A Ban on Hormonal Meat is Three Decades Overdue

CHICAGO, IL, February 2, 2010 --/WORLD-WIRE/--

On January 29, 2010, with three other scientific experts, Samuel S. Epstein, MD, Chairman of the Cancer Prevention Coalition, filed a Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Petition seeking an urgent ban on hormonal meat, as it poses unrecognized risks of hormonal cancers.

The Petition requests the FDA to take the following action:

Require producers of hormonal meat to label it with an explicit warning such as "Produced with the use of sex hormones, and poses increased risks of breast, prostate, and testis cancers.

Prohibit the routine implantation of sex hormone pellets under the ear skin of cattle on entry into feedlots 100 days prior to slaughter. The object of the implants is to increase meat production by about 50 pounds per animal, and profitability by about 10%.

Ban hormonal meat. The hormones in past and current use include the natural: testosterone, estrogen, and progesterone; and the synthetic: trenbolone, zeranol, and melengesterol.

STATEMENT OF GROUNDS

Based on the scientific literature, besides World Health Organization (WHO) reports, there is explicit evidence that the use of sex hormones to increase meat production poses serious dangers to consumers," Dr. Epstein warns in the Petition.

"Of particular concern are the increased risks of hormonal cancers since 1975: breast by 23%, prostate by 60%, and testes by 60%," he emphasizes.

For these reasons, the Petition urges the FDA to take the following actions, now decades overdue:

Recognize that hormonal meat poses "imminent hazards" to the total U.S. population.

Take prompt, and decades overdue, regulatory action to eliminate the use of sex hormones in meat production.

Dr. Epstein explains that some three decades ago, Dr. Roy Hertz, then Director of Endocrinology of the National Cancer Institute and world authority on breast and other hormonal cancers, warned of cancer risks due to the use of estrogenic cattle implants, particularly for the breast.

Dr. Hertz emphasized that these implants increase normal hormonal levels, and that such imbalance causes reproductive cancers. Hertz also warned of the essentially uncontrolled and unregulated use of these extremely potent biological agents, no levels of which can be regarded as safe.

"These warnings are even more apt today, particularly in view of the FDA's longstanding and reckless failure to ban hormonal meat," Dr. Epstein declares.

The misleading assurances since 1979, by the FDA and United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) on the safety of hormonal meat remain unchanged, Dr. Epstein declares. Of further concern are longstanding problems linked to conflicts of interest in senior agency personnel and their consultants. As clearly evidenced in a series of General Accountability Office investigations and Congressional hearings, the USDA and FDA have failed to take any regulatory action to protect the public from the dangers of hormonal meat, Dr. Epstein points out.

Dr. Epstein cites a 1986 report, "Human Food Safety and Regulation of Animal Drugs," unanimously approved by the House Committee on Government Operations, which concluded that the "FDA has consistently disregarded its responsibility - has repeatedly put what it perceives are interests of verterinarians and the livestock industry ahead of its legal obligation to protect consumers - jeopardizing the health and safety of consumers meat, milk, and poultry."

In response to questions on hormonal meat raised in February 1996 by the European Commission, the USDA responded with assurances that less than 0.25% of animals tested annually proved positive for "residue violations." Dr. Epstein asserts, "These criticisms remain equally appropriate today. In fact, meat is still not monitored for sex hormone levels by the U.S. Department of Agriculture or the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

Samuel S. Epstein, M.D. is professor emeritus of Environmental and Occupational Medicine at the University of Illinois at Chicago School of Public Health; Chairman of the Cancer Prevention Coalition; The Albert Schweitzer Golden Grand Medalist for International Contributions to Cancer Prevention; and author of over 200 scientific articles and 15 books on the causes and prevention of cancer, including the groundbreaking The Politics of Cancer (1979), and Toxic Beauty (2009).

Samuel S. Epstein, M.D.
Professor emeritus Environmental & Occupational Medicine
University of Illinois Chicago School of Public Health
Chairman, Cancer Prevention Coalition

http://www.preventcancer.com/

To subscribe to the Cancer Prevention Coalition click here http://ens-news.net/lists/?p=subscribe&id=9

Nicholas Ashford, Ph.D., J.D.
Professor of Technology and Policy
Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Ronnie Cummins
Executive Director
Organic Consumers Association

Quentin D. Young, M.D.
Chairman
Health & Medicine
Policy Research Group
Past President,
American Public Health Association

Convenience vs Ethics in Food Choices

My grandpa would have said: What in the Sam Hell are we thinking?

Most cows in the U.S. are on feedlot diets (fed corn and grain instead of grass). As many as 30 percent of them are plagued by acid indigestion, then ulcers, then the bacteria that sets up shop in their livers. Other maladies: dirt eating, diarrhea, polio, convulsions. Adding insult to injury, cows that collapse are electrocuted or forklifted to standing because a "downer" cow cannot be sent to market.

This meat then makes its way to school lunches.

Three-quarters of the nation's antibiotics go straight to CAFOs (concentrated animal feeding operations). Recently, the USDA's Agricultural Resource Service engineered a vaccine for sick, shipped cows, licensing it to pharmaceutical giant Schering- Plough. We now have two powerhouses feeding off each other and feeding us problems. All these pills and bills seem to be small bandages over our festering food wound.

Grass-fed animals are higher in all kinds of goodnesses: omega-3s, conjugated linoleic acid, Vitamin A. They are lower in fat, cholesterol and calories. The risk of E. coli is nearly nil. According to the American Grassfed Association, if a person switched from their average 66.5 pound consumption of feedlot beef to a grass-fed diet, they would reduce their yearly calories by 17,733.

The lesson is that when meat quality slides, it brings morality — the producers', the buyers', the quality controllers' — down with it.

Antibiotic Resistant Salmonella Burgers, YUM!!

The strain of salmonella found in recalled beef in Colorado is resistant to many antibiotics and cooking is not a reliable way to kill it, according to the state Department of Public Health and Environment.

The Denver-based King Soopers grocery chain on Wednesday recalled 466,236 pounds of ground beef products that were distributed to stores in Colorado, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming.

Fourteen people in Colorado became ill after eating the meat.

http://www.grist.org/article/2009-07-24-meat-wagon-antibiotic-resistant-salmonella

July 24, 2009: 6 Hospitalized In Colorado For Salmonella

July 23, 2009: King Soopers Recalls Beef Products

CAFOs & Antibiotics = More MRSA

A bill now circulating in the House, sponsored by Rep. Louise Slaughter (D.-NY), would limit the amount of antibiotics that can be used on factory animal farms.

Prevention magazine recently ran a pretty amazing story laying out the importance of the issue of factory farm antibiotics and MRSA, an antibiotic-resistant superbug that now kills more Americans every year than AIDS.

Top Philpott says, I’m not convinced that industrial animal farming is possible without routine antibiotic use. Stuffing animals together over their own shit essentially ruins their immune systems; antibiotics keep them alive long enough to reach slaughter weight.

Hat tip to Maryn McKenna’s blog Superbug, which should be on every MRSA watchers RSS feed.

Antibiotic Manure Contaminates Veggies

January 08, 2009 08:57 AM

by Isabel Cowles

Crops fertilized with manure from livestock treated with antibiotics absorbed trace amounts of the drugs, sparking health concerns about increased antibiotic resistance.

Something Extra in the Vegetables

Vegetables fertilized with manure are absorbing more than just nutrients, researchers say. While meat and dairy eaters have long been susceptible to ingesting antibiotics via animal products, vegetarians may also be at risk for unwittingly consuming these drugs. 

Scientists at the University of Minnesota analyzed corn, green onions, cabbage and corn in 2005 and corn, lettuce and potatoes in 2007; in both studies, they determined that crops fertilized with manure from livestock treated with antibiotics also absorbed the chemicals. 

Livestock farmers have typically fed animals antibiotics to promote growth and prevent infection. Holly Dolliver, a member of the Minnesota research group explained that about 90 percent of the antibiotics given to animals are excreted as urine or manure. “A vast majority of that manure is then used as an important input for 9.2 million hectares of (U.S.) agricultural land,” she said.

Although the scientists determined that crops absorbed less than 0.1 percent of antibiotics in the soil, concern remains over the accumulated ingestion of such trace amounts. Even organic produce is at risk of absorbing antibiotics, as organic farmers often use manure for fertilizer. In addition, rain and runoff from fields can introduce antibiotics into water systems.

