Talk:Bovine somatotropin/Archive 1

Group 5's suggested improvements

Three suggestions:

1. I would suggest looking up if there are any states other than kansas, ohio, and pennsylvania that have been affected by this. Even if they are short tidbits, it would add to the page’s/section’s length and credibility. 
2. Under the “Mechanism of action” section the information provided seems a little general and would look great if a few more facts were added. For example, the section uses the words “moderate daily level” and “moderate number” to describe the timeline and process of lactation. It would help inform the readers more if numbers were included to specify how much the daily production of milk is and what the cell count is before it decreases.
3. The “Hormones” information seems a bit out of place and I would suggest connecting this information to the “Human health” aspect since you mentioned human consumption of the milk/meat.

Lefereol (talk) 16:43, 20 November 2016 (UTC)

Neutrality of this article should be in question

I have done a good bit of research on genetically modified organisms and I know how contentious this issue is. I'm sure a great many people have contributed positively to this piece but it just reads like a whitewash and does not conform to wikipedia's neutral PoV guidelines. Whomever is in control of this article needs to give it a strong review, reference some of the science around this issue and do a comprehensive overview of why this substance has been banned in so many places around the world. staypuftman

Thanks for your note, but you provide no clue (!) as to (i) in what direction you see bias; or (ii) what content or specific statements you see as biased. Can you please provide more specific concerns so that we can discuss and potentially address them? Thanks.Jytdog (talk) 17:01, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

Bans in Canada and Europe - No citation

I removed the line stating that bans in Canada and Europe were based on evidence that IGF-1 caused cancer in humans. In fact, the canadian report specifically stated that there was no biologically plausible reason to be concerned for human health with regard to rBST. http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/dhp-mps/vet/issues-enjeux/rbst-stbr/rep_rcpsc-rap_crmcc-eng.php 68.231.187.203 (talk) 05:39, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

It should also be noted that The European Union also banned rBSt for ANIMAL health reasons, not human. This is noted in this document http://ec.europa.eu/food/fs/ifsi/eupositions/ccrdvf/archives/ccrdvf-cx_00-02-bst-ec_delegateguidelines-200300final_en.pdf. The link that is provided in the current article regarding the human health consequences from the EU only states that "more research is needed" and does nto provide any negative conclusions about human health. In the document I linked above it also clarifies the Codex Alimentarius issue. It says that "the establishment by Codex of a nonnumerical “MRLs” (which in fact does not represent a maximum residues limit1) for BST and for which there is no validated method of analysis available, has no effect as regards international trade and, consequently, it is not necessary." In light of this, saying that the Codex has "refused to approve it as safe" is a gross misrepresentation. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 205.215.210.10 (talk) 16:17, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

I also reworked the "labeling" section a bit. The Pennsylvania section wasn't really supported by the link provided to I rewrote it to be more clear. I also rewrote the Kansas section using a new source because the old Kansas section was terribly POV. I removed the line under the general labeling header because it doesn't have anything to do with labeling. Someone can add it back elsewhere if they wish. I also don't know if the link really supports the statement. rBSt has been approved for more than 15 years, and the link only says that a few large grocery chains dropped the milk in 2009. If someone has a link stating the trend since rBST was actually approved for use that would be awesome. Otherwise it should probably just say "in recent years" or something like that. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 205.215.210.10 (talk) 16:39, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

Merge

`1 I just merged in material from a separate article, bovine somatropin. Somatropin and somatotropin are both valid words, in fact synonyms, but somatropin is most commonly used for human, and somatotropin for bovine growth hormone. We also need to change the title of this page because somatotropin is not a brand name and should not be capitalized. I posted a request on the help desk because I dont know how to do this. I have already fixed the major links from Monsanto and Milk.Alteripse 18:27, 31 May 2004 (UTC)

42Kb and growinng...

I just edited the first paragraph and plan adding some more information to other areas of this article. Please feel free to add comments and suggestions on my personal talk page as I am new to this fourm of communication.AggieAnnieM

More Controversy

Is it me or does it seem like this article has been edited by rBGH supporters... it seems like every con stated has a snapppy comeback. Pierog 01:10, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

I got really sick of the misinformation, and killed a bunch of the outright lies that I could find information that comprehensively discredited. Considering more than half of the "sources" provided in the original article were links to Notmilk.com and related anti-agriculture extremist sites, and all four of the topmost links, I felt it was time to fight back with facts. Try the IGF-1 and Milk and Milk Is Milk links in the sources-cited. I don't particularly like the product, but I just came out of college for Dairy Animal Science, and absolutely everything published by a reputable impartial source says the stuff is safe. Most tested pharmaceutical ever, more than ten years of research by about a dozen different organizations including Cornell, CDH, CDA, and the USDA.

My only admission of guilt is I still can't find an internet source and can't remember the book for the historical use of refined bovine somatotropin in experiments to cure dwarfism in humans.Vaarok 4:00, 13 Jun 2006 (UTC)

I would like to see the controversy of the article expanded. The article seems largely pro-rbST use. For those of you who havent's seen the documentary "The Corporation" go see it. For those that have, you should be relatively aware of the controversy between Monsanto and Media coverage. One argument from the film that I found particularly captivating was the claim between a relationship between rbST and mutations of influenza. I came here looking for more on the matter and find that there is none. As my background lies mainly in the film, I know that anything I would be able to put up would be easily disputable, and this information deserves better backup than I can give it (as of now). Kingerik 19:39, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

I started and wrote the major portion of the article, and I also found out about it through "The Corporation." However, what was shown in the film was all negative things about rBST. There is lots of information to show that most of the claims ARE in fact nonsense (although there are good reasons not to use the product). In writing the article I tried to avoid directly saying anything nonfactual about the product, and instead explain who claims what about the product. If you can find more info it would be great to add, but I suspect that most of what you find will be along the lines of what the article says. YahoKa 03:27, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

I wouldn't mind seeing the controversy side expanded either, or at the very least seeing a reference for the EU declaring the product as 'safe'. It seems unlikely that they would declare a moratorium if they were certain it was safe. Either way, I believe there should be a reference provided for this claim. 203.206.66.254 00:48, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Read Grains of Truth. It is all about the controversy regarding these issues. There should be, maybe is I am going to check after I write this, an extensive section here on GM foods in general. Incidentally, regarding the claim that there are studies that these claims are nonsense, that is BS. You are falling into the trap that many people do. You believe what you hear in the news but you don't get that the only people being asked are the major stakeholders. Scientific journalists are not in the practice, generally speaking for most mainstream distribution (the AP)anyway, of disputing what they are told. And since the major scientists speaking in favor of this technology were the ones who were connected to it's creation, they are not exactly objective. It is also the practice of many corporations and policy makers to scream down any opponent and attack their credentials and credibility. Don't fall into that trap with such an important issue. Listen to what these people have to say and listen well. Most are not asking for study to stop, which it should not. Most are simply saying, "Lets figure out if this is really the right thing to do and safe enough in the long run before we unleash it upon the world". Monsanto is sueing farmers for possesing their terminator gene in the crops that they grow. Many of these small farmers have had their pure crops cross-bred with GM strains because of natural dispersion methods employed by mother nature. This means that it spreads. Wouldn't you rather listen to the respected (until they speak out against these corporate giants) scientists and make sure this technology is safe before it is too late to stop it? Ben & Jerry's puts a disclaimer on their products that basically says that the only gaurantee they can give regarding rBGH is that they will do their best to keep it out. We are all eating GM foods and we don't know what really happens when you start splicing DNA. They are doing the same thing with fish now. Salmon do not grow in the winter, but if you splice their DNA with another fish's DNA than you get salmon that grow year round. They say that these fish, if accidentally released, cannot breed. But what rules of mother nature can you mess with and still be %100 sure? There are several species of reptile that I know about that can change sex when the population sways too much to one side. And if they cannot reproduce, aren't we basically eating cloned fish? I am an athiest, but that does not mean that I condone these things. It has been proven time and again that no good comes out of messing with Nature. So please try to do what you can to make this a haven for true objective thought on this important subject. I appreciate that someone tried to put in some entry and I hope you have more time than I do to make this article better. -Silas B.

General information about genetically modified foods do not belong in this article. If you can find studies and articles specifically about rBGH, you should of course add the information you find. Accusations do not belong in this article; at most I think a statement of: "the integrity of X is questioned by Y because of reason Z" should be added. Please point out specific points in the article that you have a problem with. Where it is said what might be considered biased, I have tried to be careful to keep it clear where the information is from. For example,

"According to Monsanto, milk and meat from cattle supplemented with rbST are safe. Monsanto also states that the only difference between milk from supplemented cattle and unsupplemented cattle is the amount of IGF1 — and that there is not even a difference in the concentration of bST."

This makes no claim as to whether this is true or not, but only that Monsanto has claimed it is. Sources may be limited here (no doubt, so please do find what you can), but like I said, studies from various countries have not shown significant short term risks, or significant chemical changes in the milk. When I get around to it I will try to add more proper citations. YahoKa 05:48, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

I thought the following was an interesting and important point (Jeremy Rifkin actually mentions this in the movie you were talking about):

"Milk production in North America, Europe, and Australia is already plentiful and milk is relatively inexpensive, so those opposing the use of the drug have expressed concerns that using the drug to increase milk production (hence depressing prices) primarily benefits large scale producers, and will narrow the margins that small dairy farms receive for their products"

There is actually similar overproduction with most agricultural products in the US and the EU. In addition to affecting small farmers in the developed world, this has been a major point of contention during recent WTO discussions. Developing countries have argued that First-World exports of excess agricultural goods have severely depressed prices in the developing world and crippled the ability of farmers in these countries to make a living. This "dumping," is as a result one of many reasons for the swelling of city populations in the third world.

I believe that the reason some think this discussion is pro bST is due to the fact that science shows the stuff is safe! I have no association with Monsanto and fear them like I do most large corporations. As one who has worked in the dairy industry for years , pre and post bST, I must say that all the data shows bST is perfectly safe for use in cows whose milk is consumed by humans.

I also must take issue with the quote from Jeremy Rifkin, bST is not a drug. He needs to check his dictionary.

I'm working to improve the article because I think it's important to present an unbiased view of every issue so that people can make a choice about it for themselves. Some people might think my edits sway pro-BST but I'm only presenting the facts. Personally, I'm against using RBH, but only because I don't think it's right to have cows producing so much milk that they get sick. The solution is for people to consume less milk, but that's another topic. I have to go for now, but will try to improve this more. --Anastacie 20:04, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Potentially incorrect information, confusing formatting

Part of the "Recombinant Bovine Somatotropin (rbST) and rBGH" section is confusing. The line "This is in contrast to the findings published by the National Institutes of Health, NIH" is fragmented, unless it's meant to join with "JECFA full scientific report..." If the latter is the case, however, the statement should be corrected; the JECFA is a WHO/FAO committee [1] The NIH conference addressed only IGF's role in the development of cancer [2].

Parts of the article lack objectivity. Phrases, such as "...RBST not be approved for use in Canada..." and "...posed increased risks...", are formatted with bold text. This is unnecessary; it suggests to a reader that certain information is more important than other information (as the author intended, I suspect).

