Scandal Surrounding The FDA, Cows' Tooting, And A Monsanto Hormone

What a riot! How complex is a story about:

* The genetically engineered bovine growth hormone, somatotropin, trade name Posilac...
* which is not approved for use in Australia, Canada, Europe, Japan, or New Zealand...
* whose 1993 FDA approval led to the dismissal of several questioning FDA scientists that wanted more test data given the paucity of data given to support the approval...
* which Monsanto claims reduces both methane (from dairy cow belching and farting -- mind you, the first far exceeds the latter) and energy use generally from efficient feeding...
* and the discussion of which raises more fart jokes than a Cub Scout camping trip?

Read the whole story here.

Comments

[Wilburrr]

Farts would be gas, and drops would be lliquid. You are mixing your bovine metaphors...

[filo]

Pulease !! It's bovine flatulence.


Well I never....

[skeats]

Check out Heartwood USA's "Cow-a-dunga!" cartoon (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2GKZJkYIjvY). It addresses methane flatulence and eructation (but in a funny way...).

Even content produced for kids has to struggle with the technology fix vs consumption habits debate.

In an early version of the script, I had the heroine invent a diaper (ok, we focused on the farting...) that filtered the CH4. Ultimately, we dropped the plot device in favor of a simpler plea to go free-range and consume less meat/dairy.

[thundermummy]

Cow manure (as well as pig) on the breeze was always the welcome sign that spring arrived when I was a kid.

[Wilburrr]

Yes... .the smell of money.

[enveg01]

Why in this blog is there absolutely no mention of giving milk up completely? There is no nutritional requirement for humans to consume cow's milk. Just think about it: we're the only mammals that consume milk past childhood and we're the only mammals that drink another animal's milk. Cow's milk is for calves, not humans. Casein, a protein found in milk, is highly carcinogenic. Read The China Study.

In addition, if you buy milk, you're directly supporting the veal industry. Dairy cows have to be pregnant in order to produce milk. Within 24 hours of their calves being born, they are ripped away from their mothers. Female cows become dairy cows and male cows get crated, fed an iron deficient diet, and are sold for veal in 16 weeks. This happens even at organic dairies.

The dairy industry is incredibly inhumane. It's no wonder it's destroying our planet.

[thundermummy]

Veal farms stink. That is they smell bad. But veal tastes good. Somehow I'd rather drink milk than eat tofurkey. I grew up working on my friend's dairy farm. It was not inhumane. But then again, I must be off my rocker because I am a meat eating milk drinker.

[enveg01]

It's really sad your "taste" for veal allows to ignore the hideous cruelty that's involved with getting a calf's flesh to your plate. There's a saying that "compassion is strength". You must be very weak.

[NTO08]

MOOOO!

[Wilburrr]

phphphphphphphphphphphphhhhhhhh

[Toonadude]

Cow Fart Tester.
The perfect post-White House gig for The Shrub.
I"m sure he lit a few in his frat boy days.
Or was that last week?

[mamacat]

This article could be used to start a discussion of human methane emissions and their effect on global warming, since methane as a global warming gas is much more dangerous per unit than CO2.

Some info from the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies:

The largest single source of methane emissions is natural wetlands, 22% of world annual methane production.
Burning fossil fuels (coal, oil, natural gas), about 20%
Global farmed rice production, about 10%
Global emissions from domestic cattle, about 10%

Humans are responsible, in total, for about 70% of global methane emissions.
Global warming may cause the release of huge amounts of additional methane, causing a cascade effect, or tipping point, in global warming.
There are large stores of methane in the frozen arctic tundra, and in gas hydrates in the world's oceans.

"The large pool of methane in gas hydrates implies that a small perturbation under a changing climate could produce a considerable source of methane." - NASA

[markie1111]

not sure of the answer right off but...isn't more methane produced by rumination than flatulence???

[mouselion]

'Bout as relevant as trying to scoop trout poop from the bottom of river. . .

[KillerCarlson]

This cheeky story is a gas! Unfortunately, it flames out at the end.

[thundermummy]

Wait a minute, cows are farting into buckets?

[anastasiabeaverhousen]

OMG. Put a string of overgrown fake pearls around elsie's neck and what do you have? babsbush!!!!!

[mergina]

Everybody farts, except little girls between the age of 6 and 9.

[pitneo]

Right, they poop!

[almoguy]

So that' the reason they have bulging eyes!

[darthdarcy]

Flatulent Cows are not the worse of our worries, but having grow up in a Dairy town I'll tell you cleaning out the cow barn was not the top honored position at Becker Farms in Roseland NJ...it gave no smoking a whole new real meaning...

[UnknownSoldier]

OMG, ROTFL

[research]

That poop is being used by many farmers to create methane and run their entire farms.