Anti-BST campaign short on facts

Pardon me for being contrary, but ad campaigns by dairies to publicize that their milk does not contain the artificial growth hormone BST is neither good for consumers, good for dairy farmers or good for common sense. Heck, it’s not even good for the environment.

These “no BST” marketing campaigns are simply the latest example of companies surrendering to the demands of a vocal minority that successfully enlisted a lazy and ignorant news media to advance its views. Don’t kid yourself. Their decision has nothing to do with concerns about its customers’ health and everything to do with marketing: bad publicity about BST equals increased consumer fears equals lower sales. So BST is scuttled and that decision itself becomes the centerpiece of a marketing campaign to sell more product.

It’s not the first time that truth and common sense fell victim to a slick ad campaign, but this one has serious repercussions.

Let’s get one thing straight. If you’re concerned about potential health effects of BST (bovine somatotropin), there’s only one thing you can do: don’t drink milk. BST was not created by some mad scientist in a laboratory, it’s a natural protein hormone found in the DNA of all cows. Traces of BST show up in all milk, even from cows that have been fed organic feed their entire lives and have never seen the business end of a hypodermic needle. The genetic structure of milk isn’t changed one whit by the injected BST. In fact there is no way to tell the difference, either nutritionally or genetically, between milk made with or without artificial BST. Dairies that supply milk need only sign a statement saying they don’t add BST because there is simply no way to verify it by testing the milk.

Read those milk carton labels carefully. They say things like, “No artificial growth hormone.” None of them says, “Contains no BST,” because that would be a lie. (This is similar to Ben & Jerry’s marketing campaign that says they sell their ice cream in dioxin-free containers. That’s fine, but before you buy your next pint of Cherry Garcia, ask how much dioxin is actually in the ice cream. If they tell you, you may not like the answer.)

The FDA approved injecting cows with BST in 1993. Scientists had discovered that cows that produce a lot of milk have higher levels of the BST hormone than lower producing cows. What’s more, BST levels declined right along with milk production as cows aged. Using recombinant DNA technology, scientists isolated the gene found in high-milk-producing cows and duplicated it. Cows that are injected with BST don’t become some freak of nature; they simply maintain their natural peak BST level longer than they would have – much the way a diabetic injects himself to maintain a proper level of insulin, another bioengineered protein hormone.

There are no reliable studies showing that BST- even at increased levels – causes health problems in humans. Like insulin, BST breaks down into harmless constituent chemicals when ingested (which is why a diabetic must take insulin through injections instead of orally). Even the American Academy of Pediatrics says milk with added BST is safe for babies. Nevertheless, shooting up cows with an artificial hormone gave many people the creeps.

But the campaign against BST is short on facts, beginning with the claim that BST was the first genetically engineered substance ever put into food. As Gregg Easterbrook pointed out in his book, “A Moment on the Earth,” that distinction belongs to a substance called chymosin, a synthetic analog of the DNA found in a natural enzyme called rennin. For centuries, cheese makers used rennin as an additive to hasten the curdling process. In the mid-1980s, scientists used the genes from rennin to develop a product called chymosin that does the same thing at half the cost. Now, virtually every cheese you buy contains chymosin.

So why aren’t there howls of protests about this bioengineered product? Because rennin comes from the stomach linings of unweened calves. It’s a byproduct of the veal industry. Banning the “unnatural” chymosin would force the cheese industry to return to their “natural” source of the substance by ripping out the stomachs of baby cows. That would be bad, so the organic purists have simply decided to shut up about it.

The chymosin story illustrates that not every bioengineering advance has a negative consequence. In fact, I like knowing that no baby cows died for my Brie.

As with chymosin, there is a downside in preventing dairy farmers from utilizing BST. The dairy industry estimates that producing just 10 percent more milk with the same number of cows saves 180 billion gallons per year of water, 1.7 million acres of land, and 150 million gallons per year of fuel, the annual consumption of 240,000 U.S. homes. Fewer cows even help reduce global warming, since cows produce lots of methane (i.e. cow flatulence), a major greenhouse gas.

And what of the small New England dairy farmer, already battered by low prices and stiff competition, who is forced to cut production due to the prohibition against BST? How will they compete against the big agri-farms of the Midwest where BST hysteria has not taken root?

There are plenty of reasons for consumers to be concerned about what’s going on in the lab and ending up in their food. But let’s make our decisions based on fact, not misleading ad campaigns. Big dairies and other companies could do the New England dairy farmers and us a big favor by using their considerable marketing muscle to educate consumers about the real issues behind the foods we eat instead of giving in to the demands of an unenlightened few.

Dennis Bailey is president of Savvy Inc., a Portland public relations firm. He can be contacted at getsavvy@maine.rr.com.