Alex Avery

Recently in his Animal and Dairy Sciences blog, Terry Etherton commented on the growing problem related to the pricing of dairy products marketed as “rbST-free” or “organic”.  His own observations, he stated, were backed up by recent American Farm Bureau Federation Marketbasket Surveys which showed that conventional dairy products are sold at much lower prices than “rbST-free” and “organic” products.  CGFI research has also found that to be the case.  In fact, recent grocery store checks conducted in cities such as Seattle, Philadelphia and Minneapolis have shown that milk marketed as “rbST-free” or “organic” is sold at prices as much as 100 percent higher than its conventional competition.  Something isn’t right about this situation!  Somebody is getting rich off of milk that is labeled one way, but is exactly the same compositionally- and I guarantee you it’s not the dairy farmer who has given up their right to use rbST to earn a living.  No…it’s not them.  In fact, they will have to work harder now to make the same amount of money they could have if they were producing conventional milk.  When are we as consumers going to stand up and say enough is enough?  When are we going to put a stop to the fear-mongering that is so prevalent and demand the right to purchase whatever kind of dairy we want to without the irrational fear that we could be endangering our loved ones?  Enough is enough.

Here’s the excerpt of a great article by Jackie Avner of the Denver Post.…

Alex

Denver Post
By Jackie Avner
Article Last Updated: 07/27/2007 10:40:10 PM MDT

Excerpt…

I don’t like to buy organic food products, and avoid them at all cost. It is a principled decision reached through careful consideration of effects of organic production practices on animal welfare and the environment. I buy regular food, rather than organic, for the benefit of my family.

I care deeply about food being plentiful, affordable and safe. I grew up on a dairy farm, where my chores included caring for the calves and scrubbing the milking facilities. As a teenager, I was active in Future Farmers of America, and after college I took a job in Washington, D.C., on the Senate Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry Committee staff.

But America no longer has an agrarian economy, and now it is rare for people to have firsthand experience with agricultural production and regulation. This makes the general public highly susceptible to rumors and myths about food, and vulnerable to misleading marketing tactics designed not to improve the safety of the food supply, but to increase retail profits. Companies marketing organic products, and your local grocery chain, want you to think organic food is safer and healthier, because their profit margins are vastly higher on organic foods.

The USDA Organic label does not mean that there is any difference between organic and regular food products. Organic farms simply employ different methods of food production. For example, organic dairy farms are not permitted to administer antibiotics to their sick or injured cows, and do not give them milk-stimulating hormone supplements (also known as rbGH or rBST). The end product is exactly the same - all milk, regular and organic, is completely antibiotic-free, and all milk, regular and organic, has the same trace amounts of rbGH (since rbGH is a protein naturally present in all cows, including organic herds). Try as they may, proponents of organic foods have not been able to produce evidence that the food produced by conventional farms is anything but safe.

Do organic production practices benefit animals? Dr. Chuck Guard, professor of veterinary medicine at Cornell University, told me that it pains him that many technological advancements in animal medicine are prohibited for use on organic farms. He described how organic farms don’t use drugs to control parasites, worms, infections and illness in their herds. “Drugs take away pain and suffering,” he said. “Proponents of organic food production have thrown away these medical tools, and the result is unnecessary pain and suffering for the animals.”

In order for milk and meat to qualify as USDA Organic, the animals must never be given antibiotics when they are sick or injured. On organic farms, animals with treatable illnesses such as infections and pneumonia are left to suffer, or given ineffective homeopathic treatments, in the hope that they will eventually get better on their own. If recovery without medication seems unlikely, a dairy cow with a simple respiratory infection will be slaughtered for its meat, or sold to a traditional farm where she can get the medicine she needs. I don’t buy organic milk because this system is cruel to animals, and I know that every load of regular milk is tested for antibiotics to ensure that it is antibiotic-free.

Organic milk certainly is not fresher than regular milk. Regular milk is pasteurized and has a shelf life of about 20 days. Organic milk is ultrapasteurized, a process that is more forgiving of poor quality milk, and that increases the shelf life of milk to about 90 days. Some of the Horizon organic milk boxes I’ve seen at Costco have expiration dates in 2008! There is a powerful incentive for retailers to put the ultrapasteurized organic milk on the shelf just before the expiration date, so consumers will think the organic milk is as fresh as the regular milk. After all, consumers are paying twice as much for the organic product.

