are stepped up and more GM plants are given the green light. Terminator seeds will be approved for international trade. GM food animals will also be on the way.

Under Codex, every dairy animal can be treated with growth hormone, and all animals in the food chain will be treated with sub-clinical levels of antibiotics. Codex will lead to the required irradiation of all foods with the exception of those grown locally and sold raw.

Codex is food regulations that are in fact the legalization of mandated toxicity and under-nutrition. Of the 3 billion people initially expected to die as the result of the Codex vitamin and mineral guidelines, 2 billion of them will die from the preventable diseases that result from under-nutrition, such as cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and many others. Those who will live will be the wealthy elites who are able to somehow provide themselves with sources of clean food and other nutrients.

Codex is legalized genocide

Dr. Gregory Damato, Ph.D., writing for Natural News, has characterized Codex as "population control for money". He sees Codex as run by the U.S. and controlled by the big pharmaceutical corporations and the likes of Monsanto with the purpose of reducing the population of the world to a level considered sustainable by those promulgating the New World Order. This would mean a reduction of approximately 93 percent of the current world population.
Once Codex standards are adopted there will be no turning back. When Codex compliance is instigated in any area, as long as the country remains a member of the WTO, those standards cannot be repealed, or altered in any way.

The time for modifying Codex guidelines is rapidly disappearing

Some hope remains. Over the years, the WTO has accepted Codex standards as presumptive evidence of the rules of trade between countries. However, several times in history, the WTO has refused to make Codex the single and only standard to be used in trade disputes. Under Codex`s own statutes, their guidelines are claimed to be "advisory", and nations are able to set up their own guidelines as long as they are more restrictive than those of Codex.
Since compliance with Codex standards is simply presumptive evidence, and not finally determinative, a nation can opt out of the guidelines in an effort to protect its traditional foods and remedies. The Codex two step process is a legal strategy developed to help nations wanting to do this. Under step one, the country develops its own food and health guidelines that may be at variance with Codex guidelines. For example, it may be much stricter on the issues of toxins in the food supply or on the issue of genetically modified foods. It may require, for example, that companies using GM ingredients be required to indicate them on food labels. In countries that refuse to use GM foods, this can be indicated on their label too, so that people can make informed choices. The second step is to adopt a national law that implements those guidelines on a sound scientific basis.

Normally, in a trade dispute before the WTO, the country that has adopted Codex guidelines will be the winner of that dispute based on those guidelines being presumptive evidence. However, when countries have gone through the two step process to create their own guidelines, there is no such presumption, and the WTO will look at the science behind the guidelines.

In the U.S. the door is open to Codex

In 1995, the FDA issued a policy statement saying that international standards such as Codex would supersede U.S. laws governing all food. Under the Central American Free Trade Agreement, which is illegal under current U.S. law, but is legal under international law, the U.S. is required to conform to Codex as it stands on December 31, 2009, unless it creates its own guidelines and gets them approved under the two step process. Given current government sentiment, this seems unlikely. Besides, as guidelines are one-by-one chiseled into standards, time is running out.

For more information:
http://www.naturalnews.com/024128_C…
http://www.anhcampaign.org/

Codex Threatens Health of Billions

You’re Appointing WHO? Please Obama, Say It’s Not So!

By: Jeffrey Smith http://www.responsibletechnology.org July 24, 2009

The person who may be responsible for more food-related illness and death than anyone in history has just been made the US food safety czar. This is no joke.

Here’s the back story.

When FDA scientists were asked to weigh in on what was to become the most radical and potentially dangerous change in our food supply — the introduction of genetically modified (GM) foods — secret documents now reveal that the experts were very concerned. Memo after memo described toxins, new diseases, nutritional deficiencies, and hard-to-detect allergens. They were adamant that the technology carried "serious health hazards," and required careful, long-term research, including human studies, before any genetically modified organisms (GMOs) could be safely released into the food supply.

But the biotech industry had rigged the game so that neither science nor scientists would stand in their way. They had placed their own man in charge of FDA policy and he wasn’t going to be swayed by feeble arguments related to food safety. No, he was going to do what corporations had done for decades to get past these types of pesky concerns. He was going to lie.

Dangerous Food Safety Lies

When the FDA was constructing their GMO policy in 1991-2, their scientists were clear that gene-sliced foods were significantly different and could lead to "different risks" than conventional foods. But official policy declared the opposite, claiming that the FDA knew nothing of significant differences, and declared GMOs substantially equivalent.

This fiction became the rationale for allowing GM foods on the market without any required safety studies whatsoever! The determination of whether GM foods were safe to eat was placed entirely in the hands of the companies that made them — companies like Monsanto, which told us that the PCBs, DDT, and Agent Orange were safe.

GMOs were rushed onto our plates in 1996. Over the next nine years, multiple chronic illnesses in the US nearly doubled — from 7% to 13%. Allergy-related emergency room visits doubled between 1997 and 2002 while food allergies, especially among children, skyrocketed. We also witnessed a dramatic rise in asthma, autism, obesity, diabetes, digestive disorders, and certain cancers.

