NationalSchool Lunches:Unsafe at Any Eating, Warns Samuel S. Epstein

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National School Lunches: Unsafe at Any Eating,

Warns Samuel S.Epstein,

JoAnn Guest

May 01, 2006 11:34 PDT

 

 

Get the Facts on April 11th, BioETHICS Chicago Conference CHICAGO,

April 10 /PRNewswire/

-- On April 6, a bipartisan Congressional

group,with strong support in both Houses, announced plans to

introducelegislation amending the National School Lunch Act.

 

This would prohibit the sale in schools of sugary or fatty junk

foods,notably soft drinks and French fries.

 

This initiative officially endorses longstanding efforts by many

school

districts to provide only healthy foods, and hopefully reduce the

growing incidence of childhood obesity and related diseases.

 

Enforcement of this initiative would be the responsibility of the

U.S.

Department of Agriculture (USDA), which is in charge of the current

Public School Lunch Program. This extended authority was applauded

bythe Center for Science in the Public Interest, a national food

safetyactivist group, stating that " The Agency has done a good job

with theofficial school lunch and could do a good job with all other

foods. "

 

This endorsement may well be warranted nutritionally. However, it

certainly is not warranted by the USDA's failure to disclose

well-documented scientific evidence on the risks to health of the

two school lunch staples, milk and meat.

 

Much of the nation's milk supply comes from cows injected with a

genetically engineered variant of their natural growth hormone,

technically known as rBGH (recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone).

 

Manufactured by Monsanto, and sold to dairy farmers under the trade

name

POSILAC. Injection of the hormone forces cows to increase their milk

yield by about 10 percent, while making them sick in the process.

 

Monsanto and the USDA insist that rBGH milk is indistinguishable

fromnatural milk, and that it is safe for children and other

consumers.Thisis scientifically and medically untrue. rBGH milk

makes cows sick

 

Monsanto has been forced to admit to some 20 toxic veterinary

effects on

its POSILAC label. These include mastitis, resulting in pus cells in

milk, and antibiotics used to treat the mastitis. rBGH milk is also

chemically, and nutritionally different than natural milk, and is

supercharged with excess levels of a natural growth factor (IGF-1),

which is readily absorbed through the intestines into the blood.

 

Of major concern is a wealth of longstanding scientific evidence

incriminating these excess levels as delayed causes of breast,

colon,and prostate cancers.

 

Reacting to the fully documented scientific evidence on the dangers

ofrBGH milk, a wide range of nations including all of Europe, Canada,

Australia, New Zealand and Japan have banned rBGH milk.

 

U.S. beef is heavily contaminated with sex hormones. When U.S. beef

cattle enter feedlots, sex hormone pellets are implanted under the

ear skin, a process that is repeated at the midpoint of their 100-day

pre-slaughter fattening period. These hormones increase the weight

of

the cattle, adding to profits by about $80 per animal.

 

The hormones in past and current use include the natural estradiol,

progesterone, and testosterone, and their more potent synthetic

counterparts, zeranol, trenbolone, and melengesterol. The U.S. Food

and Drug Administration (FDA) and the USDA have both maintained and

stillclaim that residues of these hormones in meat are safe and

within

" normal limits. "

 

However, confidential industry reports to the FDA, obtained under

theFreedom of Information Act, have revealed high residues of the

hormones in meat products. Following a single ear implant in steers

ofSynovex-S,a combination of estradiol and progesterone, their

residues in meatwerefound to be up to 20-fold higher than normal.

 

The amount of estradiol in two hamburgers eaten in one day by an

8-year-old boy could increase his total hormone levels by as much as

10%, particularly as young children have very low natural hormone

levels.

 

Increased levels of sex hormones are linked ever more closely to the

escalating increase of reproductive cancers in the U.S., 36% for

post-

menopausal breast cancer, 51% for testicular cancer, and 88% for

prostate cancer, since 1975.

 

These concerns have been strongly reinforced by recent evidence,

fromresearchers at Ohio State University, that meat and blood from

cattleimplanted with zeranol have powerful hormonal effects, which

resist cooking.

 

Europe has viewed longstanding U.S. claims with considerable

skepticism.

 

Since 1989, all 25 European nations have banned the sale of beef

from hormone- treated cattle.

 

The national School Lunch Program is a major focus of the current

Midwest BioETHICS 2006 ( http://www.bioethics2006.org ) conference

in

Chicago. This culminates in a Tuesday evening session on the

critical need for certified organic milk and meat to replace the

current dangerous staples. The conference coincides with the national

Biotechnology Industry Organization, which aggressively promotes the

industrialization of the nation's food supply.

 

SOURCE Samuel S. Epstein, M.D., Chairman, Cancer Prevention

Coalition,Professor emeritus Environmental Medicine, University of

Illinois atChicago School of Public Health

 

-0- 04/10/2006 /CONTACT: Samuel S. Epstein, M.D., Professor emeritus

Environmental Medicine, University of Illinois at Chicago School of

Public Health, Chairman, Cancer Prevention Coalition, +1-312-996-

2297,

epst- / /Web site: http://www.bioethics2006.org

http://www.preventcancer.com / CO: Samuel S. Epstein, M.D.,

Chairman,

Cancer Prevention Coalition, Professor emeritus Environmental

Medicine,University of Illinois at Chicago School of Public Health;

BioETHICS2006 ST: Illinois IN: HEA EDU FOD SPM BIO SU: SVY CHI LEG

POL TDS TG-JK

-- CGM059 -- 7047 04/10/2006 15:00 EDT

http://www.prnewswire.com

 

 

 

 

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