Do organic production practices benefit the environment? In many cases, they do the opposite. Recently, Starbucks proudly informed their customers that they would no longer be buying milk from farms that use rbGH, the supplemental hormone administered to cows to increase milk production (even though the extra hormones stay in the cow, and the resulting milk is the same). The problem with this policy is that Starbucks will now be buying milk from farms that are far less efficient at making milk. Without the use of the latest technology for making milk, many more cows must be milked to produce the same number of café lattes for Starbucks’ customers. More cows being milked means more cows to feed, and therefore more land must be cultivated with fossil-fuel-burning tractors. More cows means many more tons of manure produced, and more methane, a greenhouse gas, released into the atmosphere.

I see Starbucks’ policy as environmentally irresponsible. When a farmer gives a cow a shot of rbGH, the only environmental cost is the disposal of the small plastic container it came in. But the environmental benefits of using this technology are enormous.

Attention all shoppers: Safeway is adopting the same misdirected policy as Starbucks, judging from the prominent labeling of milk at my local Safeway store: “Milk from cows not treated with rBST.” When I’m feeling particularly green, I drive past Safeway and shop at another grocery store in protest.

Consumers assume that organic crops are environmentally friendly. However, organic production methods are far less efficient than the modern methods used by conventional farmers, so organic farmers must consume more natural and man-made resources (such as land and fuel) to produce their crops.

Cornell Professor Guard told me about neighboring wheat farms he observed during a visit to Alberta, Canada: one organic and one conventional. The organic farm consumes six times as much diesel fuel per bushel of wheat produced.

Socially conscious consumers have a right to know that “organic” doesn’t mean what it did 20 years ago….

Full article at Denver Post.

Alex Avery

Those of you who regularly read my work know that I believe in conventional milk.  It is perfectly safe, perfectly nutritious, and perfectly refreshing.  So what is with this push from some groups to make raw milk sales in supermarkets legal?  For those of you who don’t know what raw milk is, let me enlighten you.  Raw milk is milk that has not been pasteurized.  That’s right!  Straight from the udder to you!  Groups like the Weston A. Price Foundation and the folks behind Joe Mercola are all for this version of milk and regularly push for its mainstream acceptance.  Their arguments are that raw milk is more nutritious, of a higher quality and has a better taste than its conventional counterpart because it has not been exposed to the extreme heat that pasteurization brings.  Here is my question: Do they not realize that without pasteurization the safety of consuming that milk is seriously questionable?  That cow lives on a farm, not in a sterile facility!  Where has that udder been; what has it touched; what kinds of bacteria has that milk been exposed to that are not removed because it’s not been pasteurized? It’s one thing to drink the freshly drawn, raw milk on the farm, as my father did when he was growing up on my grandfather’s Michigan dairy farm. But it’s another thing entirely to drink raw milk after it’s spent several days being transported, bottled, and shipped to the store. By then the once-few nasty bacteria will have proliferated into hundreds of thousands or millions, ready to make ill the unsuspecting consumer.

The activists claim “raw” milk kills bacteria, but that’s just plain false. Why do they think so many consumers, especially children, get sick after drinking raw milk? (Actually, they always come up with another scape-goat in those cases: “it was beef or lettuce, not raw milk” they say) There is a reason that the FDA has not allowed the mainstream sale of raw milk: It has repeatedly been proven to sicken consumers and there is zero evidence it is healthier or more nutritious.  In fact, recently three Georgia families who consumed raw milk- milk that was only approved for sale as pet food- fell seriously ill with food-borne illnesses as a result.  Sadly, many parents seek out raw milk to give to their children – who are most at risk and least aware of the danger. We need to protect the health of children by barring the sale of raw milk. For now, I’ll stick to my clean, “tasteless,” pasteurized milk.  At least I know I won’t end up with food-borne illnesses.

Alex Avery

Last week, I saw some signs that the American public is finally waking up to the gargantuan fraud that has been foisted on them.  Regular readers know I am talking about the alleged benefits of organic food, particularly organic milk.

