Sour Welcome for Drug to Increase Milk Production

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the commercial use of a synthetic drug for cows called bovine somatotropin (BST) that will increase milk production (“Drug to Boost Milk Output Set for Sale,” Feb. 3). Not only could this flood the market with surplus milk and force family farms out of business, BST could increase udder infections by forcing a cow to produce more milk than it would naturally.

Studies show that all drugs and hormones given to an animal end up in milk and meat and are passed on to the person consuming the product, left for the human digestive system to deal with.

It is hard to understand how the FDA can attack the vitamin industry, threaten to reclassify all amino acids as prescription drugs and seek to limit the potency of nutrients but approve a synthetic drug for factory farmers to use and pass on for human ingestion.

The FDA claims that its primary goal is truthful labeling. Hopefully, this goal applies to everything (not just vitamins) and products will indicate that they are derived from animals given these drugs, so the consumer has a choice whether to buy products with or without these drugs.

Thankfully, there is a choice! There are farmers who are using natural alternatives to growth hormones, chemicals, pesticides, etc., on food products.

GLENDA N. MADDOX

Irvine

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The USDA has stated that it is not absolutely sure what health effect BST would have on humans. In conjunction with that uncertainty, there have been no regulations requiring the distributing companies that have not already refused to market the genetically derived milk to label their packages as so.

I have no desire to participate in this health experiment by the USDA on the general population--and yet, as a consumer, I have no ability to choose if the milk I drink comes from a cow injected with genetically engineered hormones or not. My choice, then, must be to boycott cow’s milk altogether.

SHELAH MORITA

Anaheim