Consumers Action Alert: against rBGH

We recently had a great victory when Kathleen Sebelius, then Governor of Kansas, vetoed a bill that would have restricted rBGH-free labeling on dairy products. She's since become the Secretary of the Health and Human Services Department, which gives us a great opportunity for her to take even bigger action on protecting consumers from rBGH. Can you thank Sebelius for her leadership on this issue and ask her to re-examine the approval of rBGH?

Now that Kathleen Sebelius is in charge of HHS, she directly oversees the Food and Drug Administration, which handled the approval of rBGH. When rBGH was originally being approved, there were many concerns around the research that was being used, and the revolving door appointments of people like Mike Taylor, who worked for both Monsanto and FDA.

Mike Taylor was a former attorney for Monsanto who went to work for FDA, where he helped draft FDA's policy declaring that genetically engineered foods are "generally regarded as safe." He also wrote the policy that exempted genetically engineered foods from being labeled. This was all during the time that Monsanto's genetically engineered hormone rBGH was being approved at FDA. After these policies were written, Taylor left FDA and eventually went back to work for Monsanto.

Now is the time for FDA, under Sebelius' leadership, to re-examine the use of rBGH. Over 30 countries, including all of the European Union, Canada, Japan, Australia and New Zealand banned the use of the hormone from the animal welfare concerns alone. There are still significant human health concerns surrounding the use of rBGH as well.

Consumers across the country have rejected milk that's been produced with rBGH, and it's time to end its use once and for all. Please take action now to ask Secretary Sebelius to stand up for consumers on this issue.

Click on title above to go to the "Food & Water Watch" site to take action;

http://action.foodandwaterwatch.org/t/741/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=1170


Thanks!


Sarah, Alex, Noelle and the Food Team
Food & Water Watch
goodfood(at)fwwatch.org