No labels for imports with growth hormone
By Jen Ross
The Canadian Food Inspection Agency admits Canadians may be consuming imported U.S. dairy products that contain the controversial growth hormone rbST, but the agency has no plans to label these products or issue a warning.
Regulator Bart Bilmer says his agency is not labelling imported U.S. dairy products because it has no way of knowing whether a given product contains rbST or not.
U.S. farmers are not required to label milk as having come from cows injected with rbST. And Health Canada's Karen Dodds explained to the Commons health committee Thursday that because rbST is a genetically engineered version of the naturally occurring hormone bovine somatotropin, it is so close to the natural product that it is impossible to detect.
"It could be in our cheese, our yogurt, butter, ice cream, you name it, and we don't know it," said NDP health critic Judy Wasylycia-Leis, who questioned the inspection agency and Health Canada representatives at the health committee meeting about their ability to determine whether products imported from the U.S. contain rbST.
The synthetic hormone has been approved for use in the U.S. since 1993 and it has been under review in Canada for the past nine years.
"Publicly (Health Canada keeps) saying it's not approved and (we) won't approve it until it's proven safe," says Ms. Wasylycia-Leis. "But the fact that the government has taken no measures to determine whether imports contain bovine growth hormone reveals their long-term objective is to have it approved."
The hormone was thrust into the spotlight in October when leaked Health Canada memos revealed six scientists in the Health Protection Branch felt they were under internal pressure to approve the hormone although they were concerned about its potential hazards to human safety.
Some scientists have said evidence suggests rbST-injected cow's milk may contain a hormone that could stimulate the growth of cancerous tumours.
Even if Health Canada were to find rbST unsafe, there would be no way to find out which U.S. imports contain it because American farmers are not required to label the milk.
RbST manufacturer Monsanto claims 25 per cent of U.S. farmers use the product. There is no way to tell how many cows are injected with it. Agriculture Canada statistics show Canada imported $72 million worth of dairy products from the U.S. in 1997, but dairy analyst Maryse Cote said they have no figures for the number of non-dairy food imports containing milk products.
"Your guess is as good as mine on how much rbST there could be in products for sale in Canada," said Pierre Doyle, assistant director of the Market and Industry Services branch of Agriculture Canada.
Canada does not import fluid milk, but receives fresh and processed cheese, yogurt, ice cream, and numerous products that contain milk ingredients, such as chocolate bars.
Mr. Bilmer says if customers are worried, all they can do is check to see whether a product they want to buy was produced in the U.S.