Increases Milk : Use Caution on Cow Drug, FDA Is Urged

Citing the imminent shift of biotechnology from the laboratory to the farm, groups of environmentalists and Wisconsin farmers Tuesday asked the federal government to examine the consequences of licensing a drug that dramatically increases milk production.

Known as BGH, the drug is the first genetically engineered agricultural product being considered for commercial licensing. It has the potential of doubling the amount of milk that a single cow can produce.

In a petition to the Food and Drug Administration, the groups asked the agency to consider the environmental, economic and social effects of the drug before allowing its manufacture and sale.

BGH, or Bovine Growth Hormone, is being considered for commercial use even as the American dairy industry continues to produce huge annual surpluses and as the government began Tuesday to buy and slaughter 14,000 dairy herds.

“Where is the economic sense of producing more milk?” asked Mike Cannell of the Wisconsin Family Farm Defense Fund, which joined with the Foundation on Economic Trends, the Humane Society of the United States and Wisconsin’s secretary of state in petitioning the FDA.

“We’re sending a message to indicate that the genetic engineering revolution is not the blessing that (scientists) have suggested,” said Jeremy Rifkin, president of the Foundation on Economic Trends and a critic of biotechnology.

In their petition, the groups warn that the health of cows may be affected by the drug, that its introduction will result in widespread economic failures in the dairy industry and that the rural economy will suffer as farmers go out of business.

‘Under Great Pressure’

“I’m concerned that we don’t jump into this thing without knowing its impacts,” said Douglas LaFollette, secretary of state in Wisconsin, which, with the largest concentration of dairy farms--about 41,000--is likely to be affected most by BGH-stimulated milk production. “The economy of too many small towns depends on farming and those communities are already under great pressure,” added LaFollette, a chemist by training.

The Congressional Office of Technology Assessment, in a study released last month, said the introduction of BGH into the dairy industry would have widespread economic impact.

Increased Milk Yields

First, the study said, BGH could result in annual milk yields per cow jumping from the current 12,300 pounds to more than 26,000 pounds by the year 2000.

In 1985, the nation’s estimated 165,000 dairy farmers produced 141 billion pounds of milk, including 16 billion surplus pounds that cost the federal government more than $2 billion to buy and store.

The congressional study also predicted that larger commercial farms will benefit more from the economies resulting from this and about 150 other emerging technologies, at the expense of moderate size farms “traditionally viewed . . . as the backbone of American agriculture.”

The study forecast that 1 million American farms could vanish between now and the year 2000 based on current economic trends and technological advances.

A separate study done at Cornell University, where BGH was developed, estimated that up to 30% of the nation’s dairy farmers could be forced out of business within three to five years after the drug’s introduction.

Most of that shift would take place in the Upper Midwest, where dairy farming is now concentrated. However, the drug might help to foster the dairy industry in places such as California--with 2,700 dairy farms the nation’s second-largest dairy producing state--where large-scale milking operations exist.

Richard Cotta of Western United Dairymen of California said: “We haven’t seen the petition, but we’d probably support it. We feel we need to take some long-term testing of the hormone and see if it has any detrimental effects. We don’t oppose it as a technological advance but we’ve got a good, pure source of food and we don’t want to find residues that could be harmful in it sometime down the road.”

Developing Drugs

The FDA refused Tuesday to say whether any companies have yet asked to have a BGH product licensed for commercial use, although a federal study said in March that several companies were developing BGH drugs, including Monsanto Agricultural Co. and Eli Lilly & Co.

“The exact status of our product in the regulatory system is something we consider to be proprietary information,” said David Crosson, a Monsanto spokesman. “We have been working for several years on . . . BGH (and) we have been moving forward on commercial development.”

Citing the decline in American dairy farms from more than 3 million in the 1920s to fewer than 200,000 today, Crosson said: “I don’t know if it makes sense to pick on any particular technology. Certainly we empathize with the plight of the farmer. If we don’t have some sort of interest in keeping agriculture afloat, there won’t be farmers to buy our products.”

A spokesman for Eli Lilly declined to comment on the petition.

The FDA has 180 days to respond to the petition. But the petitioners say that if they do not get a response in a month, they will take their case to court.