A number of people have expressed interest in (and opinions on)
data on use of tax dollars/public institutions to study rBST.
Better people than I have tried to tackle the research funding
question, and as you can imagine, it is a hard one. It is
fairly easy to look at publications, though. Just for fun
I did this using Agricola (the cd-rom version, so I only looked
at the last couple of years). Anyone can extend this, if they
like: 164 articles contained the words "bovine somatotropin"
or "sometribove." Of these, 11 had "Monsanto" in the XAU
field. Only about 55 of the 164 both contained an XAU field and
were what I would call primary research articles from a biochemistry
or dairy science point of view. The rest were economic analyses,
news reports and so on. Of this 55, 9 listed the corresponding
author as being at Monsanto. There was also one each from American
Cyanamid, Upjohn, Quall Tech. Inc., Champion Feed, and Eli Lilly.
Thus 14/55 were corprate. The remaining 41/55 were a mix of
academic addresses (mostly US) and USDA (2 of these). Now,
this is not to say that Monsanto scientists didn't work on
these--it's impossible to tell that. It's also impossible
to tell where funding came from, although it seems likely
most came from Monsanto. And naturally a certain amount (maybe
a large amount) of publishable data remain at Monsanto as trade
secrets.
A couple of people wrote to tell me about the OMB report on
rBST that came out in January 1994. I haven't seen it,
but one of these people was kind enough to send a copy of a Jan '94
press release from Senator Feingold's office. (Feingold is a
senator from Wisconsin). He felt the report read "like a
promotion piece for Monsanto" and noted the report predicted
an increase in federal spending of $300 million to $500 million
over the next 6 years. Those figures were probably "gross
underestimates," he said. He goes on to list a number of
other potential negative effects of rBGH.
That's what I have for now. I must say the publication stuff
doesn't seem all that damning to me. Remember, these are the
most recent (through June '94) articles on rBST. It seems
appropriate for independent laboratories to want to take their
own look at the effects of rBST, for example. Also, as I say,
presumably what Monsanto has published is only the tip of their
iceberg. Unfortunately, it will be impossible to extend this
sort of analysis too far back in time (i.e. to look at initial
steps in the commercialization process) because the XAU field
is a relatively new addition to Agricola.
I've thought for some time that even if the safety issues weren't,
even if the cost to taxpayers was nil, even if this was something
Monsanto had thought up all on their own, lots of people (including
me) would grumble about rBST. Why? Forgive me if I'm the last
to realize this, but I think it's because rBST is a Symbol of
Progress, and of the added speeding up of the agricultural
treadmill that biotechnology is sure to bring. Industrialists
call this sort of thinking Ludditeism (or something like that),
but I don't see anything wrong with it. Societies have always
acted to slow down or speed up progress (remember uncolored
margarine? car makers' resistance to air bags?), and there
are lots of mechanisms for this.
Well, I won't take any more of your time, for now. This is an
interesting complex of topics.
Steve Verhey
Crop & Soil Sciences
Washington State University
Pullman, WA 99164-6420