Paul Michael of the Wise Bread blog addressed the discrepancies between organically marketed milk and conventional milk, concluding that organic claims on dairy labels are untruthful.  He stated that upon inspection of a Horizon Organic milk carton and research into the definition of “organic”, he was able to conclude that organic milk companies knowingly market milk in a manner that misleads consumers, causing them to believe that their milk is healthier or of a higher quality than conventional milk.

“Organic is not a term meaning that the content of the food is any different, just the way in which the manufacturer arrived at the end product.”

And, according to the USDA:

“No distinctions should be made between organically and non-organically produced products in terms of quality, appearance, or safety.”

And even though it pains me to admit it, even Joe Mercola, commenting on the recent announcement that there will be a surplus of organic milk hitting the market this year, questioned whether organic milk has any added health benefits over conventional milk, “…conventional medicine agrees there’s no inherent advantage to consuming organic milk, except for the companies that profit from it.”

We have been hearing increased rumblings from the UK on this issue, but I am pleased that American consumers are starting to see the light.  We have now seen stories on network television as well as in major daily newspapers, and I hope it is only the beginning of a groundswell of common sense.

Alex Avery

Many mainstream news sources and blogs continue to erroneously report that the marketing of milk from rbST-treated cows has been banned in many nations.  This is simply not true and further evidence of the shoddy research that many reporters conduct when writing.  Those who are against GM foods prefer language such as “banned” because it makes readers and consumers believe that a product is unsafe or illegal.  However, rbST use has not been “banned” in Canada, Europe, Japan, Australia or New Zealand, as is commonly reported.  True, rbST has not yet been approved for use in those nations, but the glaring omission is that dairy from rbST-treated cattle is allowed to be imported and sold in these countries.  Further, the reason rbST has not been approved in these nations is somewhat because of concerns about animal health but largely about trade protectionism ; all of these countries have found rbST safe for human consumption.

Below is an excerpt from a great letter posted on Terry Etherton’s blog.

Alex

April 18, 2007 There has been more response to the ABC News report on rbST that ran on April 12, 2007. I had posted my initial response to the story in my Blog, “Got Any Idea What’s in Milk?” The focus of that that blog was to point out that the story was slanted and did not present the facts about rbST in an accurate manner! 

Mr. Jon Wheeler, a dairy producer from Sunnyside, WA has shared his perspectives about the ABC report on Dairy-L. I believe it presents important issues for the dairy industry to consider and I have posted it (with Mr. Wheeler’s permission). Dairy-Lers, 

If you are not totally enraged by this coverage on ABC……then I am disappointed in this industry. This coverage was pure media hype with no substance, truth or true investigative reporting. Definitely one sided! This type of media display of incompetence needs to be addressed.  Back to disparaging of milk……we as an industry are going to suffer in the long run. Yes, I said we. The conventional producers and the organic milk producers are going to suffer in the long run. As long as we within this industry continue to compete against each other claiming there is good milk and bad milk, we will all lose. We must stand up together and champion the benefits of milk. All Milk! And we will, and win. We as an industry have to come together and sell milk as milk, and promote milk for its value. rbST is a valuable tool for producers. It is safe. It has been researched and tested many years. Whether you use rbST or not this will affect you and your price of milk. Let us not continue to let activists and the media tear this industry apart….

View clip on the ABC News report broadcast April 12, 2007.

Read the full blog post at Terry Etherton Blog.

A recent SF Chronicle article was so outrageous in its sloppy reporting on the decision by the California Dairy Association’s decision to stop accepting milk from cows treated with rBST that I fired off a note to the reporter. The note in its entirety is here.

Your article noted that “the European Union, Japan, Canada and Australia did not approve rbST. The reasons included questions about human and animal safety, as well social and economic considerations.”  In fact, cow health and trade protectionism were the sole reasons for their bans – NOT human health concerns (they could cite none, so they didn’t). rBST is scale-neutral, so it benefits small farmers just as much as large – but if you already have too much milk because of government subsidies (as in Europe and Canada), then more milk means more government $ to farmers. So it’s easier and far cheaper to simply NOT approve the technology on “economic and cow health” concerns. Most importantly, the claim about IGF-1 is an absurd distortion of human cancer science and it was terribly irresponsible of you to include this sham claim. The legitimate concern is levels of human-produced IGF-1 in our bodies, which has been identified as a risk factor for cancer – though much work remains to be done. Certain diets result in higher IGF-1 levels in our blood and higher cancer rates. We don’t know why. However, the amount of IGF-1 consumed in our diet is irrelevant (it is digested like any other protein) and any cancer researcher working on IGF-1 will explain this to you. 

