The dark side of Dairy-2
Part 2
Would you feed your child milk if you knew that a glass contained 500 pus cells? What about 100? 50? Most people answer that they would not accept milk with any pus in it at all for their own children. But the US FDA assures us that the allowable limit is 750 Million pus cells per litre. Yeah, 750 mil/l the highest in the world and EU has a limit of 400 M/l, almost half. The dairy industry argues, and FDA is in agreement that these pus cells are dead once pasteurized and so present no health risk when humans consume it. Sure, its so reassuring to know that it’s really the pasteurized pus you’ve given to your child. Now let’s step back a little and see where this is all coming from.
Back in 1993, USFDA approved for sale, a drug called Posilac, which is a synthetic recombinant Bovine Growth hormone (rBGH), which as the name indicates, is a hormone secreted by the cow’s pituitary gland to trigger cell growth. We humans also have our Human Growth Hormone for similar reasons (aside – this is the same juice that Sly Stallone was caught in Australia airport 20 years ago). Posilac was the brand name of Monsanto and it sent lot of data to FDA that the drug raised milk production by 15%, and thus good for US farmers (and just incidental that it’s even better for Monsanto) and there was no side effect if humans consumed milk produced from such rBGH treated cows. FDA approved its sale (note, here – long term effect on humans was NOT studied and the data was also silent on the health effect on the cows themselves). So, cows across US were treated with rBGH and productivity increased and, in the meantime, Monsanto vigorously made the case that labelling of “no rGBH used” should not be used, as that means milk from normal cows and rBGH-treated cows could somehow be differentiated. However, many countries including Canada, 27 countries of the EU, Japan, Australia forbid the use of rBGH in their dairy industries and Codex Alimentarius Commission, a United Nations body that sets international food standards, has, as of 2017, refused to approve rBGH as safe. India unfortunately has also approved its use in dairy industry. As Health Canada pointed out, this rBGH has been linked to increase in mastitis, the infection of the cow’s udder, and when that happens, the cows are also given antibiotics. Guess where the infection, antibiotics all come to? Yes, the milk.
Though this drug was introduced in 1993, it took 17 years for the truth to be legally recognized. The truth being of course, that cows treated with rBGH produced milk which was different than the milk from cows which had not been treated with rBGH. This ruling came via Ohio court ruling in 2010. So much for Monsanto and FDA assertions for such a long time that there is no difference. Ok, so what were the differences?
1. Increased levels of the hormone IGF-1; - this is the same hormone we saw earlier that is linked to certain cancers – prostrate, breast, colorectal
2. A period of milk with lower nutritional quality during each lactation; and
3. Increased somatic cell counts (i.e. more pus in the milk) …ahh, but its pasteurized.
Somatic cell count, according to the industry’s own National Mastitis Council, “reflects the levels of infection and resultant inflammation in the mammary gland of dairy cows,” but somatic cells are not synonymous with pus cells, as has sometimes been misleadingly suggested. Somatic just means “body.” Just as normal human breast milk has somatic cells—mostly non-inflammatory white blood cells and epithelial cells sloughed off from the mammary gland ducts—so does milk from healthy cows. The problem is that many of these cows are not healthy & 1 in 6 suffers from infection due to repeated pregnancies and lactation, and they are concurrent for 7 of the 9-month pregnancies. When a cow is infected, then the somatic bodies are neutrophils, the immunity & inflammatory cells that are commonly called pus.
The team of scientists at Health Canada that forbade the use of rBGH in their county were all…. fired from their jobs! Says something about the powerful industry and Monsanto, doesn’t it? One of them, Shiv Chopra is still fighting the case in court. Respect and power to him.
You have to hand it to citizens of US, for their activism in challenging the approvals of FDA and questioning the data provided by Monsanto. It took them 17 years to finally get the truth out, but now the FDA assures us that IGF-1 and pus cells pose no harm to humans, as they are pasteurized and as they are consumed orally, the digestive enzymes in our stomach breaks down the IGF and we come to no harm. Perhaps another 17 year wait? There is strong linkage between IGF1, obesity and cancer – please search for the tons of research and studies available.
https://nutritionfacts.org/2011/09/08/how-much-pus-is-there-in-milk/
https://grist.org/article/food-2010-10-06-court-rules-on-rbgh-free-milk/
"Modern" day milk production has made the problem worse as the injected hormones translates into more "badness" in the milk. I am attaching a video here of a modern dairy and it comes with a warning about graphic images. Its weird that the product of such cruelty comes with no warning. Would any child be given milk that states" Extreme cruelty has been inflicted on the cows in the production of this milk”? Watch the graphic video below to see the cruelty.
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If you missed part 1, you can read it here: