> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-extropians@extropy.org
>
> My little sister worked part time for a local dairy farmer (she
> found dealing
> with cows very relaxing after a long day dealing with hospital
> morons' self
> generated problems with their computers) and is of the opinion,
> and the guy she
> worked for is also of the opinion based on his own research, that
> BGH is not a
> threat, that its all just scare tactics by 'organic' farmers
> trying to boost the
> market for their higher priced products.
What sort of research did the guy your sister worked for do? I haven't seen
any research on BGH, but I've looked at the research on 2,4-D, which is a
synthetic plant growth hormone. Some of the research concludes that it
causes cancer in mammals; other research says it doesn't, and it's not
always obvious from the published papers why there should be such
discrepancies. Possibly there's some factor that wasn't controlled for, such
as the presence or absence of other synthetic hormones in the animals'
diets, possibly some of the data was faked--who knows?
My basic strategy is to err on the side of caution when it comes to eating
potentially powerful chemicals, whether they be naturally occurring or
synthetic. I don't, for example, eat datura seeds or mescal beans or the
glandular secretions of frogs. Clearly, 2,4-D and BGH are not as toxic as
those things. I may be silly to avoid them, and in fact I don't always
avoid them. I DO sometimes eat in restaurants or at the homes of people who
aren't as picky about their food as I am. But I don't think I'll feel
comfortable eating these hormones regularly until I'm able to figure out why
there are such differences in the research results.
Bonnie
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Mon Oct 02 2000 - 17:35:30 MDT