In January of this year, Dr. P. M. Bhargava, one of the world’s top biologists, told me that after reviewing 600 scientific journals, he concluded that the GM foods in the US are largely responsible for the increase in many serious diseases.

In May, the American Academy of Environmental Medicine concluded that animal studies have demonstrated a causal relationship between GM foods and infertility, accelerated aging, dysfunctional insulin regulation, changes in major organs and the gastrointestinal system, and immune problems such as asthma, allergies, and inflammation

In July, a report by eight international experts determined that the flimsy and superficial evaluations of GMOs by both regulators and GM companies "systematically overlook the side effects" and significantly underestimate "the initial signs of diseases like cancer and diseases of the hormonal, immune, nervous and reproductive systems, among others."

The Fox Guarding the Chickens

If GMOs are indeed responsible for massive sickness and death, then the individual who oversaw the FDA policy that facilitated their introduction holds a uniquely infamous role in human history. That person is Michael Taylor. He had been Monsanto’s attorney before becoming policy chief at the FDA. Soon after, he became Monsanto’s vice president and chief lobbyist.

This month Michael Taylor became the senior advisor to the commissioner of the FDA. He is now America’s food safety czar. What have we done?

The Milk Man Cometh

While Taylor was at the FDA in the early 90’s, he also oversaw the policy regarding Monsanto’s genetically engineered bovine growth hormone (rbGH/rbST) — injected into cows to increase milk supply.

The milk from injected cows has more pus, more antibiotics, more bovine growth hormone, and most importantly, more insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF-1). IGF-1 is a huge risk factor for common cancers and its high levels in this drugged milk is why so many medical organizations and hospitals have taken stands against rbGH. A former Monsanto scientist told me that when three of his Monsanto colleagues evaluated rbGH safety and discovered the elevated IGF-1 levels, even they refused to drink any more milk — unless it was organic and therefore untreated.

Government scientists from Canada evaluated the FDA’s approval of rbGH and concluded that it was a dangerous facade. The drug was banned in Canada, as well as Europe, Japan, Australia and New Zealand. But it was approved in the US while Michael Taylor was in charge. His drugged milk might have caused a significant rise in US cancer rates. Additional published evidence also implicates rbGH in the high rate of fraternal twins in the US.

Taylor also determined that milk from injected cows did not require any special labeling. And as a gift to his future employer Monsanto, he wrote a white paper suggesting that if companies ever had the audacity to label their products as not using rbGH, they should also include a disclaimer stating that according to the FDA, there is no difference between milk from treated and untreated cows.

Taylor’s disclaimer was also a lie. Monsanto’s own studies and FDA scientists officially acknowledged differences in the drugged milk. No matter. Monsanto used Taylor’s white paper as the basis to successfully sue dairies that labeled their products as rbGH-free.

Will Monsanto’s Wolff Also Guard the Chickens?

As consumers learned that rbGH was dangerous, they refused to buy the milk. To keep their customers, a tidal wave of companies has publicly committed to not use the drug and to label their products as such. Monsanto tried unsuccessfully to convince the FDA and FTC to make it illegal for dairies to make rbGH-free claims, so they went to their special friend in Pennsylvania — Dennis Wolff. As state secretary of agriculture, Wolff unilaterally declared that labeling products rbGH-free was illegal, and that all such labels must be removed from shelves statewide. This would, of course, eliminate the label from all national brands, as they couldn’t afford to create separate packaging for just one state.

Fortunately, consumer demand forced Pennsylvania’s Governor Ed Rendell to step in and stop Wolff’s madness. But Rendell allowed Wolff to take a compromised position that now requires rbGH-free claims to also be accompanied by Taylor’s FDA disclaimer on the package.

President Obama is considering Dennis Wolff for the top food safety post at the USDA. Yikes!

Rumor has it that the reason why Pennsylvania’s governor is supporting Wolff’s appointment is to get him out of the state — after he "screwed up so badly" with the rbGH decision. Oh great, governor. Thanks.

Ohio Governor Gets Taylor-itus

Ohio not only followed Pennsylvania’s lead by requiring Taylor’s FDA disclaimer on packaging, they went a step further. They declared that dairies must place that disclaimer on the same panel where rbGH-free claims are made, and even dictated the font size. This would force national brands to re-design their labels and may ultimately dissuade them from making rbGH-free claims at all. The Organic Trade Association and the International Dairy Foods Association filed a lawsuit against Ohio. Although they lost the first court battle, upon appeal, the judge ordered a mediation session that takes place today. Thousands of Ohio citizens have flooded Governor Strickland’s office with urgent requests to withdraw the states anti-consumer labeling requirements.

Perhaps the governor has an ulterior motive for pushing his new rules. If he goes ahead with his labeling plans, he might end up with a top appointment in the Obama administration.