Rebuttal to the Boston Globe Article on rBGH

TAKE MONSANTO TO TASK:[THIRD Edition]
Boston Globe. Boston, Mass.: Oct 5, 2003. pg. D.2
Section: Business
LETTERS

As a dairy farmer, I find your article to be hardly more than a PR exercise for Monsanto. You wrote, "But as the labels proliferate in Northern New England and begin to move south, they appear to be part of a very effective marketing campaign based more on fear than facts. . . . The US Food and Drug Administration has repeatedly said there is no difference between milk from cows treated with the artificial hormone and milk from untreated cows." What the FDA has repeatedly said is there is "no significant difference." That is not a scientific fact; it is a political judgment. Can "no significant difference" be measured objectively? If you go to the National Agricultural Library website, you will find the following: "Recombinantly derived bST products may differ slightly from the bST produced by the pituitary gland because in the manufacturing process a few extra amino acids can become attached at the end of the bST molecule. The number of extra amino acids varies from one to eight depending on the particular manufacturing process." That is, the molecule for Posilac is . . . different.

Any objective scientist would assure you that no one could say this difference is without risk. So an unknown risk with no perceivable public benefit is not the same as ignorant fear.

John Bunting

Delhi, NY

Will Fantle
wfantle@sbcglobal.net

DAIRY DEBATE AWAITS:[THIRD Edition]
Boston Globe. Boston, Mass.: Oct 5, 2003. pg. D.2
Section: Business
Publication title: Boston Globe. Boston, Mass.: Oct 5, 2003. pg. D.2
LETTERS

It's interesting to us that this man, Robert Cohen, the "notmilkman" who claims to tell the truth about dairy products and Monsanto's rBGH hormone, has offered to debate with 10 of the best experts on dairy and hormones and yet no one has accepted his offer. If the dairy industry and Monsanto have told the truth and have nothing to hide, then why not debate with Cohen, bring it out into the open, and expose the lies that Cohen is supposedly teaching? But if they don't debate, it shows us they are guilty as charged..

Nancy Riedesel

Garfield, Ariz.

Will Fantle
wfantle@sbcglobal.net