The book My Year of Meats by Ruth Ozeki is about the story of an
American-Japanese woman Jane who is hired to do a T.V. show by Japanese
producers to introduce beef into the Japanese culture. Since there is no
existing market in Asia for beef, they are hoping to promote beef consumption
into the Asian culture. As she learns about the meat industry she starts to
realize how many issues there are within it. One of the issues she discusses is
the growth hormone DES that was used to support faster growth in cattle and
chicken in meats and poultry up through the 70’s. Even though the growth hormone was known to
be harmful since 1938, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and United States Department of Agriculture
(USDA) claimed the hormone was safe for consumption for many years. These two
organizations cannot be trusted to operate correctly on their own and they need
to be regulated and surveyed constantly. They suppressed many test results
proving the risks associated with DES. Even after it was clear beyond doubt that
DES was extremely harmful the FDA and USDA insisted it was non-cancerous and
waited for years to finally ban it, first banning the intentional addition and then
banning it completely.
DES
stands for diethylstilbestrol and is a growth hormone that was regularly fed to
cows and chicken to promote faster growth before slaughter. It was also a
supplement administered to women during pregnancy to reduce the chance of
miscarriage. Over the last 70 years research has shown that exposure to DES
results in health risk problems for both men and women. This means that anyone
who has consumed DES or anyone that has parents or grandparents that have
consumed the growth hormone have health risks related to DES. Women that were
exposed to DES first hand have a moderately increased risk of breast cancer. If
a man is exposed to it, it can result in feminization. (Center for Disease
Control) If a woman consumed DES during her pregnancy, the results can be even
worse for their daughters. ‘DES daughters’ are at increased risk for vaginal
and cervical cancer, infertility and other problems with the reproductive
system. (DES daughters) ‘DES sons’ are at no real risk; the only effect linked
to the hormone is non-cancerous cysts on the genitals. The FDA and the USDA
knew about these adverse health affects and did nothing to stop the use of DES.
DES pills that were given to pregnant women.
Jane,
the main character first comes across DES while interviewing Miss Helen. Miss
Helen is a black woman that lives in the south. She and her husband admit that
he had once suffered side effects from DES after eating chicken that was loaded
with it. His voice became higher pitch and his breasts started growing. After
this discovery Jane wanted to know more and started investigating on her own. She
discovers the whole history behind DES. The cattle, the chickens, the pregnancy
supplement, then she finds out that Europe banned American meat import in 1989.
In 1990 Japans government then lowers the import tax on meat after being
pressured into it by the U.S. government. Then, in 1991 Jane starts working on
her T.V. show. She realizes that she is just part of a much bigger game being
played.
Jane
soon starts to realize that she herself may be effected by DES. She goes to a
factory farm run by John Dunn to film footage for her show, but her cameraman
also gathered footage of something else. The footage was of the five-year-old
daughter of John Dunn. It is of her naked body, revealing pubic hair and
developing breasts. John’s son also experienced effects from the DES used on
his fathers’ farm. Jane is pregnant at the time, and when she has an accident
and gets rushed to the hospital she is frightened that her baby might suffer
from her exposure, not only from her mother, but also from the farm. Jane ends
up losing the child. She made a documentary from the footage of the farm, and
when the Dunn’s farm is busted because of their daughters worsening health
condition from illegal use of DES she starts selling her documentary to news
stations around the world. This completes Jane’s story, she is finally a
documentarian, as she had always wanted to be.
DES was approved
by the American beef industry in 1954. For two years the cattle industry did
not jump onto these new supplements, but in 1956 the beef producers started
adding DES into their cattle’s diets. (Banarjee, Abhijit) In early tests with
chickens, DES was found to promote a growth rate three times that of normal
diets. The hormone was first administrated to cattle orally and then a few
years later as technology developed through implants near the ear or the
shoulder. This resulted in even more residue in the meat. Soon after that DES
was administered both orally and via implant. This was quickly illegalized but
the FDA had no way to check if the farmers abided by it, so they didn’t.
Eventually 80% to 95% if not more of American cattle were fed DES. (Raun, A.P.)