The article as a whole contains an inordinate amount of redundancy. Also, though they refer to the same thing, interchanging the use of the acronyms "rBST" and "rBGH" can become confusing for a layperson. I suggest that either one or the other be used throughout the article, with the exception of a sentence stating that the hormone is "also known as" the other.

Noneus 17:49, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

I learned about rBH from The Corporation, which led me to research the topic for a discussion of bioethics. Usually, Wikipedia provides a good overview of a subject with links to primary sources, but this article is completely unacceptable. It is obvious to me that information from any source besides peer-review journal articles should not be included in such a controversial article. There are too many sentences in the article that are opinions instead of facts. I'm a plant (not animal) geneticist, but I'll see what I can do. --Anastacie 16:50, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

I don't know if anyone noticed, but Monsanto never owned a brand called Hygetropin. Hygetropin is the brand name product for HGH, the anabolic steroid. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.75.27.148 (talk) 06:06, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

I removed references to Hygetropin from the article and rearranged the broken text at the top. I believe this article is the worst I've ever seen on Wikipedia. Please, if you've just seen a movie or read a book that fills you with religious fervor and righteous anger about a topic, refrain from editing Wikipedia. This article is an example of what happens when you don't. Much of the text is highly opinionated, as are many of the references. It all needs to be fixed. Voronwae (talk) 05:22, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

... werirdly-placed boldings

There are a few places in the article that emphasize bad things abough BGH. Seems a little POV-ish to me... If you're going to bold the cons, bold the pros, as well. If not, don't bold either of them. -- N3X15 ^{( Scream · Contribs)} 22:20, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

I fixed the weirdly placed boldings. I have to say the article has been ravaged with poor formatting and irrelevant information. I will work on the cleanup over the next few days. YahoKa 19:46, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Anti-industry bias

I'm an american dairyman, and it bothers me how this page seems to periodically be revised (quite professionally, I might add) to have a very anti-dairy tone in the source links and examples of the potential risks, namely the Related Legal Actions section and the links, both of which point directly to sources funded and maintained by anti-agriculture groups.

I would ask that the links be divided into pro and con or somehow labelled as such, rather than all presented in no particular order (though, I note, the most-recent and top-most three are all anti) as equally valid.

Dairying is a difficult enough business, it's hard to keep a farm running and have time on the side to counter the often baseless scare tactics of other groups. If nothing else, at least try to keep a balance.

http://www.igf-1-and-milk.com/ http://www.stoplabelinglies.com/about.html

Wow, an outright name-calling on Health Canada's doctor. Whistleblower? Is that all you can come up with Monsanto?

Unfortunately Mr Dairyman I dont think the problems with your US Dairy industry are caused in any part by people who are anti-BST. Some would even go as far to say that BST contributes to your woes by maintaining those high production volumes that lead to your low farmgate prices and sustain the imbalanced bargaining power of the processors and retailers down the milk supply chain (and of course the chemical companies up the supply chain). These are the people that squeeze you for every extra penny that you and your fellow dairymen and women try to save with your hard work each and every day. If you want to carve out a better living for yourself and your children you need to stand up collectively. Get together with your fellow farmers and discuss these and similar issues as one. Re-form farmers' co-operatives of sufficient size so you can bargain on these and similar issues and determine your own futures. If you dont, the industry of the future will consist solely of corporate entities and there'll be no more family farms I can assure you. Ask yourselves this question- do you really have to use BST? We dont (Australia), nor do the Kiwis in NZ and as I understand it you guys in the US are the only ones who do! If the farmers in your state all said "no!" then you'd see an overnight rise in farmgate prices to match the falls in volume. If you went that one step further and moved to organic farming methods I guarantee your family would be better off AND you'd be contributing to the health of your nation, rather than the financial health of Monsanto's shareholders. 203.28.240.20 00:46, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

No, listen here. We need to avoid ad hominem attacks. Just because a huge corporation asserts its product is safe and pushes for widespread adoption doesn't mean it's automatically unsafe, nor does it automatically mean it's safe. We need to consider only the published studies in evaluating the safety of rBST. The rats with the cysts and the IGF was one against rBST, but we have a number showing the milk to be completely safe for human consumption. I don't know what the quantities of IGF were in rats, or if they were realistic for milk consumption, but this really needs to be expanded before we play the corporation blame game.

editing re monsanto's lawsuit against oakhurst dairy; consumer demand for hormone-free milk

first of all, rude to delete without discussion.

second, it doesn't appear that you read the ny times article on the lawsuit, or did a simple google search to inform yourslef of the significance of the lawsuit. link is below. monsanto sued a small dairy, accusing them of "misleading advertising" and inference with monsanto's profits, on the grounds that dairies that didn't use rbgh shouldn't be able to advertise that to customers who wanted to know. they lost. if they had won, we would have no knowledge or choice about drinking rbgh milk.

the following two links are to 1) a boston globe article about how the consumer demand for organic milk is so high, there are shortages of organic milk. 2) the usda report on consumer trends in organic food consumption. the highest growing sector of the market in the 90s was organic milk. consumption of organic milk went up *%500* from 1994-1999. 1994 is when rbgh milk came out...since no other factor changed in the organic milk market, this increase is attributable to consumer demand for rbgh-free milk. Cindery 01:51, 5 August 2006 (UTC) http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=940DE3D71E3DF931A25754C0A9659C8B63&sec=health&pagewanted=1 http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0619-11.htm

http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&lr=&q=cache:lcZXlsOpFmgJ:www.ers.usda.gov/publications/aib777/aib777c.pdf+author:%22Dimitri%22+intitle:%22Recent+Growth+Patterns+in+the+US+Organic+Foods+Market%22+

• I am not trying to stop you from adding information, nor am I denying its importance. But you must add it in a balanced way, and in a way appropraite for encyclopedic standards. For example, you wrote:

Many animal rights and ecology activists oppose industrialized "factory farming," because it is cruel to animals.

You can not draw this conclusion and present it as fact (regardless of wether it really is true). You could say that many people feel that it is; that is a more appropraite thing to write. YahoKa 05:09, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

cutting off chickens' beaks so they can't peck each other because they are stacked in cages too tightly too turn around IS cruel. i don't think the factory farmers dispute that their farming practices are cruel--they dispute that it's wrong to be cruel to farm animals. could put longer explanation--"...oppose factory farming because it involves storage of animals in overcrowded conditions, no access to the outdoors, and physical mutilation." ?

(and that has *nothing* to do with what you deleted regarding the oakhurst lawsuit and the %500 increase in organic milk consumer demand...or the fact that you are supposed to bring your disputes to the talk page, not autocratically make deletions...)

• The edit you made just implies that conclusion. You just can't do that. Encyclopedia is about fact, not about drawing conclusions for people. It could be a fact that 99% of people think it is cruel to animals, but it is not a fact that it is cruel to animals. Content must be verifiable. You can't verify that it is cruel, but you could verify that 99% of people think it is cruel through a poll, for example.

Regarding the lawsuit, yes, that was unrelated and probably does belong in the article; I just did not pay enough attention, and I think it needed to be more carefully written anyways. I want the article to be totally fair to Monsanto, so the diction must be very carefully chosen. And don't get me wrong - I don't think the use of rbST is a good thing or right to do. YahoKa 13:15, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

no, you are wrong. "they oppose factory farming because they oppose cruelty to animals" makes no conclusion--it gives the reason they oppose it. moreover, no one has an obligation to be "fair" to monasanto--there is an obligation to be NPOV. if you think stating that animal rights activists oppose factory farming because they oppose cruelty to animals is a fact which is "unfair" to monsanto (which does not actually run any farms, factory or otherwise) feel free to find a source which claims something to the effect of "monsanto believes mastitis and animal storage in severely cramped conditions at farms to which it sells posilac does not occur" or "...does not cause the animals to suffer" or somesuch.

again, wiki requires discussion on the talk page for changes--autocratic deletion and "you cannot..." are not collaborative or in good faith. one may not slander living persons or post ads, those can be automatically deleted--but NPOV is debatable (and usually is. a way to start an unproductive fight--rather than an intelligent discussion-- is to decide that *you* are the sole arbiter of pov.)

it is even worse to delete additions without "paying any attention"--you need to be a lot more careful about your editing, and yout attitutude of entitlement.

and i would not say i have faith in your ability to judge good writing.

( the animal cruelty sentence the way it was originally written was very flabby and very poorly styled, in my opinion. )

for the record, i do not/cannot drink milk of any kind, and whether the farms are factory or not or the milk hormone-free or not makes no difference to me in milk consumption--i don't have a personal investment in hormone-free or cruelty-free milk. i do not belong to any animal rights groups, either.

last (and least) "anyway" is "anyway"--not "anyways." Cindery 19:20, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

Touche about the editing, my aplogies. No need for edit wars. As for for the lesson on informal writing (I'm aware that "anyways" is strictly informal, but you understood what I meant)... I don't appreciate that. Your informal writing is so clearly written with perfect grammar and formatting. I even had to use sarcasm to defend myself. Shameful.

When I say fair to Monsanto, I mean NPOV. If they do horrible things, I don't mean fairness to be a "cover up" for them. I think there are many assumptions made about the company and product, and more information about the negative effects get added than about the positive. I am not a dairy farmer, but it is logical that if there were no positives, no rational farmer would use it. Also, it is often believed they launch lawsuits as a cover up; no one ever discusses that there MAY be some merit to what they say.

I do see your point about your sentence: "they oppose factory farming because they oppose cruelty to animals." However, I think there is some ambiguity as to the implication of the cruelty as fact, whereas my version of the sentence was not ambiguous. Do you see how your sentence could be interpreted as a factual statement ("factory farming implies cruelty")? I think your logic ("oppose cruelty implies oppose factory farming") makes one conclude that if you are not cruel to animals, you do not use factory farming. That is a judegement that factory farming must be cruel. How can an encyclopedia make that judgement? It can't, but it could, for example, give a statistic that x% of people polled believe it is cruel (or the less precise"most people"), or explain that the ban in Canada was because of the problems it caused animals. YahoKa 06:09, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

"it" is often believed "they" launch lawsuits as a cover up? it is believed by whom? who is "they"? to cover up what? your arguments make no sense/are full of holes; i don't find it worthwhile use of my time talk to you about the subject in general. (maybe it's because i'm not an undergraduate :-) in any case, though it has been difficult for you to admit you were wrong, i think we have established that. don't make any more unjustified deletions to my contributions--or anyone else's--i will revert them immediately, and tag the article with NPOV/accuracy dispute if necessary. this is not "your" page. Cindery 07:34, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Wow, you're so helpful. Thanks for the discussion; you really help to accomplish a lot by calling me an idiot and ignoring me. YahoKa 14:40, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

no one called you an idiot (you are the only person who has used that word to refer to yourself) and no one has ignored you (in fact, you are the only one who has done any ignoring--you made deletions without discussion, thereby ignoring your obligation to start a discussion about proposed changes). however, no one has any obligation to discuss the subject with you "in general," i.e.,your opinions about such vague and unrelated topics such as "it" and "they" etc. Cindery 20:31, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

You treat me with a condescending attitude: "I don't find it worthwile... to talk to you... maybe it's because I'm not an undergraduate". So because you're in industry, a professor, a grad student or whatever it is you are ... you feel it is impossible I have something worthwhile to say.

