-Caveat Lector- <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/"> </A> -Cui Bono?- DAILY MAIL, Saturday, June 12th, 1999 THIS IS THE REAL MAD COW DISEASE BSE led to the vilification and ruin of Britain $B%f (Bs beef farmers. But what they did pales beside the horrors of American farmers $B%f (B pursuit of profit Amid the heat and dirt of a cattle ranch in the far north of Montana last week a grotesque and painful struggle was taking place. This remote region, a place of tough, pragmatic people, has become a testing ground for cattle farming methods which are so brutal they shock even the beef barons of America $B%f (Bs Mid West. On this particular ranch, thousands of cattle had been corralled into a series of steel pens, called feedlots, around 200 to each. There was no shade, no shelter and no grass on the ground, only dust. On one side of each feedlot was a trough containing herbicide soaked grain. All the cattle were enormous - the result of the grain diet and a series of steroid hormone implants inserted under the skin behind their ears. At least one of the hormones is feared to cause cancer in humans. Because the cattle were carrying so much weight, and because their digestive systems are designed for grass not grain, some of the cattle $B%f (Bs internal organ $B%f (Bs had fallen out. And because it would be to expensive to call a vet out to treat these problems a couple of sweating, panting farm hands in cowboy hats were going from cow to cow prising their organs back inside and stitching up the cows. As Howard Lyman, a rancher explains: $B%d (BYou get paid by the pound, after all. And cattle don $B%f (Bt win any prizes for keeping their figures. $B%d (BI spent countless hours stuffing 25lb of cow back inside the animal and then sewing the wound, the whole force of a 600lb heifer straining against me. $B%f (B Already this year Europe and the United States have gone to the brink of an all-out trade war over bananas and crossed swords over the issue of the labelling of GM foods. Now the new battleground is hormones in beef. Next Tuesday the European Union will impose a new ban on all imports of American beef, believing that even stocks labelled steroid-free are frequently full of hormones. The Americans plan to retaliate by imposing $B!W (B125 million-worth of import duties on European products as diverse as pears, chewing gum and motorcycles. As the trans-Atlantic dispute threatens to degenerate into all-out trade war, the Daily Mail has investigated the many bizarre and potentially dangerous ways in which American farmers are fooling around with nature. What we discovered will make any British consumer think twice before they bite into another American steak or burger. At roughly the same time that the two Montana cowboys were going about their unedifying task, a herd of dairy cows 900 miles to the east in Cedar Falls , Iowa, was undergoing its fortnightly injection of a genetically-engineered growth hormone called bovine somatotropin (BST). Some research claims the hormone has been blamed for wiping out almost 20 pc of some herds. The cows $B%f (B immune systems become impaired, increasing their vulnerability to severe bladder and udder infections. It is also claimed that BST also weakens their skeletons by draining calcium from their bones. Many cows which survive are unable to stand because their bones are too weak. BST, which manufacturer Monsanto insists is safe, is another drug that has been linked to cancer in humans. However, it boosts milk production by up to a quarter. And when the cows have been pushed to their limits of their endurance, the farm hands follow up the hormone jabs with large doses of antibiotics to try and ward off infection. The statistics are indeed terrifying. At least one in six farmers inject his cows with genetically engineered growth hormone. Around 200 pc of the 29 billion lb of beef consumed by Americans each year comes from cattle which have been fattened by hormone implants. For pork, the figure is almost 100 pc. $B%d (BThere are some really terrifying things happening in the American food industry, $B%f (B says Ronnie Cummins, director of the country $B%f (Bs Pure Food Campaign. $B%d (BBut there has been very little research carried out here into the effects of hormones and even less reporting on television or in newspapers. $B%d (BOne reason why the u.s does not want hormonal beef to be labelled as such if it goes on sale in European supermarkets is that people over there wouldn $B%f (Bt buy it. But the second is that people here would start asking: $B%a (BWell, why don $B%f (Bt we have the same labels? $B%b (B And they really can $B%f (Bt afford for that to happen. $B%f (B The American meat industry today is a far cry from the Wild West days when cattle were allowed to roam free on the range. Calves are allowed to run with their mothers for six to 11 months and then herded into feedlots. There are now 42,000 feedlot ranches in the major cattle-growing states and around half the country $B%f (Bs 100 million cattle are confined within them. Some farmers using feedlots have begun research trials adding card-board, newspaper and sawdust to the feeding programmes to reduce the costs. Other factory farms add manure from the chicken houses and pigpens, making the United States the only Western nation where it is legal to feed raw manure to cattle. Farmers are even reported to have experimented with cement dust, which is said to have produced a 30 pc faster weight gain. Furthermore, American farmers have been merrily feeding a panoply of pharmaceuticals to their cattle since the Fifties. Today they routinely use six types. Three are $B%d (Bnatural $B%d (B sex hormones: testosterone, progesterone and oestradiol-17 beta. Three are synthetic sex hormones: trembolone acetate, zeranol and melengestrol acetate. Like the steroids used by a bodybuilder, these substances increase both muscle and fat growth, making each cow heavier and increasing its value by around $B!W (B50. They also make the animals grow faster, so the farmer can take them to market far more quickly. American farmers $B%f (B associations insist these substances are safe, because they occur naturally in cattle. They also say the testosterone simply replaces that which is lost when their bulls are castrated to prevent them attacking each other in the feedlots. The use of hormones was banned in Europe in 1988 because EEC officials feared farmers could not be trusted to use them in small doses. As if to illustrate how well-founded those fears are, one test on slaughtered cattle in the U.S. showed that almost half had been illegally treated, with implants having been inserted not into their ears but into their muscles, where the hormone is even more effective - and potentially