Livestock who have consistently been given antibiotics have shown resistance to the drugs, which has prompted researchers to question the possible effects on humans. For example, if a person consumes pork with a strain of resistant bacteria and becomes ill, it is theoretically possible that treatment could be much more difficult.

Despite the potential risks, many farmers assert that eliminating antibiotic use in livestock could have damaging effects on food safety. For now, it appears the FDA is in agreement; in 2007, the agency overruled a warning about cattle antibiotic cefquinome and put the highly potent antibiotic on track for approval, despite concern by health groups.  

The levels of antibiotics in fertilizer can be decreased, however, if manure is treated properly. In a 2007 study funded by the USDA Agricultural Experiment Station and the National Science Foundation, researchers at the University of Colorado saw a decrease in manure that was managed by adding leaves and alfalfa, watered and turned.

Cattle On Drugs

Commentary: A growing health threat, ignored

By John Carlin

For two years my colleagues at the Pew Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production and I poured over volumes of data on what the Food and Drug Administration calls on its Web site "a growing threat," and what the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has termed "among its top concerns" – the phenomenon of antibiotic resistant bacteria.

What we found in our research was that overuse of antibiotics, especially in the production of food animals, is one of the primary culprits. We released our findings in April of this year with the recommendation that the FDA phase out the non-therapeutic use of antibiotics in farm animal production, meaning quite simply, preserve these drugs to treat sick animals, not healthy ones, and don't use them simply to stimulate weight gain.

Our report and recommendations were met with an enthusiastic reception by the public health and medical communities. In July, the FDA announced that it planned to ban the use – other than for strict, medically limited purposes – of cephalosporin drugs in food animals, effective December 1 of this year. Cephalosporin drugs are a powerful class of antibiotics used to fight infections in people, one of our newest and most effective lines of defense against harmful bacteria. But strangely, just five days before the ban was set to take effect, the FDA, with none of the fanfare that accompanied the original announcement, reversed itself.

What changed in less than five months? Certainly the problem hasn't gone away. It has only gotten worse. Newspapers are full of stories of Americans falling victim to serious infections that are resistant to traditional antibiotic treatments. Just one of them, methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), kills more people in the United States each year than AIDS.

A decade ago, the Institute of Medicine estimated that antibiotic resistant bacteria generated an estimated $4 billion to $5 billion per year in extra costs to the U.S. health-care system, and costs have skyrocketed from there. Apparently, the drug companies and their allies in the animal agriculture industry were only too happy to lean on friends and quietly preserve a system that, for them, is incredibly profitable - never mind the growing threat to the health of the public.

As a former dairyman and Kansas governor, I was therefore disappointed to see my state's health department named as supporting reversal of the ban, lumping it with such special interests as the National Turkey Federation. On the other hand, groups supporting the ban included the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the Infectious Disease Society of America and the American Public Health Association, among others.

It would be most interesting to know the basis for any organization's objection. Certainly the pressure on food animal producers is tremendous. A growing demand for meat and poultry led to a model of production that relies on what are commonly known as CAFO's – concentrated animal feed operations. Such industrial agriculture packs animals into such tight areas that often the conditions require a regimen of antibiotics to help avoid disease. Yet this practice, while once economically defensible, no longer is. The threat to public health from the antibiotic overuse alone is putting the human population at risk while adding billions to our health-care budget.

The rest of the world has leapt ahead of us on this issue. In Europe, antibiotics have long been eliminated from food production. South Korea followed suit this summer. Our refusal to turn away from this practice could cost us markets for our food products overseas and, by extension, precious jobs here at home.

The Pew Commission was composed of farmers, doctors, veterinarians, economists and other talented professionals who took on the challenge of finding a model that would allow U.S. farmers and ranchers the freedom to pursue their livelihoods in a way that does not adversely impact public health, the environment and the economies of their communities. We believe we found such a model, and it included phasing out the indiscriminate overuse of antibiotics.

Changing the way agriculture works in this country will likely prove challenging, and involve many difficult decisions. It's a tragedy that on this occasion the FDA took the easy – and more dangerous – way out.

ABOUT THE WRITER

John Carlin is a former governor of Kansas and was chairman of the Pew Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production.