Whether you understand what I say about the lawsuits or not is irrelevant, that was mostly an opinionated rant (and you're right, not on a particular issue, it was just general). I already conceded that the lawsuit information you added should not have been deleted by me, and I apologized. My ultimate complaint is that the diction can be improved for NPOV (basically the one sentence you changed about the cruelty), and I think my argument about that is clear (or maybe not ... ?). My complaint about ignoring me was that you said nothing about my argument.

You must accept that you are biased: "cutting off chickens' beaks so they can't peck each other because they are stacked in cages too tightly too turn around IS cruel." I agree that it is cruel. But this IS an ethical judgement, and no matter how fundamental it seems, you are trying to assert it as objectively true. That is why I have a problem with that one sentence. On an equally important note, how come you never use capital letters? YahoKa 22:06, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

here is my irrelevant rant on animal cruelty: cruelty means to intentionally cause suffering. forced confinement, mutilation, slaughter, etc= intentionally caused suffering. it is not biased to state the fact that acts which intentionally cause suffering are cruel. a bias would come in where a value judgement was made about whether the cruelty was right or wrong.

(i do not make such value judgements, because that would make me a hypocrite. i am, for example, wearing leather shoes. i am pretty sure that the cow who died for my shoes was not partying in candyland right up until someone gave it a totally awesome morphine overdose and it painlessly lost consciousness, all high. i accept that cruelty was involved; to do otherwise would be irrational/erroneous. if i have a bias where consumption of animal products is concerned, it's a bias in favor of using some of them. i don't let that bias delude me about the facts, though--the use of animals for consumer products like food and clothes involves cruelty to animals, to greater and lesser degrees. to be NPOV to animal rights groups, what they are disputing is the ethics of cruelty to animals, not whether cruelty exists.)Cindery 00:07, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

Ok, I see your point. I still disagree that cruelty can objectively be defined; I think of it as defined only be social standards; i.e. I don't think you can define someone else's subjective experience, you can only experience cruelty yourself or have society agree what is cruel. I think it will depend who you ask and what culture you ask. I'm sure almost all people in the world would think of it as cruel, but I have no doubt there are exceptions. YahoKa 00:30, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

This Article is a Joke

This article is a total fucking joke! This is the kind of crap that RUINS wikipedia! The number of unsubstantiated, pro-Monsanto lines in here comes off like a Fox "news" report. What a joke. Seriously, this is THE worst article I have ever read on Wikipedia. Even a moron can tell this is nothing but corporate propaganda. Shame on Wikipedia for not keeping a watch on pages that would be obvious targets for lies and propaganda. We're talking about people's fucking lives here. Do you really want to have blood on your hands for helping a rich corporation make even more money?

Any criticism of this product is buried within a lot of mumbo-jumbo. What a goddam joke. Will someone who really understands the situation and is anti-BGH create a new section? I'll help you defend it but I don't know science or the issue well enough to do it.

• • i agree that it is not really balanced/does not accurately reflect the existence of real-world controversy/debate about rbgh (which is what wiki is supposed to reflect--as opposed to carrying out the debate itself here...) there should probably be a "Controversy" section, as with most subjects that have a serious controversy/controversies. but not knowing "science or the issue well enough" is not really a good basis for having a strong opinion about it!--but i can respect your feelings. helping "defend" is not so great either--we should be collaborative, not adversarial (not that i'm saying it's always easy :-) i added some info about the FDA reviewers complaints during the rbgh review process after reading your comment. if you want to do something to add to the article/expand the controversy info/possible section so that it gives a fuller, more accurate picture, why not review this doc and write up a summary for us: http://www.nfu.ca/gapsreport.html

Cindery 07:54, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Cindery, your addition about the FDA stuff is put into a very long paragraph. It is easier to read if it is broken into multiple paragraphs. Also, it definitely needs breaking up into sections, because the FDA stuff isn't about the details of the product itself, it is about the controversy and approval of it. The product details section should be one or two paragraphs, and controversy the larger part.

As for cleaning it up, what do you think of breaking the controversy section into furhter subsections (so that multiple additions do not break the coherence and flow of the article): fda approval process, human health, animal health, animal welfare, milk markets, media and advertising lawsuits, etc. YahoKa 23:36, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

i agree with you completely that the way i inserted it is clumsy/inelegant/preliminary/done in a hurry, and controversy should be separate section--feel free to separate the way you suggest, and thanks. Cindery 23:50, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

• • Cindery, first, no one can be an expert in all fields; at some point you have to rely on summaries from other people. But even *without* the science, there's an obvious lack of another POV here. And by "defense", I was referring to what I imagine could be a serious effort to keep the information out or bury it in larger sections and laden it with jargon. That happens on wikipedia and Monsanto's made it clear they're willing to take serious efforts, including threats, to keep the BGH info out. I appreciate your efforts but I think some of the assumptions in your post were worth responding to. Let me give an example of just how biased this article is:

 National Policies

   * In the United States, the use of rbST is permitted.
   * In Canada, rbST is not approved for use. rbST was rejected by Health Canada, which ruled that use of the synthetic hormone "a sufficient and unacceptable threat to the safety of dairy cows". The rejection happened after Dr. Shiv Chopra testified that he has been pressured by supervisors to approve the drug.
   * The European Union declared the use of rbST as safe in 1990, but in 1993, a moratorium was placed on its sale by all 25 member nations. This could be a non-tariff barrier to protect subsidized European milk producers.
   * Japan, Australia, and New Zealand have banned the product.

• • Note that the reasons for Canadian banning are given because they don't deal with cancer. The EU reasons are speculated to be subsidies to farmers with zero evidence, and their health concerns aren't captured and their earlier aceptance of the bgh is included to suggest flip-flopping. The whole debate is about IT CAUSING CANCER IN HUMANS and the national policies are all written to conceal that fact. That's why this article is, as written, really lackluster. Just really shoddy propaganda practices. I'm doing a bit of researching myself and updating the article.

..i agree with samuel epstein of the cancer prevention coalition about rbgh, i caution everyone i know not to drink it...but i also don't think this article is intentionally biased in bad faith. i think a good faith effort to be as unbiased as possible about a contentious issue has been made, and i would really caution you to approach editing by assuming "good faith" on the part of previous editors. please believe me when i say i have looked at a wiki article before, had a conniption, exclaimed "was this written by shills for the company or what?!" and even declared that things were carcinogens in capitol letters...and then felt bad afterwards. please go slow/try to err on the side of assuming the best of others/strive towards fact-based neutrality. this is a democratic encyclopedia-in-progess, and kind of a beautiful thing. please knock yourself out changing it for the better, but not at the expense of goodwill towards others, if you can help it.

i haven't had time to review the canada data--it's pretty long and dense. i wanted to be inclusive/invite and encourage you to participate in a key way even though you seemed alienated/disgusted and disinclined to participate--i think that document is key, and that you could constructively channel your dissatisfaction with the article by reviewing it. ? one important thing to keep in mind re the carcinogenicity of rbgh is that the kinds of studies that need to be done to prove it conclusively have not been done. (so epstein can say there have been small studies, and there have--that's not enough. monsanto can say it's "unproven," and it is). elucidating how and why there hasn't been adequate study (and why some people/countries observe the "precautionary principle" and others do not) are key to making the argument that 1)more study should have been done, according to a lot of people. 2) the lack of study doesn't mean there's no risk, according to a lot of people. (remember that "reliable sources" have to be cited, not individual opinions of editors. that means finding sources within say, a country where it is banned who say "we banned it because the lack of study on carcinogenicity was not worth the risk to us"--that would be a valuable citation... Cindery 07:25, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

• • Well, I did edit the article, and I believe I did so in good faith an in ways that keep it balanced. Let me explain some of my reasons. I put the section first because I believe a lot of people come here, as I did, to understand the BGH controversy. In addition ...

• • you seem to worry about the lack of studies conclusively proving a link to cancer. Based on what I've read, I believe you're understating the situation a bit. But in any case, I don't want the article to reflect the idea that BGH causes cancer (unless I learn of studies that show that). Instead, what I would like is to show that BGH has the potential to cause cancer, immuno problems, and so on. So I created a section that address that potential. The section I've created so far addresses the human risks. I think that can be expanded on. And it also needs to address, in plain language, the animal harms. In addition, I think this is the right section to address Monsanto's attempts at stifling debate, including their successful attempt to get a story about BGH on a local Fox affiliate taken off the air. Hopefully others who are interested in a vigorous debate will revise what I've written to make for a better, fairer article.

I made some of those changes, and re-organized info into a controversy section. Controversy should go at the top, because although people may want to look at that first, it does not make any sense to discuss the product's controversy and then further down discuss what the product is. Remember, the controversy isn't about BGH, it is about rBGH/Posilac.

Anyways, I think more info about animal welfare needs to be added. Also, I would like to find some info about antibiotics required (if any?) for cattle who get rbST. YahoKa 18:57, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

By the way, I also think the article is jumbled mess. Nobody's arguments are made clear in the article. Yes, more info is needed, but what currently exists has to be re-ordered and (to some extent) rewritten to be more coherent. YahoKa 19:05, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

I enjoy most of the changes you made, YahoKa, but "controversy" is less specific than the previous titled.

Remember, the controversy isn't about BGH, it is about rBGH/Posilac.

The problem is that this is not just the BGH article, it's also the rbgh article. Type rbgh into the wiki search engine and BGH comes up. But in any case I agree that this is a better way to do it. It's just the title that I feel is not clear. I'm hesitant to change it without hearing your and others' thoughts first.

• good job finding ref; good job trying to reorganize, YahoKa. i agree with "controversy" as heading because 1)"possible" risks is controversial 2)that's what i ususally see for wiki articles. (i wrote a controversy section for depo-provera. i think the available evidence for depo is more "damning" than the available evidence for posilac, but it's still "controversy," because there's another side/other sides...) since controversy comes up/can come up a number of places for rbgh, inevitably it won't be limited to "possible human health risk"/room should be left for other editors to add...i think what had been done here, why Yahoka is saying "nobody's arguments are clear" is that an attempt has been made to present both sides throughout the article. straighforward info like "what is it?" "what are the national policies about it?" doesn't have to address controversy. it looks like the controversy has three main parts? a) possible lack of adequate testing b) possible risk to human health due to lack of testing c)risks to animal health  ?

ps: please sign your posts, pretty please. (it makes it easier to follow conversations, especially when they get long and time goes by/new readers come along...)

reverted edit re IGF

hi, i reverted that edit because 1)it didn't cite any source(s) 2)it wasn't written in encyclopedia style ("it is important to keep in mind..."). there is a controversy that i am aware of over whther IGF is digested/usable or not--check The Lancet. (monsanto claimed to the lancet that IGF was unusable from GI tract, and the lancet pointed out that they had submitted an article several years previously in which they claimed how *much* IGF could be absorbed from GI tract, touting it as health benefit! :-) so, this could be another point of controversy. while you have no obligation to cite the opposing side, you do need sources to make and claims that it isn't aborbed (and be prepared for the counterclaim, i'e, you have to state it as opinion of source, not irrefutable fact.) Cindery 19:47, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

synthetic hormone "genetic engineering"?