Also a sham is the antibiotics claim. 100% of all milk is tested for traces of antibiotics and any positive test requires that the milk be discarded. Because milk is tested at least 2 times prior to bottling/sale, there is less than a 1/10,000 chance of buying milk with a detectable trace of antibiotic in it. There is zero evidence that antibiotic use in dairy cows is linked to any resistant infections in humans of any kind. Your reporting, if responsible, would have at least superficially attempted to debunk the fully discredited “early puberty” accusation. In fact, the only consumer product that has been shown to cause signs of early puberty is lavender oil – reported by NIEHS scientists last year. Seven to ten year-old boys using lavender-containing soaps and lotions developed breasts! Your thin attempts at “balance” were half-hearted and inadequate given the amount of serious science that has been lodged at these decade-old fear scams by anti-technology activists (none of these claims has been raised by legitimate health groups). It is sad when reporting becomes a litany of irresponsible and libelous claims without any honest attempt at finding the truth and reality. If this is the state of reportage in our country, there is little hope for future technological advances of any sort – as all one has to do to stop them dead in their tracks is make up wild and scary claims in opposition. Lazy or irresponsible reporters will be sure to repeat them, thereby elevating them to “truth” in the minds of the readers, and rendering the technology unacceptable on innuendo alone. 

Bottom line: I could give you a glass of milk of any sort (organic, conventional, conventional from rbST-treated cow) and the most well-equipped lab on planet earth could NOT tell you which type of operation the milk was produced under. Why? Because THERE IS NO DIFFERENCE IN THE MILK!!!!!!! (How many times does this have to be said before it sinks home?) Disappointed,  Alex Avery  

 

By Alex Avery

The research facts and scientific evidence was already clear; but a new puberty study from the University of Michigan C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital reinforces what medical experts already know about early puberty in children – that it simply cannot be caused by things like bovine growth hormones (bST/bGH) found naturally in milk or influenced in any way when cows get supplemental bST, but this rare condition is linked to kids’ size, more specifically their body mass index or BMI. Obesity, not milk, is linked to precocious or early onset of puberty.

In the March issue of the journal Pediatrics, the researchers reveal that a higher body mass index (BMI) score in girls as young as age 3, and large increases in BMI between 3 years of age and first grade are associated with earlier puberty, defined as the presence of breast development by age 9. This longitudinal study is unique in that it included girls younger than age 5 to examine the association between weight status and timing of puberty.

“Our finding that increased body fatness is associated with the earlier onset of puberty provides additional evidence that growing rates of obesity among children in this country may be contributing to the trend of early maturation in girls,” says lead author and U-M pediatric endocrinologist Joyce Lee, M.D, MPH.

Studies have suggested that girls in the United States are entering puberty at younger ages today than they were 30 years ago, says Lee. Since rates of childhood obesity also have significantly increased during the same time period, researchers have speculated that childhood obesity may be contributing to a trend of earlier puberty in girls.

Researchers from groups like the National Research Center for Women & Families and other academic experts have published extensively on this subject; however, activist groups like The Organic Consumers Association and the natural product marketing groups which fund them continue to make claims linking early puberty to milk and bovine growth hormone continue while the experts clearly call them “untrue.” The Washington Post and New York Times have reported extensively on the safety of rBST. In an October 2003 article on the alleged milk link to early puberty published by the Washington Post exposed the flaws “with the rBGH and early puberty theory: Children today drink markedly less milk than they did a generation or two ago. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), milk consumption among girls ages 6 to 11 dropped by about one-third from the late 1970s to the late 1990s.

“Not only is there no evidence” that rBGH affects human growth, says Paul Kaplowitz, the new chief of endocrinology at Children’s National Medical Center and a specialist in the issue of early puberty, “it’s not even scientifically possible.” Kaplowitz, who subscribes to the increased body fat theory, has little patience for those who blame hormone-treated cow’s milk. “I’m really at a loss as to where this connection comes from,” he says. “People are always eager to find environmental culprits for early puberty. It’s a very emotional thing with a lot of people.” 

