What's more, the price of organic milk, besides other organic food, is dropping sharply to a narrow margin above conventional products. Leading the way, and far ahead of the field, is Wal-Mart, the nation's largest grocer and retailer.

Price apart, this is very good news for consumers.

Manufactured by Monsanto, rBGH is sold to dairy farmers under the trade name Posilac. Injection of this hormone forces cows to increase their milk production by about 10 percent. However, this is of little or no benefit in view of the current national surplus.

Monsanto has stated that about one third of dairy cows in the nation are in large herds where the hormone is now used. rBGH factory farms now pose a major threat to the viability of small organic dairy farms, and enriches Monsanto without any benefits to consumers.

Monsanto, strongly supported by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), still insists that hormonal milk is indistinguishable from natural milk, and that it is safe. This is blatantly false:

• rBGH makes cows sick. Monsanto has been forced to admit to about 20 toxic effects, including mastitis, on its Posilac drug label. 
• rBGH milk is often contaminated with pus, due to mastitis commonly induced by rBGH, and also with antibiotics used to treat the mastitis. This poses risks of nationwide antibiotic resistance to life threatening infections. 
• rBGH milk is chemically, and nutritionally different than natural milk. These differences include increased levels of milk fat, posing cardiovascular risks. 
• Milk from cows injected with rBGH is contaminated with the hormone, traces of which are absorbed through the gut into the blood, and provoke foreign antibodies.
• rBGH milk is supercharged with high levels of a natural growth factor (IGF-1), which is readily absorbed through the gut. These levels are further increased following pasteurization. 
• In numerous published scientific studies over the last two decades, excess levels of IGF-1 have been incriminated as causes of breast, colon, and prostate cancers. 
• IGF-1 blocks natural defense mechanisms, technically known as apoptosis, against the growth of early submicroscopic cancers.

Based on such well-documented scientific evidence, a 1999 European Commission Report, by a group of well recognized international experts, concluded that avoidance of rBGH dairy products in favor of natural organic products "would appear to be the most practical and immediate dietary intervention to . . . achieve the goal of preventing cancer."

Warnings of these risks were detailed in my 1990 and 1996 publications in the prestigious International Journal of Health Services, and subsequently endorsed by over 50 leading national and international independent experts in cancer prevention and public health, besides by activist consumer groups.

US medical establishment cozy with Monsanto

Based on such scientific evidence, Canada, the 28 European Union countries, Norway, Switzerland, New Zealand, and Japan have all banned the use and import of U.S. rBGH milk and dairy products.

In sharp contrast, the FDA continues to turn a blind eye to the dangers of Monsanto's hormonal milk. This indifference has been supported by longstanding conflicts of interest between Monsanto and the White House, the American Medical Association, and the American Cancer Society.

Those conflicts of interest have been ignored by the American media.

They have also ignored Congressional expressions of concern. These include a 1990 charge by Congressman John Conyers, then Chair of the House Committee on Government Operations, who stated, "I find it reprehensible that Monsanto and the FDA have chosen to suppress and manipulate animal health test data in efforts to approve commercial use of rBGH . . .without regard to the adverse effects on humans."

Ben Cohen, Co-Founder of Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream, recently warned that "rBGH is a bad and dangerous . . . bio-technological solution to a problem that does not exist."

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

Dr. Epstein has just published a new book, What’s In Your Milk?

With an Introduction by Ben Cohen, Co-founder of Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream

Foreword by Jeffrey M. Smith, author of the bestseller Seeds of Deception

This is an exposé of the dangers of the Monsanto Corporation’s genetically engineered (rBGH) milk, and its no-holds-barred conspiracy to suppress this information. The book also presents resource materials, including listings of national and international anti-biotech, public health, veterinary and animal rights activist groups. Also listed are rBGH-free U.S. dairy producers.

The critical message of What’s In Your Milk? to consumers is to boycott rBGH hormonal milk in favor of certified organic milk.

The book is available from Trafford Publishing, www.trafford.com/06-0676, or by calling Trafford’s Order Desk at (888) 232-4444 or (250) 383-6864, and subsequently at amazon.com and main bookstores. $24.95 USD

For overseas orders, contact national Amazon sites or other major bookstores and on-line retailers. £14.35 GPB, 20.49 Euros

Dr. Epstein is professor emeritus of environmental medicine at the University of Illinois at Chicago School of Public Health, and Chairman of the international Cancer Prevention Coalition. He is the author of 270 scientific publications, and author or co-author of 12 books. These include the prize winning 1978 The Politics of Cancer, the 1995 *Safe Shopper’s Bible, and the 2005 Cancer-Gate: How to Win the Losing Cancer War*. He is recipient of multiple awards, including the 1998 Right Livelihood Award (the Alternative Nobel Prize) for “incomparable contributions to cancer prevention, and for his leadership role in warning of the dangers of rBGH milk;" the 2000 Project Censored Award (the Alternative Pulitzer Prize); and the 2005 Albert Schweitzer Golden Grand Medal “for Humanitarianism, and International Contributions to Cancer Prevention.”