Can someone explain how a homone is "genetically engineered"? I'm pretty sure this article needs a lot of work Yincrash 19:20, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

hi-please put new comments at bottom. (i moved it for you, hope that's ok) i know it seems silly--like, wouldn't a new comment make more sense at top? i used to put them at top, too. but, that's they way they do things here, so if you want people to see that your comment is new, should go at bottom. also, helpful to put subject heading if new subject, and mention what you are referring to--else it's confusing/hard to figure out what you are responding to--the article? point in the discussion? i reread both to discern what you were talking about...

anyhow, i think you make a good point--what is the difference between say, genetically modified corn and a synthetic hormone? are they really conflatable? i'm not sure. i did a google search, and all the first hits for genetically engineered + posilac were from organic consumer groups, etc. but also on first page was this new york times article:[3] so, it may be inexact or incorrect, but it is a standardized error, if it's an error. why not research it in more depth, and if you find out what exactly the diff is--if any--change article so it's more accurate? Cindery 19:41, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Here's the basic idea: Bacteria have plasmids, which are circular pieces of double-stranded DNA. Recall that a living cell "transcribes" sequences of DNA to pieces of messenger RNA, which are then "translated" into proteins. So if you can take a bacterial plasmid, replace the part that codes for a protein with the code for your "protein of interest", and get the modified plasmid inside another living bacterium, the bacterium will start producing the protein.

This neat trick is made possible by the borrowing of tools that cells use to manipulate DNA, including restriction enzymes which cut DNA only at specific sequences. Another handy trick is bacterial antibiotic-resistance genes; if you start with bacteria that aren't resistant to ampicillin, and you clone your gene into a plasmid that already includes the ampicillin resistance gene, then bacteria that have taken up your plasmid can survive culture media with ampicillin in them -- and those that don't take up your plasmid will die.

Organisms like these modified bacteria are said to be "transgenic". The same term is used for corn plants that have been given new genes to make their own pesticide. To answer Cindery's question, the two organisms are similar insofar as they both include genes that they didn't get from their ancestors. Of course, they are also very different from each other (since one is a bacterium and one is corn).

Note that it's the E. coli used to make the rBST that is "genetically engineered"; the hormone molecules that result are chemically the same as the ones the cow is making. And, it hardly needs to be said, the cows are not genetically engineered. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.163.43.92 (talk) 23:24, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

Who supplies Bovine Somatotropin other then Monsatodairy and LG Life Sciences?

I would appreciate if somebody can advise me the contact details of any company other then Monsatordairy and LG Life Sciences in korea supplying/manufacturing BOVINE SOMATOTROPIN.

Thanks for your help in advance.

Regards,

J S

Neutrality

I get the feeling the neutrality of this article is - well, disappearing. There seem to be uncited and unbalanced claims, especially for pro-rbst-use (if I could label a viewpoint that way). Does anyone else have thoughts about the neutrality issue? YahoKa 05:32, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

As long as the title is Bovine somatotropin and subtitled as being about rBST there will be a divergence. Intentional or otherwise. I would prefer to see more information retained as to Monsanto's legal attempts to restrain commercial free speech. Should I choose to market apples as not being picked by anyone named Bob, I should not expect a lawsuit by a large and well-heeled Bob over my truthful packaging. Labor discrimination action would be fair game. Likewise, deletion or minimization of the issues of prior restraint of commercial free speech by a large corporation and governmental agencies IS part of the discussion that belongs on thepageOldZeb 08:00, 4 January 2007 (UTC) (Bob-free since '83)

"The Corporation"

The movie The Corporation has a segment on rBGH. This includes video of cows suffering from mastitis. According to The Corporation's website: "Because of the increased production, the cows suffer from mastitis, a painful infection of the udders. Antibiotics must then be injected, which find their way into the milk, and ultimately reduce people's resistance to disease[6]."

Is the article citing a movie? It also appears to claim that exposure to small quantities of antibiotics will "reduce people's resistance to disease," which I find to be a highly dubious assertion. 63.196.194.80 20:57, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

I think the assertion isn't that small quantities of antibiotics will reduce people's resistance to disease, it's that small quantities of antibiotics will reduce the effectiveness of antibiotics.

IGF-1

I have just edited the section on IGF-1 to remove the confusion produced by the failure of the section to distinguish between bovine and human IGF-1. Once this has been straightened out, it can be seen that the references to human IGF-1 are essentially irrelevant to this article and there is a strong case for their deletion. However I will leave this to others to decide. Richard Lugg 09:50, 8 May 2007 (UTC)Rlugg

There was no confusion untill you introduced it. How long would it take you to check sources? Human and bovine IGF-1 are almost identical and considered the same for all practical purposes. They are way more similar than rBGH and BGH for example.Richiez 09:35, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

I notice Richiez concedes by use of the weasel word "almost" that human and bovine IGF-1 are in fact different. As you'd expect. The claim that they are "considered the same for all practical purposes" depends for its significance entirely upon who is doing the considering and what purposes that person regards as practical. It wouldn't apply to the FDA, for example. I also note the absence of any reference to substantiate this claim.Richard Lugg 13:46, 10 June 2007 (UTC)Rlugg

Seems they are actually identical. [[4]] Jav43 03:13, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

I am only an armchair scientist, but it seems to me there should be some mention of the fact that IGF-1 and rBST are both protein hormones which are metabolized in the digestive system. There is no mechanism for getting the IGF-1 in the milk into the bloodstream unless you inject it. Trfeick (talk) 06:45, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Ongoing dispute?

I notice that this article is still tagged as having its neutrality in dispute. What is the present dispute? Is there still a dispute? How is the article presently not neutral? Jav43 16:05, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

---

It doesn't appear to have had any changes in a while. It seems like maybe it's time to remove the dispute tag? Briholt 17:55, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

---

I am pretty certain that multiple 'According to Mansato' statements should qualify this for disputable. Mansato is a producer of the hormone, and the 'According to Mansato' research posted here comes from a blatantly biased source. Also, all mention of the Florida lawsuit over BGH a health concerns news story have been removed, though completely relevant. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.17.93.16 (talk) 04:48, August 30, 2007 (UTC)

Clarifying points

I made a few edits to clarify points that probably fell onto the wayside during past controversy over this article. I'll wait a few days to let this stew, then see what other ways I can find to improve this article. Jav43 03:14, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Neutrality

I came on this page looking to find more information about the truth behind rBST, but unfortunately not only did it not read well with me, but I also found it to be pretty biased. Seeing as the previous discussion about neutrality was a couple of months ago and it has changed very much since then, I have marked this article as having it's neutrality disputed.

I would like more information from non-Monsanto sources, and I have removed some parts that reference Monsanto research in an unduly self-serving way. See WP:SELFPUB.

This is my first and only edit so feel free to undo what I've done if it clearly violates any Wikipedia terms.

71.14.75.171 05:16, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Pennsylvania milk-label censorship

The Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture has announced new laws regulating the labeling of milk. The new laws forbid the now-common notation "from cows not dosed with rBST". Monsanto had formerly lobbied the U.S. Federal Trade Commission to censor labels in this manner, but were refused. Now Pennsylvania is giving them what they want, and New Jersey, Ohio, and Wisconsin are considering similar laws. Pennsylvania Secretary of Agriculture Dennis Wolff claims that the labels are misleading and confuse consumers. He also claims that the censorship comes at the recommendation of a panel that included farmers, industry representatives, and consumer advocates. But it turns out that the "consumer advocates" are astroturf outfits set up by industry lobbyists.

This info seems appropriate for the rBST article. It relates specifically to controversy around the use of rBST in food production. It would be challenging, though, to write it up in a manner that all readers would consider to have a neutral point of view. Re-reading the paragraph above, for instance, I can't help thinking that it shows Monsanto and its goons lobbyists in a bad light.

Some links:

http://blogs.consumerreports.org/safety/2007/11/missing-truth-i.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/11/business/11feed.html?ref=business
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/12/2/15490/9703 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.163.36.169 (talk) 02:44, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Re-working

The current page is...interesting to read. I'm re-working to use citation templates, take out the duplication of links using ref tags, try to word it a bit more neutrally (the current version doesn't read NPOV to me, so much as it reads 'equally hostile to both sides' which is not a bad thing but could be better with minor changes) and other stuff. I may get to more later on, or I may just kinda wander off. We'll see. In the mean time, here's some info from the 'references section', which I've removed completely and replaced with footnotes and an external links section. These could probably be integrated fruitfully into the main body (or may already be there, given what I've seen of what's on the page already), but they don't really work as ELs and you can't really tell where they're used in the text, rendering them pretty much useless as 'references'. There here if someone knows what text they're linked to. WLU (talk) 21:50, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

1. JC Juskevich and CG Guyer, "Bovine growth hormone: human food safety evaluation," Science, 249, op. 875-884, 1990. [5]
2. Science and technology: Udder confusion. Anonymous. The Economist. London: Jul 3, 1999.Vol.352, Iss. 8126; pg. 70, 2 pgs.
3. Big Milk, Big Muscle, Big Money. Fifth Estate - CBC Television. Toronto: Nov 29, 1994.
4. U. S. Food and Drug Administration Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition / Cornell University BST Fact Sheet [6] (Funded by Monsanto)

Actual Information!

Check out this Article done by the University of Minnesota Extension Service. This page on wikipedia is down right outrageous on how one-sided it is. Plus it says, "The mechanism by which growth hormones stimulate the cow's udder to produce more milk is not well understood" when it is well understood by most anyone with any knowledge of the matter. http://www.extension.umn.edu/distribution/livestocksystems/DI6337.html —Preceding unsigned comment added by [[User:{{{1}}}|{{{1}}}]] ([[User talk:{{{1}}}|talk]] • [[Special:Contributions/{{{1}}}|contribs]])

And this article [7] MaxPont (talk) 21:04, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

The article by the University of Minnesota Extension Service (http://www.extension.umn.edu/distribution/livestocksystems/DI6337.html) is a dead link, the University doesn't have that on their site anymore. It's also dead in the references section (reference 3). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 110.33.74.195 (talk) 07:06, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

My Edits

I edited a few things in this article. I changed the heading "Banned outside the United States" to "Regulation outside the United States" to match the earlier heading "Regulation inside the United States" and be less biased. I also deleted the comment that stated rbST is banned in "every other industrialized nation" because the comments following it do not seem to support that claim (listing only the EU and a handful of other countries). I eliminated the uncited statement about Dick Wolff having no reason to believe that consumers were confused about rbST. I elimanated and/or edited many of the statements about AFACT, because after reviewing their webpage I found no evidence of their truth -- namely it being "made up of large conglomerates" and their main justifications, which I replaced with a quote from their mission statement. I also corrected the use of "BST" or "BGH" when it should have been "rBST" or "rBGH". I found it strange that this article lacked more than a sentence on plain old BST, so I also incorporated some data from the above U of MN link into the Physiology section. I deleted the sentence that stated rBST would keep production from falling during a cow's lactation, because that is simply not true. AS many of the various sources here state, rBST injections increase milk yields by about 10-20% -- a cow's production has a drastic curve during her laction, much more than 20%. And I added a short explanation of how the hormone is manufactured since someone up further in this commentary found it so confusing. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.101.89.115 (talk) 00:28, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Ref. to add in the article

