The Rural Voice, 1988-03, Page 44NEWS
(coned fromprevious page)
it must gauge consumer reaction to the
product carefully and be ready, should
there be a negative response, to combat
it with advertising.
The undetectability of somatotropin
in milk probably makes BST safe to use,
but its undetectability also creates prob-
lems for the dairy industry, particularly
in bull testing and milk recording. With
no way of testing for BST, milk record-
ers and bull -test stations must rely on the
honesty of producers.
"It is open to manipulation," Saun-
ders says. "If a farmer were to push to
offspring of one bull, using BST, and not
indicate it, those cows would have a 15
per cent advantage over other cows, and
that 15 per cent would be attributed to
genetics."
A similar problem arises in milk re-
cording, where a radioactive tracer
would be the only method of determin-
ing BST use and "consumers certainly
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42 THE RURAL VOICE
wouldn't like that," Saunders says.
"They're either going to have to go on
the owner's statement or assume that the
farmer is using it."
Saunders is pleased that the Univer-
sity of Guelph is involved in further
research into the product's safeness and
feasibility. Researchers there are at lib-
erty to publish their results, he says,
whereas private researchers might not
disclose negative results.
The university was recently
awarded $400,000 under the University
Research Incentive Fund to examine the
effectiveness of the hormone in increas-
ing millc production and its effect on the
muscle, fat, liver, etc. of the cow. Cyan-
amid Canada Inc. is a partner in the
research.
"If we're pumping 20 per
cent more out of those
girls, they're not going
to last nearly as long,"
Saunders says.
John Burton is one of two professors
in Guelph's Department of Animal and
Poultry Science — Brian McBride is the
other — researching the product for the
three-year term of the award. He says
continued research is necessary to prove
there are no long-term detrimental ef-
fects on humans or livestock before BST
is mass-produced and marketed.
"We want to assure dairymen that
they're not going to be harming their
cows," Burton says.
While BST has had no effect on
offspring, Burton says he has noticed a
change in the reproduction cycle: more
open days. "Cows producing more milk
will take longer to get back into calf
anyway. It may or may not have some-
thing to do with the somatotropin."
Using a hormone to increase lacta-
tion is not new to the dairy industry.
British research in the 1930s showed
that extracts of the pituitary gland would
increase lactation, but because each
gland yields so little, the increase was
not significant enough to boost produc-
tion. The age of biotechnology spurred
the implanting of genes into E. Coli
bacteria to produce hormones and the
development of BST.0
Mary -Lou Weiser -Hamilton