Female Infants Growing Breasts:

[Encephalon]

I've been interested in food politics since well before college but studying the subject matter through the lens of Taoism has made the global even more personal. I've witnessed a lot of wisdom in here on the subject.

I'm on Day 7 without sugar. Seems like the quality of one's spiritual progress can ultimately depend on how much sucrose is pumping through your bloodstream. And in the case of this article, how much estrogen and Bovine Growth Hormone.

 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-robbins/female-infants-growing-br_b_676402.html

 

People are very upset about this, and with good reason. Female infants in China who have been fed formula have been growing breasts.

 

 

According to the official Chinese Daily newspaper, medical tests performed on the babies found levels of estrogens circulating in their bloodstreams that are as high as those found in most adult women. These babies are between four and 15 months old. And the evidence is overwhelming that the milk formula they have been fed is responsible.

 

Synutra, the company that makes the baby formula consumed by these babies, says it's not their fault. They insist that "no man-made hormones or any illegal substances were added during the production of the milk powder."

 

Then what is the source of the hormones? A Chinese dairy association says the hormones could have entered the food chain when farmers reared the cows. "Since a regulation forbidding the use of hormones to cultivate livestock has yet to be drawn up in China," says Wang Dingmian, the former chairman of the dairy association in the southern province of Guangdo, "it would be lying to say nobody uses it." Bovine growth hormones are used in China, as they are in the U.S., to promote greater milk production.

 

An extraordinary number of food products sold in the U.S. today come from China. Could some of this tainted formula be making its way to the U.S.?

 

There is currently no way for consumers to know whether infant formula they might purchase has been made with milk products from China.

 

If this problem appears in the U.S., who will be held responsible? The retailers? The importers? The Chinese producers? Will anyone be called to account?

 

As I describe in my books The Food Revolution and Diet For a New America, and on my website, this isn't the first time something like this has happened. In the 1980s, doctors in Puerto Rico began encountering cases of precocious puberty. There were four-year-old girls with fully developed breasts. There were three-year old girls with pubic hair and vaginal bleeding. There were one-year-old girls who had not yet begun to walk but whose breasts were growing. And it wasn't just the females. Young boys were also affected. Many had to have surgery to deal with breasts that had become grossly swollen.

 

Writing a few years later in the Journal of the Puerto Rico Medical Association, Dr. Carmen A. Saenz explained the cause. "It was clearly observed in 97 percent of the cases that the appearance of abnormal breast tissue was...related to local whole milk in the infants."

 

The problem was traced, and found to stem from the misuse of hormones in dairy cows. When Dr. Saenz was asked how she could be certain the babies and children were contaminated with hormones from milk rather than from some other source, she replied simply: "When we take our young patients off... fresh milk, their symptoms usually regress."

 

Along with China, the U.S. is today one of the few countries in the world that still allows bovine growth hormones to be injected into dairy cows. Though banned in Canada, Japan, Australia, New Zealand and most of Europe, the use of these hormones in U.S. dairy is not only legal, it's routine in all 50 states.

 

The U.S. dairy industry assures us that this is not a problem. But there is a very real problem, and its name is Insulin-like Growth Factor-1 (IGF-1). Monsanto's own studies, as well as those of Eli Lilly & Co., have found a 10-fold increase in IGF-1 levels in the milk of cows who have been injected with bovine growth hormone (BGH).

 

Why is that a problem? A report by the European Commission's authoritative international 16-member scientific committee not only confirmed that excessive levels of IGF-1 are always found in the milk of cows injected with BGH. It also concluded that excess levels of IGF-1 pose serious risks of breast, colon and prostate cancer.

 

How serious is the increased risk? According to an article in the May 9, 1998 issue of the medical journal The Lancet, women with even a relatively small increase in blood levels of IGF-1 are up to seven times more likely to develop breast cancer than women with lower levels.

 

IGF-1 that is consumed by human beings in dairy products is rapidly absorbed into the bloodstream. It isn't destroyed by human digestion. And pasteurization is no help. In fact, the pasteurization process actually increases IGF-1 levels in milk.

 

What's a consumer to do?

 

If at all possible, breast-feed your babies, and support breast-feeding friendly workplaces and other environments. It's hard to overstate the health advantages of breast-feeding for both mother and baby. They are enormous, and particularly so today, when the possibility exists that commercially available infant formula could be contaminated with excess hormones.

 

If you are going to buy dairy products, try to get them from organic sources. Organic milk products by law can't be produced with bovine growth hormone (BGH). Or look for dairy products that specifically say they are produced without BGH (also called recombinant bovine somatotropin, or rBST). Starbucks only uses dairy products that have not been produced with the hormone. Ben & Jerry's ice cream likewise uses only milk and cream from dairy farms that have pledged not to use BGH.

 

If you're going to eat cheese, remember that American-made cheeses are likely to be contaminated with BGH and excess levels of IGF-1 unless they're organic or labeled BGH-free. Most cheeses that are imported from Europe are safe, though, since much of Europe has banned the hormone.

