By Robert Cohen Executive Director Text Only

http://www.notmilk.com/deb/010399.html

Dear Friends,

      I have written a book (MILK-The Deadly Poison) and founded the Dairy Education Board because of a secret I learned in 1994. That secret: Laboratory animals got cancer from a new additive that is now in our milk, cheese and ice cream. FDA knew the truth but they hid it. MONSANTO knew the truth but they also did everything in their power to pull a veil over FDA's regulatory review process for POSILAC, the trade name for the genetically engineered version of a cow's natural growth hormone. That genetically engineered hormone is commonly referred to as either BST or BGH (bovine somatotropin or bovine growth hormone).

      The study in question was performed in 1989 by three scientists, Richard, Odaglia and Deslex. I obtained portions of that study and learned that FDA never reviewed it, despite the fact that it was the KEY to the entire controversy.

      On August 24, 1990, FDA published a review of the BST research. That study was authored by Judy Jeskevich and Greg Guyer and published in SCIENCE magazine.

      I have written about that study and Chapter Three of my book includes the complete study with my comments. I have decided to publish that entire CHAPTER 3 on my webpage.

 

WARNING: IT IS QUITE TECHNICAL... AND QUITE REVEALING!

      After learning that laboratory animals got cancer from this hormone, I filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for the raw data. I wished to review the weights of spleens and kidneys and ovaries and thirty-one different tissues and organs from the 360 animals in this study. I lost that request to have the study released.

      I then filed a suit in Federal Court. During my suit, our government passed a law which would have had me imprisoned had I released the study.

      Today's column lists 12 "coincidences" that others might call conspiracy. I leave you first with a timeline of my suit to release the animal data.

      Please keep in mind that the Canadian government has also been reviewing this study because MONSANTO seeks approval for their drug in Canada. A few weeks ago Canadian scientists announced what our government has been denying and I have been saying for four years:

 

This POISON caused cancer in laboratory animals.

THE TIMELINE
  • OCTOBER 3, 1994 Cohen files a FOIA request for the rat study data
  • DECEMBER 24, 1994 FOIA request denied by FDA
  • DECEMBER 24, 1994 Appeal filed with Department of Health (HHS)
  • APRIL 4, 1995 Appeal Denied
  • DECEMBER 5, 1995 Suit filed in Federal Court
  • APRIL 12, 1996 MONSANTO joins suit, represented by KING & SPALDING
  • JULY 29, 1996 My final brief, arguing TRADE SECRETS invalid
  • SEPTEMBER 9, 1996 JUDGE'S decion due
  • OCTOBER 11, 1996 PUBLIC LAW # 104-294 signed by William Clinton
  • DECEMBER 6, 1996 JUDGE rules in favor of MONSANTO

      Public Law # 104-294 was the ECONOMIC ESPIONAGE act. That law was delivered in the middle of my trial and sent a clear message to me. If I revealed a TRADE SECRET I would have been subject to a $10 million dollar fine and 15 years incarceration in a federal prison.

      In his denial, the Honorable Judge Wells wrote to me:

      "Disclosure of the rat's study raw data would allow competitors to develop or refine their products... and would reveal a TRADE SECRET... defendants have adequately demonstrated the likelihood of competitive substantial harm if the study is released."

 

CONSPIRACY? TO BE, OR NOT TO BE?

1) When Monsanto first started doing research on rbST/rbGH (Posilac), they realized its potential to change all of the foods in our supermarket. They would one day control the seeds for all of our fruits and veggies through genetic engineering and biotechnology. They needed a friend on the Supreme Court. It was then that they began to groom their attorney (from the firm of KING & SPALDING), a young African American with a future.

      Should these issues ever reach the SUPREME COURT, MONSANTO will have a friend in Clarence Thomas.