[8] MaxPont (talk) 16:00, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

FoxBHGsuit.com

This is about as far from meeting standards for a Reliable Source as can be. The source is an advocate for a particular position, has no fact-checking or third-party process for source-checking or accuracy, and maintains an extremist point of view. Plrease read Wiki policy on WK:QS before attempting to cite this as authoritative. FellGleaming (talk) 01:32, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

I'm afraid I have to agree. This source is not reliable, and after a cursory Google and Google News search, I didn't find any third-party media coverage. As soon as a reliable, independent source is found, we can add text describing the coverup/firings/lawsuit. But until then, it's not verifiable. -kotra (talk) 20:56, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Don't just remove stuff based on one poor source. It took me all of ten minutes to find half a dozen news articles in Google News from the St. Petersburg Times (the Fox subsidiary was a Florida one) about the suit. Steven Walling (talk) 22:11, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

As per WP:V, content without reliable sources can be removed at any time. Normally I would have just tagged it as unsourced, but this particular content was controversial enough that I felt it should not have stayed unless it was verifiable. My hat goes off to you on finding the references, I used Google News and failed to find any (my search terms must have been too specific). -kotra (talk) 23:22, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Yes. Can be, not must be. Essentially, I agree with you. But technically speaking, it didn't violate WP:V, because it was sourced. The source itself just sucked, and needed to be improved upon. Steven Walling (talk) 23:34, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Well, I would have removed the source as unreliable. I suppose I could have removed the source in one edit, and then removed the full text as unsourced in a second edit. Maybe I should have, just for the sake of clarity? -kotra (talk) 23:43, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Well, you have a source now appears to be reliable. The only problem is, it doesn't agree with your reinserted text. I have edited it for correspondence, and also to be more in line with [[WP::NPOV]] —Preceding unsigned comment added by FellGleaming (talk • contribs) 21:19, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Mostly good, but you made an error: according to one of the sources, the reporters did refuse to broadcast an edited version of their story; they did not refuse to "drop" the story and were not asked to (at least, none of these three sources says that). According to the St. Louis Journalism Review article:

a Florida jury unanimously decided that Akre was wrongfully fired by Fox Television when she refused to broadcast (in the jury's words) "a false, distorted, or slanted story"

You may have been confused because of this oddly contrasting quote in the Tampa Bay reference which says:

"This is a wonderful day," said Phil Metlin, the news director of Fox 13. "The jury realized that Fox never told anyone to lie, distort or slant the news."

...but probably that can be chalked up to spin on the part of that Fox director. -kotra (talk) 22:18, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

The other edits look OK, but I'm not seeing the "threatening letter from Monsanto" verification. Please indicate where this in within the sources, or we'll have to remove it. FellGleaming (talk) 01:18, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

In the St. Louis Journalism Review article (emphasis added):

Before they were even completed, however, Monsanto's law firm sent a tough protest letter to Fox News's chairman, Roger Ailes. The letter said Monsanto was "alarmed and deeply concerned" over the coming "assault" on the company's integrity and the integrity of its product. It charged that the journalists had "no scientific competence" and were planning to broadcast "recklessly made accusations." A follow-up letter threatened "dire consequences for Fox News" if it allowed the reporters' "pejorative and defamatory characterizations" to be broadcast.

In the Tampa Bay article (emphasis added):

The Friday before the story was to air in February 1997, Fox received a threatening letter from Monsanto, saying the reporters were biased and that the story would damage the company.

-kotra (talk) 03:19, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks; good enough. Now, in regards to "Genewatch, I don't know what 'awards' it has won, but it certainly is substantially biased against gene-engineered products. It also lacks verifiability and a reputation for fact-checking. If 23 scientists truly were pressured, then I'm sure numerous accounts exists in reputable media sources.FellGleaming (talk) 04:35, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

BST can be easily considered as unsafe

There is evidency, that this could be true. According to http://curezone.com/forums/am.asp?i=1059495 and CHARLES SEABERT is cleary visible, that use of BST is possible threatment. BST is supposed to affect premature puberty condition on humans, as well as menstruation cycles and lactation problems.

Just the other day, there was one text. It was "the original" text, that spawned, and crossed the whole web. There are many discussion forums, with threads charged on that subject. Especially I give you those samples:

" Borden milk and many other brands does not have rBST in it. Her doctor's in Houston are going to write a medical journal discovery on her" written at http://www.atvnation.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=18466

Perhaps we will see, if the doctor keeps his promise, and write about that discovery.

http://www.testmy.net/t-19968;wap2 people says, it can be possible. But, as always and anything, that doesnt imply that is *must* be true. But the use of hormones is not the tabu and secret today.

Conclusion: We should avoid the both "agreement" and "disagreement" on anything, until we knows, that we are learned as much as possible. In the present, our children pass through puberty sooner as we passed. We are mostly liberal and tolerant about "new technologies". And there is great risk of get into a habit. Because we may find us someday, to accept anything just as normal thing, commercialise it. Ease the risks. For example, the risks of liposuction are always, and anyone who wants to go under surgeon should know, that they can die too. Then there would not be a way back.

Giving body, and just anyone's organism anything, thats just say *artifical* or synthetic is against the laws of nature. That can affect desintegration in balance of organism. If BST is not necessary needed (should it be, it would be already build in the cow's milk) it should not be used. Even if we doesn't fully understand the possible effects on anyone's conditions. Should the risk of BST prove as true on girls, I suspect that affect boys as well, althrough the risk may stay hidden.

More about BST: http://www.snopes.com/medical/potables/walmart.asp states, that use of BST can lead to infection increasement in cows udders, also can cause irritations on udders. Supposedly in Canada is BST banned, but due to irritation in cows udders.

Please consider, that the big companies and the people behind it, have somewhat tendency to take things and put it "slowly" away. Even if published, and have some minor negative effects (cows udders, allergies in humans, etc.). So mind that also.

There are many other sites, as I mentored, they have their threads meditating about the BST and the subject. Just search the words "Marissa milk RBST" in google. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Janmojzis (talk • contribs) 16:10, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

BST is naturally in milk. When cows are supplemented with rBST, there is no identifiable change in BST quantity in milk. Early puberty is caused by better nutrition. So... your arguments don't make sense. 140.160.12.225 (talk) 19:52, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

Citation 12

In the article it cites citation 12 as saying "In 1990, an independent panel convened by the National Institute of Health reaffirmed the FDA opinion that milk and meat from cows supplemented with rBST was safe for human consumption[12]". Citation 12 leads to a report on consumer opinion of rBST, and as far as I can tell doesn't have much to do with NIH either. I also remember reading elsewhere that NIH condemned the use of Bovine growth hormone rBST in 1995. (MGoers37 (talk) 04:03, 30 October 2008 (UTC))

IGF-1

The whole second paragraph on IGF-1 doesn't clearly link the consumption of milk produced using rBST to elevated IGF-1 levels, it only states the statistical health risks of elevated IGF-1 levels. As stated in the discussion above, both rBST and IGF-1 are broken down by digestion. Elevated levels in the blood stream have nothing to do with consuming them orally. Please cite relevant sources before reposting anything from that paragraph. Micahmedia (talk) 10:05, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

Ok, here's a good start [9]

It just needs more conclusive information. All of the studies cited in that article don't strike me as conclusive. Micahmedia (talk) 11:08, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

Differences between rBST and natural BST

I found the following paragraph unconvincing:

Despite Monsanto's arguments, milk from rBST treated cattle is not equivalent to milk from cattle not treated with rBST. First, Monsanto's rBST differs from cattle's natural BST by a single amino acid (methionine), which was added to one end of the protein molecule (the N-terminus).

1. The two sentences do not follow. The key point is not whether rBST and non-rBST milk is equivalent (of course not), but rather whether rBST and natural BST treated milk is equivalent. non-rBST does NOT imply natural BST use.

2. There is no support whatsoever for whether a single amino acid change at the N-term has any effect. Biologists frequently add protein tags (e.g. GFP) to ends of molecules that retain essentially identical biological function.

3. Thus, this paragraph completely fails to answer or even discuss whether "Monsanto's rBST differs from cattle's natural BST".

Jimhsu77479 (talk) 22:12, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

I agree -- but more to the point, this entire section seems undersourced. A slew of studies are discussed, and the only citation is for some anti-GMO activist organization website. If the article is going to include references to studies, it should cite them directly, so that readers can examine their methodologies and results and not be forced to accept the interpretation provided by an obviously biased source.PStrait (talk) 03:55, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

Just came by to read about this stuff and found all those 'cite' tags. I'd agree that there are quite a few specific claims are made there that need backed up, but it seems some of this was the EU safety report (http://ec.europa.eu/food/fs/sc/scv/out19_en.html), which contains a bibliography. For example, it cites two references for IGF-1 surviving pasteurization:

• Juskevich, J. C. and C. G. Guyer (1990) Bovine growth hormone: human food safety evaluation. Science 249:875-884
• Collier, R.J., Miller, M.A. etal. (1991) Factors affecting insulin-like growth factor I concentration in bovine milk. J.Dairy Sci. 94:2905-2911 .

However, without having read even the abstracts of those articles, and not knowing the topic, I'm reluctant to add them to the article myself, hope this helps another editor Bazzargh (talk) 20:26, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

German Version for article on BST (translation of English updates up to 06 july 2009--Deutsche Version von Beitrag über Rinder-Somatotropin

Rinder-Somatotropin (BST--bovine somatotropin)

verabreicht zur Erhöhung der Milchproduktion.

Rinder-Somatotropin (abgekürzt bST und BST—bovine somatotropin) ist ein Peptidhormon, das in der Hirnanhangsdrüse von Rindern gebildet wird. Es wird auch als Rinder-Wachstums-Hormon bezeichnet (BGH--bovine growth hormone). Der Monsanto-Konzern in den USA synthetisierte als erster dieses Hormon in großen Mengen unter Verwendung von rekombinanter DNS Technologie und vermarktete es ab 1994 unter dem Namen „POSILAC“. Das daraus entstandene Produkt wird bezeichnet als rekombinantes Rinder-Somatotropin (rBST—recombinant bovine somatotropin) oder künstliches Wachstumshormon.

Monsanto verkaufte im August 2008 das Marken-Milch-Produkt POSILAC und alle damit verbundenen Rechte an Elanco Animal Health, einer Tochtergesellschaft des Eli Lilly Konzerns. POSILAC ist bisher weder in Kanada noch Europa zugelassen.

Der Aufruf von US-Konsumenten gegen den Einsatz künstlicher Wachstumshormone führte 2009 zu einem Domino-Effekt in der Milchproduktion, diese rBST-frei herzustellen.

Posilac Im Jahr 1937 hatte die Verabreichung von BST zu einer erhöhten Milchproduktion bei Milchkühen geführt, da es ein Absterben der Milchdrüsenzellen während der Laktation verhindert. Der Einsatz von BST in der Landwirtschaft war in den 1980er Jahren begrenzt, da Rinderkadaver die einzige Bezugsquelle darstellten. Gleichzeitig wuchs das Wissen über Struktur und Funktion des Hormons. Monsanto entwickelte eine rekombinante Ausführung des BST Hormons, die 1994 unter dem Produktnamen Posilac auf den Markt kam. Diese BST-Variante wird durch ein genetisch verändertes E.coli produziert. Ein Gen, welches die Reihenfolge der BST-Aminosäuren verschlüsselt, wird in die DNS der E.coli Bakterien eingeschleust. Die Bakterien werden aufgeschlossen und das dabei gewonnene rBST in gereinigtem Zustand für die Herstellung von injezierbaren Hormonen verwendet. ...

