Ph.D. Chemist takes issue with Young’s GMO claims
In the spirit of being fair and balanced, BNB is posting Fairfield County Food Examiner James Cooper’s blog post, taking issue with Neil Young’s claims against Monsanto
Cooper is the author of 19 books and most recent book is Food Myths debunked.. He holds a Ph.D. in chemistry from Ohio State University and is a graduate of Oberlin College.
Cooper writes, at The Examiner.com, that Neil Young’s new album, “The Monsanto Years,” makes any number of silly claims about biotechnology, using Monsanto as a metaphor for the entire plant breeding industry.
He writes:
“I want a cup of coffee, but I don’t want a GMO,” is about as inaccurate as you can get. It is not obvious, but I might guess that Young is referring to some sort of genetically modified coffee (none exists) or milk (none exists). In fact, this whole “Monsanto milk” nonsense was stirred up by charlatans like Joe Mercola and the vapid Food Babe. What they are referring to is rBST hormone given to cows to increase their milk production. This is just a synthetic version of the BST (bovine somatotropin) hormone that had been given to cows for years to increase production.
Monsanto contracted with Genentech to make this synthetic hormone and began marketing it as Posilac in 1993. It is important to note that this a given to the cows, not added to the milk. All studies have shown that the milk from rBst-treated cows is exactly the same as that from non-rBst treated cows. It does not have any different amounts of any hormones or any other differences.
The FDA has recognized that there are no differences, and if milk is labeled as “rBST free” there must be a disclaimer that such milk is no different than any other milk.”
He also said ” The rest of Young’s song “Let our farmers grow/what they want ot grow,” makes no more sense than the rest of it. The fiction that farmers are somehow forced to buy or plant certain seeds is a canard created by the giant organic food industry. It is simply untrue. Farmers are free to buy any sort of seeds (and chemicals) they want from any number of different suppliers and there are no contract restricting them in any way, except from replanting patented seeds.”
Read the rest of the blog at: http://www.examiner.com/article/neil-young-s-silly-new-monsanto-album
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