even more dangerous to anyone eating the flesh. The main criticism of hormonal beef in Europe, however, was that nobody could be sure how safe it was until more research was carried out. There is a particular fear that the consumption of meat treated with large doses of hormones could be harmful to pre-pubescent children. The mighty American beef lobby, denied access to such a significant market by the 1988 ban, denounced it as $B%d (Bprotectionism $B%f (B and a $B%d (Bclear restraint of trade $B%f (B and persuaded the Clinton administration to lodge a complaint with the World Trade Organisation (WTO). Arguing that there was no evidence that hormonal beef could be harmful, the WTO ordered the European Union to lift its ban. In fact, the alarm had already been sounded by scientists at the University of Illinois Medical Centre in Chicago. In a deeply-disturbing report, the school $B%f (Bs professor of environmental and occupational medicine, Samuel Epstein, warned last year that confidential farming industry reports to the American Food and Drug Administration revealed high residues of hormones in American beef. According to some estimates, an eight-year-old boy who ate two hamburgers made from this meat would, following the meal, have increased his levels of the female sex hormone by 10 pc. According to Dr Epstein, lifelong exposure to high residues of natural and synthetic sex hormones in meat poses serious risk of breast and reproductive cancers, which have increased sharply in the U.S. since 1950. Hormone residues are also suspected to be casual factors in premature sexual development in young girls. Until recently Dr Epstein found himself to be something of a voice in the wilderness. But then, last week, the EU $B%f (Bs Scientific Committee on Veterinary Measures published the results of its own long-awaited study on the use of hormones. The committee $B%f (Bs 139-page report concluded that at least one, called oestradiol, is a $B%d (Bcomplete carcinogen $B%f (B, because it can trigger tumours and promote their growth. The committee also called for further studies on the other five hormones. It is little surprise, therefore, that the deadline set by the WTO for the European beef ban to be lifted came and went last month and a WTO arbitration panel is now deciding what sanctions the U.S. can impose upon Europe in retaliation. To reinforce its decision to ban U.S. beef, the EU published the results of tests on the small amount of supposedly hormone-free U.S. beef which is allowed in. When it discovered traces of hormones in 12 pc - including one substance which is illegal in the U.S. - it announced a ban on all American beef. And it will not end there. Another, equally bloody, trade dispute is looming over Europe $B%f (Bs ban on the genetically engineered growth hormone BST. The main manufacturer of BST is Monsanto, the American bioengineering giant behind some of the most disturbing developments in GM food. Monsanto is adamant that its BST is perfectly safe but milk produced by cows injected with the substance contains higher levels of growth hormone IGF-1 (Insulin-like Growth Factor One). This hormone is also a suspected carcinogen. One study found a seven-fold increase in breast cancer among premenopausal women who had high levels of IGF-1 in their bodies, while a similar study discovered a four-fold increase in prostate cancer among men with high levels of the hormone. In addition, many cows which are treated with BST develop udder infections and there are fears that the antibiotics used to treat them could encourage the growth of antibiotics-resistant microbes which infect humans. BST has been dogged by controversy from its earliest days, when it was revealed that the U.S. Food And Drug Administration official who drew up labelling guidelines which prevented dairies from advertising their products as BST-free once worked for the GM food giant. Monsanto has twice successfully sued American farmers who used BST-free labels on their products. The EU ban on BST was initially imposed for just five years and is due to expire next year. Monsanto, which invested a reported $B!W (B600 million developing the drug, has been aggressively marketing it around the world ever since and is certain to urge the U.S. government to complain to the WTO if the European ban is extended. The American GM food industry was taken by surprise by the ferocious reaction of British consumers to plan to sell their products, unlabelled, in British supermarkets and now the beef industry is girding itself for a similar battle. But leaders of both industries are convinced it is only a matter of time before Brussels buckles under the pressure of sanctions and bans on imports of European products. $B%d (BThere is no going back, $B%f (B says Marshall Martin, an agricultural economist at Indiana $B%f (Bs Purdue University. He points out that it is impossible to eat a slice of pizza in the United States today without consuming two or three different GM food-stuffs - and he is convinced it cannot be long before Europeans are doing the same. $B%d (BIn a sense we pulled the cork out of the bottle with the discovery of DNA, $B%f (B he says. $B%d (BAnd the genie can $B%f (Bt be put back in. $B%f (B By IAN COBAIN in New York. ****************************************************** LOE Group & BioCeramica Group 159 Broadhurst Gardens, Lonodn NW6 3AU For National Tel: (020) 7328 6100 / Fax: (020) 7624 6384 For International Tel: (+44 20) 7328 6100 / Fax: (+44 20) 7624 6384 ****************************************************** ================================================================= Kadosh, Kadosh, Kadosh, YHVH, TZEVAOT FROM THE DESK OF: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> *Mike Spitzer* <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> ~~~~~~~~ <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> The Best Way To Destroy Enemies Is To Change Them To Friends Shalom, A Salaam Aleikum, and to all, A Good Day. ================================================================= <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/">www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are not allowed. Substance�not soap-boxing! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'�with its many half-truths, misdirections and outright frauds�is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRL gives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. ======================================================================== Archives Available at: http://home.ease.lsoft.com/archives/CTRL.html http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ ======================================================================== To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Om