Fortsetzung geplant... Dieser Anfang des deutsch-sprachigen Eintrags über BST wurde von einer Gruppe von Forschern erstellt in Übersetzung der englischen, bis 06. Juli 2009 aufgearbeiteten, Wikipedia-Versionen. Wir sehen gerne Kommentaren zu dieser Arbeit entgegen.

Forschungsgruppe IFN Institut für Fortpflanzung landwirtschaftlicher Nutztiere Schönow e.V. Bernau b. Berlin

Verantwortlich für die Ausführung der Übersetzung und Veröffentlichung: Irene Grote, Ph.D. bis 2005: Assistenz-Forschungs-Professor Universität Kansas, USA e-mail: petigrote@gmx.de —Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.63.172.75 (talk) 09:13, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Neutrality Concerns

I've not read the whole article (although the preceding comments on the talk page seem to cite similar concerns), but one paragraph in the "Response From Commercial Groups" segment strikes me as particularly inappropriate:

"...According to The New York Times [2], a pro-rBST advocacy group called Afact has been most active in these lobbying efforts. AFACT is a producer led organization made up of both farmers and allied industries; the group's acronym stands for American Farmers for the Advancement and Conservation of Technology. Though rBST is one of AFACT's main concerns, their mission is to educate, equip and empower all participants in the food chain to understand the benefits of technology and encourage consumers to demand access to high-quality, affordable food with a minimal impact on the environment.[37]"

This rather blatantly comes off as a mission statement of sorts, and is most certainly not in an appropriate tone for an encyclopedia in any case. I don't know how I would rework it, nor am I able at the moment to do so, but hopefully this will be helpful to some future editor. 173.176.101.2 (talk) 05:25, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

90% banned?

The article text says " it is 90 % banned in Canada, Japan, the European Union, Australia and New Zealand"

What does "90% banned" mean? This should be clarified.

--Richard S (talk) 03:27, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

It's not English, IMO. I'll edit it out.--Elvey (talk) 19:00, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

Fact tag - Safeway

Safeway currently sells milk from rBST-treated cows in California (Dairy Glen brand, IIRC). So at least some, and perhaps much of the info in this section is not true. I don't think the list in this section is encyclopedic anyway. Thoughts?--Elvey (talk) 19:00, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

Sustainability

I think the entire "Sustainability" section of the article should be removed. It's source is basically Monsanto and people who work for them.

In addition the section reads like an advertisement from Monsanto.

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Dale_E._Bauman

http://www.pnas.org/content/105/28/9668.abstract?sid=b841935e-79cb-4ee3-bcaa-3c6f56630219

• Department of Animal Science, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853-4801; and

‡Monsanto Company Animal Agricultural Group, 800 North Lindbergh Boulevard, St. Louis, MO 63167-0001

That's its authors.

Neosiber (talk) 11:06, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

Agree with Neosiber 100%, this section is industry propaganda. Objections to this passage:

1) Two of the authors of the work cited in support are/were employed by Monsanto, the leading manufacturer of the synthetic hormone, and so clearly have a fundamental conflict of interest casting doubt on their objectivity. Also, as an Animal Science researcher, lead author Dr. Capper is not qualified to make broad conclusions regarding environmental impact and so-called ″sustainability″ and a review of her curriculum vitae shows her objectivity should be view with as much skepticism as her co-authors′.

2) This passage is a self–interested contention of factory farming advocates of big agri-business, and has been thoroughly criticised (one might even say debunked), see these

http://usfoodpolicy.blogspot.com/2009/12/us-dairy-industrys-sustainability-plan.html

http://www.lavidalocavore.org/diary/1892/junk-science-study-says-factory-farming-is-better

 One simple point therein —- Big Agri-business' artificially narrow conception of sustainability and focus on greenhouse gases (GHG) ignores evidence that much greater reductions in GHG would be realized by converting from corn-fed to pasture-fed cows.

3) “Sustainability” is not a clearly–defined and commonly–understood scientific concept, and is narrowly focused on notions of "efficiency" and productivity rather than true, overall, long–term impact. What Monsanto or the cited study's authors mean by “sustainability” is very different than what most environmentalists mean when using the term.

For this reason, I think the passage should be either stricken altogether or completely rewritten to reflect the fact that this is merely a claim of industry–supported research, but is strongly refuted by critics.

I am new to editing, so I will appreciate if you will forgive and correct any format or procedural errors. — 21:56, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

Possible Article Direction

There are a few things we do not know and/or the article does not convey and I think that the lack of any biochemical focus makes it really hard to see what's actually going on (and makes it easy for the article to become a debate for/against bovine somatotropins rather than an encylopedia article.

I know we can't violate WP:OR. There have to be primary sources which are WP:VERIFY where somebody somewhere has done research on the following topics:

• General discussion on what bST is?
  • Polypeptide signalling hormone.
  • Consensus sequence and allelic variation amongst different breeds of cattle
    • How long is it? (e.g. how many amino acids)
    • Which amino acids are important or contribute to activity vs. which are just merely structural for the protein?
    • Which enzymes make bST in the cow.
    • Are there processing steps (e.g. does it come from a large enzyme which is then cleaved up by proteases)?
    • How is it regulated in the cow?
    • Where is it produced in the cow (pituitary gland?)?
    • Pathological cases:
      • too much, too little (dwarf cows, giant cows)
      • does this happen? are there vet case reports in verifiable sources?
  • Normal, physiological concentrations
  • Receptors it interacts with and physiological effects.
• rbST variants
  • How does this compare sequence-wise to consensus sequence for non-engineered bST?
    • SOURCE: US Patent #4443539 "Process for preparing bovine growth hormone" (1984)
    • SOURCE: US Patent #5489529 "DNA for expression of bovine growth hormone" (1996)
    • SOURCE: US Patent #6828124 "Recombinant DNA vectors for expression of somatotropins" (2004)
  • How does this compare dose-wise to normal physiological concentrations?
  • Are there any documented effects for non-physiological concentrations of bST?
    • Effect on cattle health
    • Effect on human health
  • What is the purity of the recombinant product?
    • This is almost certainly proprietary.
    • Effect of xenoproteins from the recombination target which make it through the manufacturing process.
  • Mechanism for increased milk production.
  • Is IGF-1 an analog or postcursor to bST?

I looked at Protein Data Bank and couldn't find any structure data for either rBST or BST. I did find PDB: 1HGU​ "HUMAN GROWTH HORMONE" and if you look for IGF-1 over at PDB, you'll find several structures - it's moderately well-studied. I think HGH and IGF1 and such are TGF-beta family members. I did find patents (above) which may contain sequence data for rbST (as this would otherwise be proprietary).

Should there be an article which is linked from this called something like 'rbST Controversy' which lays out the arguments pro/con?

Anyways, just my 2 cents on maybe how this article might be improved. Comments? --InsufficientData (talk) 19:33, 1 May 2011 (UTC)

I agree that this article could use much broad, background information on rBST. I also think the "Controversy" section needs some serious attention. For instance, "Human health" "Differences to milk from untreated cows" and "IGF1" all got put into separate sections even though they are basically addressing the same question. These sections also contradict each other a bit. "Differences" suggests there is no difference between rBGH milk and reg milk while IGF1 makes it clear that there is a difference. The leading questions posed in "human health" and make it feel like it's from a rBGH brochure. Greg Comlish (talk) 15:44, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

I've made a number of changes to the "Controversy" section. At this point, I'd like to have almost all of the material in "controversy" moved to a different section. Everything in those sections should (eventually) be factual and verifiable. There really shouldn't be any controversy over a summary of the knowns and unknowns regarding this milk derived with this hormone. What remains in controversy should be focused on the public controversy. Greg Comlish (talk) 17:47, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

Conflicting statements on legality of rBST

At the top of the article is written: "The United States is the only developed nation to permit humans to drink milk from cows given artificial growth hormone."

This seems to conflict with what is written under the header "Regulation" which reads: "use is legal in the United States (though not without reaction) and 1 other industrialized nation (Mexico)" and then goes on to say "Its commercial use is legal in 21 other countries: Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Egypt, Guatemala, Honduras, Jamaica, Lebanon, Mexico, Panama, Pakistan, Paraguay, Peru, Salvador, South Africa, South Korea, Uruguay and Venezuela"

Perhaps a few of those countries would evoke some debate as to whether they should be labeled as "industrialized;" but I think you'd be hard pressed to classify Argentina or South Korea as developing nations, at the very least. I would just say it's legal in the US and 21 other countries (and list them). There is no need to include "(though not without reaction)" because I think that is evident throughout the article.

The part in the opening paragraph about the US being the only developed nation to permit it should be removed for being false, and also because it's strangely worded (do other nations prohibit humans from drinking rBST treated milk, or just ban its use and commercial application)?--Groupsome (talk) 23:18, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

Go ahead and remove it. Just for clarity here: the relevant Wikipedia policy is Wikipedia:Verifiability, which means our cardinal rule is that we say what reliable secondary sources say. If one fact that is unreferenced conflicts with a fact that includes a citation to a reliable source, then always go with what the reliable source says. I don't think the blog Grist is particularly reliable, even compared to a weak source like USA Today, and in that article they admit Brazil also allows its use. So to say the US is the only "developed" nation to allow its use is a tricky statement indeed. Steven Walling • talk 23:38, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

Okay, I changed it. Hopefully it's okay (good to know it can be switched back if I screwed up). I think I may have forgotten to "sign" the edit at the top, though I did summarize.Groupsome (talk) 05:47, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

Antibiotic Content In Milk - No Citation

The last sentence of the first paragraph under the 'Human Health' section reads, "Milk from rBST-treated cows contains higher levels of antibiotics since cows treated with rBST have a substantially higher rate of Mastitis." There is no citation to validate this nor any of the other claims relating to the difference in chemical composition of rBST and non-rBST milk in this section. While the other claims make chemical sense, the claim that rBST milk contains higher levels of antibiotics because more rBST cows get sick seems a little off. As a research chemist I've worked on designing antibiotics with high clearance rates specifically for the dairy industry, because one of the major costs to the industry is lost milk from cows that have been treated with antibiotics. After treatment for any type of infection the cow must still be milked, but that milk must be discarded until a length of time after the final administration of antibiotics as to allow complete clearance of any antibiotic from the cow's system. In both cases(rBST and non-rBST), the antibiotic content of milk must be zero. I would like to see a source to validate the claim of statistical difference in antibiotic content in rBST and non-rBST milk, or the claim should be removed. Thanks — Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.54.250.112 (talk) 17:00, 22 May 2013 (UTC)

I reworked the lede of that section to emphasize that antibiotic tainted milk is prohibited in most countries of the developed world. The previous version of the article may have been interpreted as suggesting that the antibiotics content of regular milk vs. rBST milk for sale in grocery stores in the USA was different, but it has now been clarified. Greg Comlish (talk) 18:20, 27 May 2013 (UTC)

Thanks Greg! Chaim1221 (talk) 19:09, 3 November 2013 (UTC)

But what does it do?

