FDA Needs To Dismiss Former Monsanto Counsel

A major public health concern has arisen since the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) appointed Michael Taylor as it’s Senior Food Safety Advisor.

The former Monsanto counsel, Taylor, who led the leading national biotech umbrella organization, warned dairy producers and retailers in 1984 not to label milk from cows that had not been injected with Monsanto’s biotech milk stimulant, recombinant bovine growth hormone, rBGH, in order to increase milk production. Taylor, who was then FDA Deputy Commissioner, warned against “hormone-free” labels.

As a result of Taylor’s explicit assurances, FDA claimed that such labeling may be “false or misleading,” as there was no meaningful difference between milk from treated and untreated cows. According to the Cancer Prevention Coalition chair, Samuel S. Epstein, M.D., Taylor’s assurance was blatantly false. According to Dr. Epstein, cows exposed to rBGH have developed mastitis as a result of the hormone. As Dr. Epstein notes, “rBGH milk also differs in chemical, nutritional, pharmacological, and immunological ways from natural milk.” Moreover, he says, “rBGH milk is also contaminated with pus and antibiotics from mastitis induced by the biotech hormone.” Despite such well-documented scientific evidence, the FDA approved GE milk for sale and marketing in 1984, without labeling it.”

As a result of drinking rBGH milk, the risk of breast, colon, and prostate cancer increases. In addition, drinking rBGH milk in 1984 was found to increase breast cancer risks, as detailed in my 2006 book What’s In Your Milk?” (Trafford Publishing). “RBGH milk was subsequently shown to increase prostate and colon cancer risk,” Epstein says in a dozen other scientific publications which confirmed this evidence.

Meanwhile, he says, the FDA’s permissive policies on rBGH milk have remained unchanged for over two succeeding decades. In light of these factors, it is expected that FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg will ask Michael Taylor to resign.

In addition to serving as professor emeritus at the University of Illinois at Chicago School of Public Health in Environmental and Occupational Medicine, Samuel Epstein is Chairman of the Cancer Prevention Coalition and author of over 200 scientific articles as well as 15 books on cancer, including The Politics of Cancer (1979) and Toxic Beauty (2009).