Thanks to
resistance from angry consumers, most milk no longer contains the synthetic,
genetically modified recombinant bovine growth hormone (rBGH) developed by
Monsanto. The unwanted ingredient
was in most commercial milk unlabeled until a backlash against such artificial
hormones convinced major grocery store chains and restaurants to banish it. But
does that mean commercial milk is safe to drink? Not necessarily.
All dairy cows
and "22 to 70 percent of calves" receive antibiotics on dairy farms, admitted Robert
D. Byrne, PhD, vice president of scientific and regulatory affairs of the
National Milk Producers Federation at Capitol Hill hearings about the overuse
of livestock antibiotics in 2008. The drugs are used only to "reduce the level of potentially
harmful bacteria which result infections and sickness," and are FDA-approved
Byrne added. There is also a drug "withdrawal time" to make sure milk isn't
contaminated, and milk is "screened" before it is accepted into a processing
plant.
But a report in
the New York Times
was not as reassuring. It revealed that milk is tested for only six of 20 antibiotics
and that 788 dairy cows in one year had drug residues at slaughter.
The dairy
industry has vehemently fought antibiotic restrictions by the government. John
J. Wilson, a senior vice president for Dairy Farmers of America, said that the
idea of testing for more antibiotics was "very damaging to innocent dairy
farmers," and that there was little reason to think that the slaughterhouse findings
of high drug residues "would be replicated in tests of the milk supply."
And when the FDA
proposed testing for more drugs in 2011 the dairy industry got so furious, it
used the d-word. Agri-Mark, a Northeast cooperative, sent a letter to its
members instructing them to DUMP milk if it had been tested by the FDA, "to ensure
that all of our milk sales, cheese, butter and other products are in no danger
of recall."
Dairies whose animals
harbor high levels of antibiotics are disturbingly common. "Our investigation
found that you hold animals under conditions which are so inadequate that
diseased and/or medicated animals bearing potentially harmful drug residues in
edible tissues are likely to enter the food supply," reads a letter from the
FDA to Dennis H. Eldred, the owner of Willet Dairy, in 2005. Four years later Willet
Dairy, New York's largest dairy, was shown on Nightline practicing shocking
cruelty against its dairy animals.
The
overmedication and extreme treatment of dairy animals was even cited in a
government report in 2010. "Farmers are prohibited from selling milk for
human consumption from cows that have been medicated with antibiotics (as well
as other drugs) until the withdrawal period is over; so instead of just
disposing of this tainted milk, producers feed it to their calves," said
the report. "When the calves are slaughtered, the drug residue from the
feed or milk remains in their meat, which is then sold to consumers."
There are many
milk alternatives which taste as good as milk and lack the antibiotic risks.
Milk products from soybeans, rice, almonds, hemp, coconut and flax are earning a respected place on grocery store shelves. END
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