It seems to me that this article is missing a vital section, namely: what does this hormone do and why is it used in so many countries for dairy farming. I cannot find any other use for it other than the vague an unhelpful comment in the opening paragraph, that it 'regulates metabolic function.' The section titles: History, Controversy, etc. are all fine and good, since it is a contentious and controversial item. But I'm interested in what it does, and why farmers use it. Does it increase milk production? How? Does it prolong the milking period? How? Does it delay birth? How? None of these questions are answered in this article, and if they are, they are buried under section titles that obscure the content. The effects and use of the hormone ought to be in a clearly marked section, and adequately explained. Thanks 74.220.180.181 (talk) 15:42, 8 August 2013 (UTC)

 Done Jytdog (talk) 19:19, 1 September 2013 (UTC)

Lede in "Hormones" Section

This edit adds a summary section, that is unsourced, to the Hormones subsection that is 4 short paragraphs long. Not only is it short enough not to have a summary section, the details in the summary do not exactly mirror the needed text. There is no need for a summary when the section is that small, and the summary needs to not have NPOV issues (the current section does not make "legitimate" concerns about IGF-1; the risk is unknown per the source. Yobol (talk) 16:22, 8 February 2014 (UTC)

The summary is adequately sourced: every statement from the summary is from the preexisting paragraphs below. American Cancer Society expressly advocates for more research into milk with elevated levels of IGF-1 since IGF-1 is known to promote cancer, so there's no valid basis to remove the material. I was using legitimate to mean "from a legitimate scientific or medical institution" but if there is another adjective I would be happy to consider it. Greg Comlish (talk) 16:45, 8 February 2014 (UTC)

To emphasize, American Cancer Society explicitly says "More research is needed to help better address these concerns [about rBST milk]." Greg Comlish (talk) 16:51, 8 February 2014 (UTC)

"More research is needed" is medical boilerplate that many, many medical sources use. Rather than try to summarize their objections/concerns, we should just let their quote stand on its own. Yobol (talk) 17:00, 8 February 2014 (UTC)

That's just not true. For instance, no medical institutions are saying research is needed about the BST levels in milk per se since it has already been established that BST if fully metabolized before it can interfere with the endocrine system. This stands in contrast with IGF-1. And ACS is going beyond "more research is needed" in general. They are citing a specific causal mechanism (IGF1) for concern that they believe should be addressed. Greg Comlish (talk) 17:45, 8 February 2014 (UTC)

I agree that a lede in a section this short is not necessary. And the article states clearly that the ACS believes more research into IGF-1 is needed; there is no reason to repeat it. Two key things you are overlooking in this source, Greg, are: a) "At this time, it is not clear that drinking milk, produced with or without rBGH treatment, increases blood IGF-1 levels into a range that might be of concern regarding cancer risk or other health effects." and b) "IGF-1 concentrations are slightly higher (to variable degrees, depending on the study) in milk from cows treated with rBGH than in untreated milk. This variability is presumed to be much less than the normal range of variation of IGF-1 in cow's milk due to natural factors, but more research is needed." When you actually dig down into the science, it is a question about milk in general, not about BST-treated milk in particular. It also points out that it seems that even soy milk elevates IGF-1 as much as milk does. Human biology is very hard to sort out, and effects in the general population of consuming any sort of food are really hard to determine. There is always more need for studies. This is going a bit astray, but I also want to point you to this article which I will quote from:

"1) The vast proportion of chemicals that humans are exposed to occur naturally. Nevertheless, the public tends to view chemicals as only synthetic and to think of synthetic chemicals as toxic despite the fact that every natural chemical is also toxic at some dose. The daily average exposure of Americans to burnt material in the diet is ~2000 mg, and exposure to natural pesticides (the chemicals that plants produce to defend themselves) is ~1500 mg. In comparison, the total daily exposure to all synthetic pesticide residues combined is ~0.09 mg. Thus, we estimate that 99.99% of the pesticides humans ingest are natural. Despite this enormously greater exposure to natural chemicals, 79% (378 out of 479) of the chemicals tested for carcinogenicity in both rats and mice are synthetic (that is, do not occur naturally).

2) It has often been wrongly assumed that humans have evolved defenses against the natural chemicals in our diet but not against the synthetic chemicals. However, defenses that animals have evolved are mostly general rather than specific for particular chemicals; moreover, defenses are generally inducible and therefore protect well from low doses of both synthetic and natural chemicals.

3) Because the toxicology of natural and synthetic chemicals is similar, one expects (and finds) a similar positivity rate for carcinogenicity among synthetic and natural chemicals. The positivity rate among chemicals tested in rats and mice is ~50%. Therefore, because humans are exposed to so many more natural than synthetic chemicals (by weight and by number), humans are exposed to an enormous background of rodent carcinogens, as defined by high-dose tests on rodents. We have shown that even though only a tiny proportion of natural pesticides in plant foods have been tested, the 29 that are rodent carcinogens among the 57 tested, occur in more than 50 common plant foods. It is probable that almost every fruit and vegetable in the supermarket contains natural pesticides that are rodent carcinogens." Jytdog (talk) 18:40, 8 February 2014 (UTC)

I'd like to focus on the issue at hand: Summarization. WP:SUMMARY spells it out quite nicely. Sections should be written in a coherent fashion going from a general overview to more specific information. It is poor style to introduce a new factor for consideration in the final paragraph of the section without any previous indication of the following discussion. Your personal distaste for the American Cancer Society or its statements or your opinions on natural pesticides should have no bearing on the article. Greg Comlish (talk) 20:26, 8 February 2014 (UTC)

I have no idea why you say i have distaste for the ACS as I have none whatsoever in general, and their statement about rBST is great. I provided you with the statement on chemical toxicity to show you that scads of foods contain chemicals, naturally occurring or otherwise, that may be carcinogenic -- even milk from untreated cows or soy milk. There is no particular worry about milk from rBST-treated cows. There is a widespread need for more research. With respect to having a lede paragraph in this short section, please show us in WP:SUMMARY where it says that sections should have summary lead paragraphs. I don't find it there. It most definitely says that whole articles should have a lead paragraph. Also, in a short section like this, it gives undue weight to repeat this already-clearly stated statement. Jytdog (talk) 21:35, 8 February 2014 (UTC)

WP:Summary refers to the inverted pyramid style. All hormonal distinctions should be noted at the top of the section followed by specific paragraphs explaining these distinctions in detail. At the top it should also be highlighted that none of the hormonal differences could have an impact on human health, with the possible exception of IGF-1. The affects on human health should come first because the Hormone section is under the section Human Health. I'd be happy to change the wording to address any POV concerns if people would elaborate what those are. The statement on natural vs synthetic chemicals is not relevant since all the IGF-1 in both variants of milk is "natural" IGF-1, not synthetic. Greg Comlish (talk) 01:10, 9 February 2014 (UTC)

You are not getting my point on the carcinogens, so let's drop it as it is peripheral. I'll repeat my request - please show us where WP:SUMMARY refers to the need for sections themselves to have a lead paragraph. Without that basis, you are arguing for your preference which is very different from making an argument with solid grounding on a policy or guideline. And please do respond about the WP:UNDUE concern. Thanks! Jytdog (talk) 01:20, 9 February 2014 (UTC)

The section is categorized under Human Health. Therefore the most relevant information in the hormone section is the implications for human health. That's giving due weight, not undue weight. The pyramid style referred in WP:SUMMARY teaches people to lead with the most general and most relevant information and proceed to progressively less important details. This may be done with a lead paragraph or sentence but it is convention to give the reader information at some level of abstraction in an abbreviated format rather than force him to slog through a pile of disorganized details. Greg Comlish (talk) 04:52, 9 February 2014 (UTC)

You have not persuaded me that your preference here makes the article better. I am sorry that you find the article disorganized. Jytdog (talk) 12:05, 9 February 2014 (UTC)

I am not understanding the logic behind adding a "summary" sentence that neither summarizes the content in the section, nor is sourced. Yobol (talk) 20:03, 9 February 2014 (UTC)

The logic is this: The section is about hormone differences and the sentence says what all those differences are. That's the most significant fact in the section and thus it has priority. I have no idea why you keep claiming this information unsourced since the listed hormones are the ones already present and sourced in that very section of the article. Greg Comlish (talk) 05:45, 10 February 2014 (UTC)

Oh I see what happened. Yobol went through the article and removed material from the article if it presented rBST in a negative light. A lot of verifiable, clearly referenced information was removed under varying pretexts. Greg Comlish (talk) 07:09, 10 February 2014 (UTC)

Big sigh. This is what happens too often. When there are disagreements over content, the disagreeing editor turns to dark thoughts of bad faith editing. Greg, you don't have consensus to add the "lead" to this section. We don't agree with your interpretation of WP:SUMMARY. Your options at this point are to do an RfC, or just let this go. But please don't go down the fruitless road of assuming bad faith, and please don't stray into the disruptive stance of WP:IDHT. Thanks. Jytdog (talk) 13:37, 10 February 2014 (UTC)

I see now, you did let go of the summary. Thanks for that! Greg, your recent edits did two things. First, you moved the discussion higher in the section. I think that is a fine move. (it is a preference of yours, not based on policy, but I agree with putting this information higher in the section.) Secondly, you added a primary source and content based on it. This is not OK. Under WP:MEDRS guideline and the standard WP:PSTS sourcing policy, we base health related content in Wikipedia on secondary or tertiary sources, and we do not use primary sources. The reasons for this are many, as the policy and guideline explain, but it is especially important that we don't base health related content on primary sources. So I took out the primary source and content based on it, and relied on the ACS statement, which is a very good source - exactly the kind of thing we want - a statement from a major medical or scientific body on this issue. And I expanded the content from ACS. I hope this is acceptable to you and we can all move on. Jytdog (talk) 13:49, 10 February 2014 (UTC)

I appreciate your working with me on the article. I think the article has suffered a material loss of content as a result of a major sweep of edits by Yobol and I will continue to work towards remedying this. As per WP:PSTS, it says "primary sources may also be used to report factual material provided the contributing editor states the fact in a manner that does not present an interpretation of the fact (original research) which is not itself explicitly contained in the primary source". No interpretation was given regarding the edits on IGF-1, just the facts contained within the article's conclusions. The article was used only as a reference so people could assess how levels of IGF-1 differ in the two types of milk. Per WP:PSTS it's legitimate to use those numbers. Greg Comlish (talk) 15:35, 10 February 2014 (UTC)

thanks for talking. You are not applying WP:MEDRS and we need to. (and by the way, Yobol is very very experienced with MEDRS - he/she is not doing anything nefarious). Please think about this - there are all kinds of people who are very passionate about various approaches to health - you have people who honestly believe that acupuncture is a viable medical treatment for cancer, people who take all kinds of herbs, or who believe that wearing magnetic bracelets makes them healthier... and you have pharma companies that overplay the effectiveness and safety of their drugs; and there is almost always some primary source that these people can pull out, that shows that they are right. That is not how we do things. We rely on the secondary and tertiary literature to weigh the evidence and tell us what is important, what we know, and what we don't know. (that is why PSTS says, first thing: "Wikipedia articles should be based on reliable, published secondary sources and, to a lesser extent, on tertiary sources and primary sources. Secondary or tertiary sources are needed to establish the topic's notability and to avoid novel interpretations of primary sources") On health related matters, the Wikipedia community made a decision a long time ago that health-related content must be evidence-based and would really strictly follow PSTS, so that we can provide our readers with content that expresses the consensus of the medical/scientific community on health-related issues. MEDRS is based on PSTS and takes it up a notch for content related to health - and is an essential guideline for Wikipedia; I cannot emphasize its importance enough. Under MEDRS, we base health-related content on MEDLINE-indexed review articles or on statements by major medical bodies. Again, please please read it and use it. thanks! Jytdog (talk) 16:24, 10 February 2014 (UTC)