There is really no evidence to support the advocacy claims about milk and puberty — claims often used by dairy marketers seeking to scare consumers into buying higher priced organic or organic-lite milk. Extensive research and basic medical science show milk and bovine growth hormones are safe and they simply cannot cause early puberty.

More support for what I have been saying all along. Milk is milk. Enjoy.

Here’s a great article from Sandy Szwarc.

The full article can be found at JunkFood Science.

Best, Alex

Excerpt…

Alex Avery cgfi.org

The following are examples from specific news organization where consumers were grossly misinformed that the artificial hormone rbST alters milk in some way. (Misinformation is highlighted in bold text.) We attempted to contact each reporter and/or news organization to correct their misreporting, all to no avail.

Thus, we are including specific contact information above each misleading or erroneous story example so that you, the well educated consumer and dairy producer, can attempt to contact them and set the record straight. We hope you have better luck than we had. [NOTE: Be sure to include the URL (web address) of the misleading story so editors will know which story is being questioned.]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16690455/
REUTERS
Demand rising for milk made without additive
Industry sees tide turning in long battle over artificial growth hormone
January 18, 2006
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Five years ago, Missouri dairy farmer Leroy Shatto was struggling to stay in business. Today, his herd has more than doubled amid a surge in demand for his product. The difference: a marketing campaign touting Shatto milk as free of artificial hormones. . . . The debate has taken a marked turn over the past several months as a growing number of dairy producers and food industry players have begun demanding rbST-free milk, citing heightened consumer demand and new niche marketing opportunities.

“We’re not making any moral judgments. It is about giving consumers what they want, and there are some consumers who simply do not want artificial growth hormones in their milk,” said Marguerite Copel, spokeswoman for Dean Foods Co., the nation’s largest milk processor and distributor.

REUTERS’ CONTACT SITE: http://aboutreuters.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/aboutreuters.cfg/php/enduser/site_fdbck.php

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16692226/
What’s Missing at Starbucks?
Starbucks switches to milk without artificial growth hormone; consumers won’t miss it.
By Alyce Lomax
Updated: 9:39 a.m. ET Jan 18, 2007
Starbucks is on a roll when it comes to altering some of its ingredients. The coffee giant recently began removing trans fats from its wares. Now, it says it’s bowing to consumer demand by switching to milk that doesn’t contain artificial growth hormones. It seems that sometimes, an item’s absence can be a competitive advantage.

MSNBC CONTACT: letters@msnbc.com

http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/food/2007-01-17-starbucks-hormone_x.htm
Some Starbucks dropping milk products made with growth hormone
Posted 1/17/2007 11:13 AM ET
SEATTLE (AP) – Starbucks Coffee (SBUX) is ending its use of milk products that contain an artificial growth hormone, starting in much of the West and New England.

USA TODAY CONTACT: http://feedbackforms.usatoday.com/marketing/feedback/feedback-online.aspx?type=18

ASSOCIATED PRESS CONTACT: info@ap.org

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/business/299984_starbucksmilk17.html
The Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Wednesday, January 17, 2007
Starbucks switches to milk without growth hormones
By CRAIG HARRIS
With no fanfare, Starbucks Coffee Co. this month began using milk products without a controversial artificial growth hormone in its home state.

P-I reporter Craig Harris can be reached at 206-448-8138 or craigharris@seattlepi.com
(To be fair, Craig is a business reporter and he did call the local dairy farmers association – who failed to correctly inform Mr. Harris about the non-difference between milk from cows supplemented with rbST and those not receiving the supplement)

Starbucks to stop using milk with artificial growth hormones in it
CNN Headline News, January 16, 2007
Reporter Jennifer Westhoven: “Starbucks is going to stop using milk with artificial growth hormones in it. Now, many dairies give this controversial “bovine growth hormone” to their cows - it’s called rbGH - and it helps the cows produce more milk. Starbucks, though, will be phasing it out of most of its stores in the United States. If you’re thinking, well, you know, why don’t they change it in other countries? It’s because they don’t allow it in most other countries - it was never there in the first place.” (shocked laughter from news anchor/host)

CONTACT: Jennifer.Westhoven@turner.com