 

Have you ever wondered why dairy products made from cows injected with the hormone aren't labeled? It's because Monsanto, the manufacturer of BGH, has aggressively and successfully lobbied state governments to make sure that no legislation is passed that would require such labeling.

 

As if that wasn't enough, Monsanto has also insistently sought to make it illegal for dairy products that are BGH-free to say so on their labels. How does Monsanto justify such a ban? They say that allowing retailers to tell consumers that a dairy product is BGH-free shouldn't be allowed, even if it's true, because it unfairly stigmatizes BGH.

 

Monsanto acts as though accurately labeling products would make them the victim of some irrational cultural bias. But the company's products are, in fact, responsible for untold damage to human health.

 

My compassion is not for Monsanto. My heart goes out to the babies in China and their families, to the children in Puerto Rico and their families, and to the millions of others who have been or will be adversely affected by the abuse of hormones in dairy production

[immortal_sister]

thats happening here too, not just in china. i have heard women tell me that their 4 year old daughters had full pubic hair already and were starting to grow breasts. its so extremely sad. the anger i feel toward our government for not preventing these horrible chemicals from being in food and water is hard to describe.

 

formula is definitely one thing at fault. soy formula is reeking havoc on baby boys too, stunting their sexual development, as they can get doses of phytoestrogen comparable to the birth control pill when drinking soy formula. sickening...

 

beyond formula though, the women giving birth to these babies have been eating genetically modified and hormone filled animal products their whole life, drinking tap water that is filled with powerful chemicals and leftover pharmaceuticals that water treatment is not able to remove. this is a HUGE problem, of course it is going to affect their children. it goes so deep, it goes way beyond formula. but people at the top are making money, so who cares who gets sick.. in fact, if people are sick, they will have to spend money on getting better, so hey everyone wins!!..

 

what worries me too is that not only are girls that young not ready to deal with puberty, but it has been proven that the younger a woman starts to menstruate, the more at risk she will be of developing various cancers as she gets older and will also be more likely to develop problems like endometriosis. we need to educate ourselves and others about the realities of the food & health systems. thank you for posting this.

[gendao]

The average age of puberty for girls (in the EU) is now 9.

 

But the far more frightening effect (completely ignored by these femalecentric reports) is the effect on MALE babies that all these xenoestrogens may be having too. In effect, chemically-castrating boys and causing sexual UNDERdevelopment (which is arguably worse than overdevelopment).

 

One of the main sources of these xenoestrogens, btw, is the Pill. As billions of them get flushed down into our water supply...that is effectively putting our entire planet on estrogen now.

 

Some great legacy we're leaving our offspring, huh?

Edited August 10, 2010 by vortex

[Pietro]

Yes. It is serious indeed.

 

It is the case to repeat that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. We are on our way to understand the human hormonal system. And wisdom would want that we do not mess around with things until we have a pretty clear understanding of what is going on. Market wants otherwise, so we kiss the invisible hand and we adapt to it.

 

The promises of hormonal therapy are incredible, but the costs... hopefully at the current rate of medical advancement we might be able to rebalance some of the damages done in the lifetime of those kids.

[Encephalon]

The average age of puberty for girls (in the EU) is now 9.

 

But the far more frightening effect (completely ignored by these femalecentric reports) is the effect on MALE babies that all these xenoestrogens may be having too. In effect, chemically-castrating boys and causing sexual UNDERdevelopment (which is arguably worse than overdevelopment).

 

So true. I've always believed that the misfortunes suffered by men vastly outweigh those suffered by women. After all, they're just chicks.

 

Femalecentrism = the new fascism!

[Brian]

...

[Encephalon]

blasto, did you forget to add an emoticon to your last post?

 

Ooops

[gendao]

So true. I've always believed that the misfortunes suffered by men vastly outweigh those suffered by women. After all, they're just chicks.

 

Femalecentrism = the new fascism!

If these chemicals are adversely affecting both genders...then why only report on one half? I suppose in a fascist state, the other half doesn't matter?

The number of boys born with reproductive defects has increased by 200% in the past two decades.

The average sperm count of a North American college student today is less than half of what it was 50 years ago - 85% of that is abnormal.

Damaged sperm have been linked to a 300% increase in testicular cancer - a form of cancer that affects young men in their 20s and 30s.

developmentally estrogenized male phenotype may include a spectrum of anomalies such as un-descended testis, hypospadias, poor semen quality, testicular and prostate cancer. Male sexual differentiation and reproductive functioning are critically dependent on a balanced androgen/estrogen ratio. It is easily understandable, at least conceptually, that testicular development, steroidogenesis, and other male reproductive aspects may be susceptible to disruption by environmental endocrine modulators.

The overall problem here is artificially-added EXCESS YIN in our world now. Which has upset Nature's delicate balance with a more detrimental effect on men than women.

 

For example, a 9-yo girl with C-cups is actually going to be quite popular (and will save money on a b00b job later)...as opposed to a 9-yo boy hung like a peanut...

 

So at the very least, both sides do deserve equal airtime.

[Birch]

Another reason not to have kids at all.

 

Oh...

[Encephalon]

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Edited August 11, 2010 by Blasto