2) Congress passed a law in 1958 called the Delaney Amendment to the Food and Drug Act which said that if a food additive caused cancer it was not to be approved. When MONSANTO realized that their rbST caused cancer they had their new attorney (from KING & SPALDING), Michael Taylor, write a paper: "A Deminimus Interpretation of the Delaney Amendment". Lawyers usually get published in law review journals. This paper was published in the Journal of the American College of Toxicology.
3) Michael Taylor, Esq. left his high paying job at KING & SPALDING and was hired by...are you ready for this? The FDA! He became the second most powerful man at FDA and wrote the food labeling laws that governed rbST and all genetically engineered products to come.
4) At the same time that Taylor left Monsanto for FDA the scientists left MONSANTO too. MONSANTO's top dairy scientist, Margaret Miller, left the pharmaceutical giant and went to work for...are you ready for this? FDA! Her job was to review her own research. I filed a Freedom of Information Act request for her actual job application and found out that she developed a test for detecting rbST, even though FDA later relieved MONSANTO of that responsibility.
5) Congress had a committee that studied the labeling issues. There were four members of the DAIRY, LIVESTOCK AND POULTRY Committee. These men had a bill that would have required that dairy products containing rbST be labeled as such. These 12 men stalled the bill for six months and NEVER voted upon it. The bill did not make it to the floor of Congress for a vote. When the 1994 session of Congress expired, the bill DIED. I investigated these men and learned that they accepted donations (PAC $$$) from companies with agriculture interests totalling $711,000. Four of the Congressmen accepted money directly from Monsanto while they stalled that bill. They included Volkmer ($2,000), Dooley ($1,000), Gunderson ($1,000) and Pombo ($500).
6) Somebody had to have gotten Monsanto's scientist and attorney hired by FDA. I interviewed ex-FDA commissioners and ex-bosses of these employees and all deny doing the actual hiring. I can only imagine a phone call, calling in a favor here and there. I have no proof who did the hiring, only proof that the DECK was stacked in the review process. I include enormous documentation in my book which would take me a week of EMAILS to document. I will not do that on EMAIL but my book is available, for those so interested.
7) MONSANTO hired the very respected C. EVERETT KOOP to attack critics of rbST. KOOP said the BST-treated milk was indistinguishable from wholesome untreated milk. This was not true. LEVELS OF IGF-I ALWAYS INCREASE IN bst-TREATED MILK.
8) MONSANTO hired the outgoing FDA Commissioner, Arthur Hull Hayes. He went to work for their public relations firm. There was a revolving door policy at FDA. In addition, Michael Taylor left FDA and became an UNDERSECRETARY at UDSA when Espy resigned. He was there to see that genetic engineering reached its potential without regulatory interference. He became the author of the regulations. Taylor is now back at KING & SPALDING represent his CLIENT.
9) Margaret Miller, MONSANTO'S scientist-turned-FDA regulator, was aware that cows were getting mastitis in clinical trials. She ARBITRARILY changed the antibiotic protocol and increased the amounts of permissible antibiotic residues in milk. Before she got to FDA, the standard allowed one part per hundred million. After Miller's change, it was increased by 100 times to one part per million. CONSUMERS UNION tested milk in the New York area and found the presence of 52 different antibiotics in milk sample. The Wall Street Journal did their own tests and confirmed CONSUMERS results.
10) When Bob Dole ran for president his Chief of Staff was Donald Rumsfeld, ex-president of SEARLE, a company acquired by MONSANTO. To place things in perspective...the 1989 smoking gun study was performed by SEARLE scientists for MONSANTO. For all practical purposes, those firms were and are one and the same.
11) When Clinton praised MONSANTO in his State-of-the-Union address two years ago how many people noticed? I sure did. Michale Taylor, the MONSANTO attorney turned FDA and USDA employee is a first cousin to Al Gore's wife, Tipper. Look for President Gore's cabinet to include Mr. Taylor...just a prediction on my part.
12) I have saved the best for last. My favorite. In order to prove rbST safe MONSANTO did a study in Guelph, Canada that led to approval. FDA cited the study in their SCIENCE paper but incorrectly cited the reference. They gave credit to Jerome Moore. When I pulled Moore's paper there was no mention of this reference. I pulled dozens of other papers and found the SMOKING GUN. Had I written a paper like this for high school biology I would have failed. Here was a paper in the most important journal in the world on the most controversial study in FDA history and they made this mistake (and many other errors documented in Chapter 3 of my book).

HERE IS WHAT HAPPENED:

      The Canadian scientist (still an undergrad working with three MONSANTO scientists) pasteruized milk at the normal temperature and time to prove that it destroyed the BST. It did not. He then pasteurized milk for thirty minutes at 72 degrees Celsius (162 degrees Fahrenheit), a temp. reserved for 15 seconds. That only destroyed nineteen percent of the BST. WHEN THAT DID NOT WORK, he sprinkled powdered BST into the milk and pasteruized that. This time the EXPERIMENT worked. They destroyed 90 percent of the "SPIKED MILK." That was THEIR word, SPIKED! Read the study and you will be astounded.

      FDA concluded that milk was safe to drink because pasteurization destroyed the BST. When FDA wrote the SCIENCE paper they included 75 references. Number 75 was Suzanne Sechen, another Monsanto scientist who was hired by FDA to review her own research. Number one reference is usually reserved as an honorary place for a key scientist. Reference number one was given to DALE BAUMAN who is a Cornell researcher and professor. Dale Bauman's papers continue to repeat the MYTH that pasteurization destroyed the BST. Bauman refuses to debate me but he continues to teach this MYTH to his students.

      As a result of the MYTH FDA did three things.

I.    MONSANTO was relieved of doing any further toxicology studies
II.   MONSANTO was relieved of the responsibility of developing a TEST to detect the presence of BST in milk.
III.  A "ZERO DAY WITHDRAWAL" was determined which was an FDA designation meaning that a substance was perfectly safe for human consumption.

SUMMARY

      Lots of coincidences, huh? I call this a conspiracy of ignorance. Put all of these things together and, at the very least, it calls for a review of the RICHARD, ODAGLIA and DESLEX paper, don't you think? If Cohen is WRONG... then there is no big deal.

     If Cohen is right... we've got a problem, Houston!

Robert Cohen (1-201-967-7001)
Executive Director
Dairy Education Board
http://www.notmilk.com

 


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