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Pastimes : Let's Talk About Our Feelings!!! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Oral Roberts who wrote (104156)	5/15/2005 11:30:24 PM
From: Grainne	Respond to of 108807

All of the sites about rBGH talk about the increased incidence of mastitis in dairy cows treated with it. Here is one such site. If you look at photos on this site, or hundreds of others like it, you see cows with swollen udders who were treated with rBGH: Animal Suffering As a cow is made to produce greater quantities of milk, she is increasingly prone to mastitis - a painful infection of the udder. Tests have shown a 25 percent increase in the incidence of mastitis in cows receiving BGH injections. And mastitis has been associated with lameness, which research shows may increase as much as 50 percent with BGH use. Though little has been done to measure BGH's effects upon human health, pharmaceutical companies have sponsored tests to measure the impact of hormone injections on cows. Even these tests - clearly biased in favor of BGH - indicate the dangers of its use. Routine injection of BGH into a cow increases her level of stress. A cow may not metabolize food quickly enough to compensate for the extra milk the hormone forces her to produce. This can throw her into what can be termed low-level shock. The cow remains in this condition for as long as the hormone is administered. Cows injected with BGH may not be allowed to graze in pastures. Instead, they are confined in small areas where their diet and movement can be tightly controlled. Rather than grazing on grass, BGH-treated cows must consume a highly-concentrated diet to keep up with increased production. This, in turn, can lead to higher rates of metabolic disease. Industry tests also indicate that BGH may cause enlargement of internal organs, declines in the rate of pregnancy, increased intolerance to heat, and a dramatic increase in the amount of blood pumped through the animal's heart. Through reproductive technologies, the quantities of milk produced by cows have already increased dramatically. In extreme cases, cows must wear bra-like harnesses to support their engorged udders. In 1930 the average cow produced 12 pounds of milk a day. By 1988 the average had risen to 39 pounds. If BGH increases production by 30 percent, that volume rises to 51 pounds a day per cow. This leads to a corresponding increase in veterinary problems associated with intensive milk production. hfa.org When I drive around the countryside and see herds of healthy cows grazing, none of their udders are distended like that. When I was on my vacation on the Oregon coast specifically, the cows were from dairymen belonging to the Tillamook Creamery Association, which has refused to use rBGH--much to the disappointment of Monsanto! What genetic defect causes that? How can you say definitively that this is a genetic defect?