Stephen Colbert on Bovine Growth Hormone
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 04.19.07
Intent on peddling his (hormone free) Ben & Jerry's ice cream, Stephen Colbert learns about the effects of rBGH, recombinant bovine growth hormone, which for some reason American dairy farmers are allowed to inject into cows to increase production about 15%. He compares the increase to a certain Loaves and Fishes incident that we will not go into in deference to our religious Christian readers, and derides the rest of the world for banning the stuff, based on the underlying American Principle, Innocent until proven cancerous. Evidently without rBGH we will need more cows: no hormone, more global warming. Extremely entertaining at ::Colbert Report.
Innocent until proven cancerous would actually be funny if it weren't so true.
Have you a 'puke' emoticon there, please?
My favorite part was the "mmm, Pus!" bit.
One thing, Lloyd. rBGH being responsible for a "15% increase in milk production"... that seems a low estimate to me. That, combined with feedlots and other modern factory farm techniques, have increased production at least 3x. I always thought rBGH itself was responsible for much more of the increased productivity than a cow giving 23 pounds of milk vs. 20 (using that % uptick). Could that be a conservative figure that Monsanto puts out to make it seem less "un-natural"?
Unfortunately, today I'm hungover and in no place to research this stuff further. It's horrible stuff, and good that Colbert gave it some perverse, backhanded attention.