The
carcinogenicity of DES has been clear since 1938 however the U.S. Department of
Agriculture and the FDA approved the hormone for consumption and use for cattle
in 1947. During this time DES was already used in poultry production and
causing negative health effects on people. After multiple congressional
hearings on DES the Delaney Law was passed in 1958, which banned the deliberate
addition of carcinogens.(About FDA) However, the use of DES continued on the
alleged grounds that it did not leave any amount of detectable residue in the
meat. The reality was that there were extremely cancerous levels of DES in much
of the meat on the U.S. market. In 1959 the FDA banned DES implants in chickens
because of its negative health effects. (Encyclopedia Britanica) The
pre-approval system back then was flawed and the hormone would most likely
never be approved today. Even with that, “there are several inexplicable
oversights on the part of the FDA regulators.” (Initial Testing & FDA
Approval) Which means that someone pulled some strings to prevent the complete
illegalization of the hormone. By 1971 twenty other countries banned the use of
DES altogether. Even then, the FDA and USDA continued to insist that DES was
not harmful until 1979 when it was finally banned in America. “In 1980 however,
half a million cattle from one hundred and fifty-six feedlots in eighteen
states were found with illegal DES implants.” (Ozeki, Ruth L.) This means that
regardless of DES’s illegal status farmers were still using it with no regards
to the consequences of their actions. This makes it hard to trust our meat
industry even today.
A cow that was treated with growth hormones to produce more
milk.
A cow that was treated with growth hormones to produce more
milk.
Growth hormones are now completely
illegal to be used with poultry, which is a good thing since it seemed to have
the most impact in chickens. However growth hormones are still being used today
for meat and milk production. For example the growth hormone called rBGH is
still being added to milk cows to increase their milk production, thus making
the cows more profitable for the farmers. The USDA and the FDA claim that they
are safe, but there is a growing concern that the residue left by the hormone
is harmful to humans.[1] Even
more questionable are the six growth hormones that farmers are aloud to use in
America today. Of the six growth hormones three are synthetic and three are
naturally occurring. The European Union
still to this day banns all meat trade with America. The use of growth hormones
is not permitted in Europe. “The European Committee also questioned whether
hormone residues in the meat of "growth enhanced" animals and can
disrupt human hormone balance, causing developmental problems,
interfering with the reproductive system, and even leading to the development
of breast, prostate or colon cancer.”(Artificial Hormones, Hormone Residue in
Meat) This means that the growth hormones that the cattle are fed today may not
be any safer then DES.
Just
like Jane, through research, I realized how much is wrong with our meat
industry and that it really cannot be trusted. Jane experienced and witnessed
grotesque things first hand when she started to dive into the growth hormone
issue. My experiences were not as intense but it certainly helped me realize
that not all meat is the same and you should be conscientious of where your
meat and milk comes from because even though it may not impact you
dramatically, it could still have an impact on your children especially if you
are pregnant. Even though the FDA and the USDA are supposed to make sure that
everything in the market is safe for consumption. They have failed in the past,
so we have no reason to assume that they are perfect.
Works Cited:
"About FDA." FDA History.
FDA. Web. 25 Apr. 2012.
<http://www.fda.gov/AboutFDA/WhatWeDo/History/Origin/ucm055118.htm>.
"Artifical Hormones,
Hormone Residue in Meat - The Issues - Sustainable Table."Sustainabletable.
Web. 25 Apr. 2012. <http://www.sustainabletable.org/issues/hormones/>.
Banarjee, Abhijit.
"Growth Hormones in Food." Articlebase. Articlesbase.com,
03 Aug. 2008. Web. 25 Apr. 2012. <http://www.articlesbase.com/causes-and-organizations-articles/growth-hormones-in-food-507273.html>.
"Diethylstilbestrol (DES)." Encyclopædia
Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online Academic Edition. Encyclopædia
Britannica Inc., 2012. Web. 25 Apr. 2012. <http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/162807/diethylstilbestrol>.
"Initial Testing & FDA
Approval." Diethylstilbestrol – Friend or Foe? Wordpress.
Web. 25 Apr. 2012.
<http://diethylstilbestrol.umwblogs.org/initial-testing-fda-approval/>.
"Known Health Effects for
DES Daughters." DES. Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention. Web. 24 Apr. 2012.
<http://www.cdc.gov/DES/consumers/about/effects_daughters.html>.
"Known Health Effects for
Women Prescribed DES While Pregnant." CDC. Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention. Web. 24 Apr. 2012.
<http://www.cdc.gov/DES/consumers/about/effects_women.html>.
"Known Health Effects for
DES Daughters." DES. Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention. Web. 24 Apr. 2012.
<http://www.cdc.gov/DES/consumers/about/effects_daughters.html>.
Raun, A. P., and R. L. Preston.
"History of Diethylstilbestrol Use in Cattle." Asas.org.
Web. <http://www.asas.org/Bios/Raunhist.pdf>.
"Initial Testing & FDA
Approval." Diethylstilbestrol – Friend or Foe? Wordpress.
Web. 25 Apr. 2012.
<http://diethylstilbestrol.umwblogs.org/initial-testing-fda-approval/>.
Ozeki, Ruth L. "Chapter 6." My Year of Meats.
New York: Viking, 1998. 126. Print.