I'm going to refer you back to my previous comments since you didn't respond to them and you instead starting talking about evidence-based medicine as if that was something you erroneously believed that I opposed. To be clear: I'm in favor of science and I think if we're discussing hormones levels in milk, then it is important to say what those hormone levels are. Not a radical proposition, is it? My use of the primary source is consistent with WP:MEDRS which expressly allows for the direct citation of facts. In MEDRS the restriction is not on primary sources per se but the misuse of primary sources for individuals to advance their own interpretation of facts (which I certainly do not, nor has anybody argued as much). Lastly I want to emphasize that I don't question Yobol's motives (and I doubt he questions mine), but I do disagree with his decision to remove content. Greg Comlish (talk) 03:45, 11 February 2014 (UTC)

I am sorry that you intend to ignore the heart of the Wikipedia sourcing guideline, as well as MEDRS, which is that we reach first for secondary sources. I am also sorry that you don't understand how dangerous primary sources are, especially with regard to allegations of toxicity and health, and that you don't understand how unreliable they are in this field. Have a look at the Bisphenol A article if you want to see what a train wreck an article turns into when you start using primary sources, and see the reaction to that article here. If you want to bring in an additional source on the IGF-1 thing (and I don't know why you want more than what the ACS says), please find a review article or another statement by a major medical or scientific body. (have you looked for any?) I have tried to address your concerns to have more content about IGF-1 in the article; please do not force this primary source issue -- it is a bad road to go down. Glad you AGF with respect to Yobol; I misinterpreted your negative remarks about his actions.Jytdog (talk) 13:31, 11 February 2014 (UTC)

also, i really did try to respond to you completely. you wanted the IGF-1 content expanded and I did it, using a secondary source. You complained that Yobol removed a bunch of primary sources and said you wanted to add them back and I explained why we don't use them - at some great length. (and btw the heart of evidence-based medicine is that you follow the best evidence, which is identified through critical reviews like those done by Cochrane - these are secondary sources; that is why I discussed that) Please tell me specifically what you feel I didn't respond to. Thanks. Jytdog (talk) 14:03, 11 February 2014 (UTC)\

a last note - if what you are after are some detailed numbers about IGF-1 in milk, please look again at the ACS statement. They are very careful to say that we don't have a good grasp of this, and we especially don't have a good grasp of what level, if any of IGF-1 found in any kind of milk (including soy milk) is harmful, or not. On actual levels, they say "IGF-1 concentrations are slightly higher (to variable degrees, depending on the study) in milk from cows treated with rBGH than in untreated milk. This variability is presumed to be much less than the normal range of variation of IGF-1 in cow's milk due to natural factors, but more research is needed." On whether any of those levels are harmful or not they say "At this time, it is not clear that drinking milk, produced with or without rBGH treatment, increases blood IGF-1 levels into a range that might be of concern regarding cancer risk or other health effects." So it is unclear what content you might want to add. This is exactly what secondary sources do - they review the evidence and summarize it. This is why we don't use primary sources. especially that "to variable degrees, depending on the study" bit; which primary study would you chose? how would that choice not be OR in and of itself? i am kind of beating a dead horse here, I know. Jytdog (talk) 15:01, 11 February 2014 (UTC)

There's really no need for these long-winded essays and straw-man arguments. This the relevant policy excerpt from MEDRS: "Reliable primary sources may occasionally be used with care as an adjunct to the secondary literature, but there remains potential for misuse. For that reason, edits that rely on primary sources should only describe the conclusions of the source, and should describe these findings clearly so the edit can be checked by editors with no specialist knowledge." I believe my edits are consistent with this policy. In the proposed edits I only used the numbers as a purely factual supplement, not to advance any particular view. And since you asked: yes, I did look for meta-analysis and other secondary publications but I couldn't locate any after a reasonable time searching. If you know of any you'd like to share instead, that would be great. Greg Comlish (talk) 23:34, 11 February 2014 (UTC)

what argument did I make that you view as straw man? and please do let me know what I haven't responded to. i think the ACS statement is a great summary of the literature - the best I am aware of; that is why it was here.Jytdog (talk) 05:16, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

Regarding arguments of mine unresponded to, I would refer to my previous comment where I explicitly gave an excerpt from MEDRS regarding primary sources. Regarding strawman arguments you have written, I would refer you to any number of comments you made that falsely portrayed me as against the MEDRS policy and even against evidence-based medicine, both of which couldn't be farther from the truth. Greg Comlish (talk) 15:42, 15 February 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for replying! My response to your excerpt about primary sources, was to try to point you to the overwhelming force of both WP:PSTS and WP:MEDRS that we should rely on secondary sources - MEDRS is even stronger than the sourcing policy on this issue. If you want to bring a primary source for a chunk of health related content you need to have a very very good reason. I also directly responded to your desire to use a primary source by saying that a) in general, many primary sources in the biomedical space turn out to be non-replicable; and b) for this specific content, the ACS review itself points out that different primary studies offer different values for IGF-1 and I asked you what is so special about the one you chose. So I feel that I did respond, and a lot. When I said "You are not applying WP:MEDRS and we need to", I was directly referring to your desire to use primary sources when we have a perfectly good secondary one. That goes against MEDRS. And for the same reason (to argue against your desire to use a primary source here) I pointed you to the idea of evidence-based medicine and its reliance on secondary sources; I never said that you were against evidence-based medicine! So I made no straw man argument and I have responded directly to you. Jytdog (talk) 15:57, 15 February 2014 (UTC)

Re: this diff to "Hormones" section

To editor Kingofaces43: First, thanks for your thoughtful edit summary. I can see both sides on this, and I concede on the first change (it's not likely that the hormone will be found to survive the digestive system). On the second change, though, I think hedging is in order. Rare is the chemical that truly has no effect on human physiology, and there's certainly a long history of chemicals which were initially thought to be biologically inert, but were later found to have some effect in the body (which is probably doubly true for hormones). So I think it's going a bit too far to state categorically that this hormone has no effect on the body. I think the less absolute statement that it hasn't been found to have any effect is more in line with the present state of knowledge. A human physiological effect may not be anticipated, but I don't think we can say that it's out of the question. I don't think the hedged language unduly implies, scare-quote style, that an undiscovered effect exists – at least, that's not how I'd read it. But perhaps "is not anticipated to have any direct effect on humans" would be more acceptable? —Swpb^talk 14:28, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

Sounds like a good approach to me. The first original change can alter the meaning of the second as you read into the sentence, but just keeping the second has a more appropriate context and removes the scare quote concern. One thing to keep in mind though is that while technically any piece of scientific thinking can technically be overturned at any time, we normally don't put the caution into every piece of content related to scientific research, which is where my concerns were rooted in your original edit summary. We'd need reliable sources attributing to uncertainty in a particular area beyond that typically expected in scientific research first. Either way, I think we have it figured out now, so I'll make the change. Kingofaces43 (talk) 22:01, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

Agreed. Thanks for making the change. —Swpb^talk 13:15, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

Animal health

The article’s claims regarding animal health are based on old information (mostly from the 1990s), which do not reflect animal health implications associated with more recent practices. The old information is of interest, but failure to acknowledge more recent findings can mislead readers regarding current rBST implications for animal health. The article states that “Two meta-analyses have been published on rBST’s effects on bovine health”, but the two citations actually refer to a single meta-analysis. (At one time, the article referred to a single meta-analysis, but that was altered in an edit by someone who presumably saw the two citations without bothering to read the papers.) The present claim does not acknowledge or cite a meta-analysis of 26 studies, by St. Pierre et al., which yielded different results and commented on the meta-analysis cited in the article. It would seem appropriate to acknowledge recent information on animal health implications, e.g. the JECFA evaluation conducted in 2013 and statistical information in the US FDA CVM report of Sechen et al. (2013). Schafhirt (talk) 22:35, 7 September 2015 (UTC)

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Effects on the endocrine/autocrine/paracrine and meat quality: a bibliography

Parr, Tim, Kevin J.P. Ryan, and Krystal M. Hemmings. "The Impact of Growth Promoters on Muscle Growth and the Potential Consequences for Meat Quality." Science Direct. Elsevier Ltd, 14 Aug. 2016. Web. 24 Oct. 2016. http://www.sciencedirect.com.proxy2.cl.msu.edu/science/article/pii/S0309174016301152

Hull, Kerry L., and Steve Harvey. "Growth Hormone and Reproduction: A Review of Endocrine and Autocrine/Paracrine Interactions." International Journal of Endocrinology. Hindawi Publishing Corporation, 15 Dec. 2014. Web. 24 Oct. 2016. https://www-hindawi-com.proxy2.cl.msu.edu/journals/ije/2014/234014/

The impact of growth promoters on muscle growth and the potential consequences for meat quality http://www.sciencedirect.com.proxy2.cl.msu.edu/science/article/pii/S0309174016301152

Growth Hormone and Reproduction: A Review of Endocrine and Autocrine/Paracrine Interactions https://www-hindawi-com.proxy2.cl.msu.edu/journals/ije/2014/234014/

Placental mammals glycoproteins http://www.sciencedirect.com.proxy2.cl.msu.edu/science/article/pii/S0003426607002727 — Preceding unsigned comment added by Leerich3 (talk • contribs) 20:30, 24 October 2016 (UTC)

PROPOSAL OUTLINE 31 October 2016

To add to this page, we are going to add two different sections, Controversy and Regulation. These will discuss the more general (both desirable and undesirable) effects of growth hormones on the endocrine system, findings on the effects of Bovine Somatotropin on Beta-adrenergic agonists, and possible effects on maternal health that are also still controversial. This would mainly discuss BGH's effects on human health and other findings of pharmaceutical relevance.

Next, we are going to discuss effects on the health of dairy cows themselves, production, profitability, and labeling controversy. This adds new insights to the economical aspects that BGH entails.

Finally, new information about the controversy surrounding antibiotic resistance and of chemical residues' effects on public health in Ethiopa. Antibiotic resistance is a very real big threat to public health, and there is much controversy to be discussed on the problem of superbugs.

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Original research

If you want to put the removed text back into the article, do so with a reference. I could not find a reference to the facts in the removed paragraph, after an extensive search. Thus I believe it to be original research. If I am mistaken, I apologize, but without a reference it is reasonable to make that assumption. Nick Beeson (talk) 20:41, 24 October 2017 (UTC)

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