Welcome to the Environment Show, exploring issues and events of the planet.
I'm Thomas Lalley.
The Environment Show is a national production made possible by the W. Alton Jones Foundation
and Heming's Motor News, the monthly Bible of the Old Car Hobby, 1-800-CAR-H-E-R-E.
Your host is Peter Burley.
Thanks Thomas.
Coming up on this week's Environment Show.
In our interactive talking green segment, we discuss Bolvime Growth Formal.
Some say it hurts cows and humans.
Others say it's a scientific breakthrough and gives us more milk.
An environmental success story.
The Northeast was once seriously be forested.
Now, a hundred years later, the trees are back.
And it's sheepsharing time in New England, while most sheep herders use electric shears,
a few do it the old fashioned way.
The environment show is going interactive at a new segment called Talking Green.
We want to hear from you about environmental issues.
Call us or email us and we'll ask you to join us on the air.
Environment show producer Thomas Lalley has the details.
We at the Environment Show have learned over the years that we have great listeners and
we want you involved.
In our new interactive segment, Talking Green, we hear from people just like you about
the critical environmental stories of the day.
If you have an issue you'd like to see us explore, call us at 1-800-323-9262 and go to
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That's 1-800-323-9262 and go to Extension 600.
You won't get on the air right away, but you'll be able to leave a message for one of
our producers who will get back to you.
You can also email us about anything you've heard on the Environment Show or about subjects
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Recently we talked green about the bovine growth hormone.
Here's Peter Burley.
Welcome to Talking Green, a Tom in the Environment Show when we hear from you.
I'm your host, Peter Burley.
Our number is 1-800-323-9262 Extension 600.
And we're discussing the environmental and health questions relating to a practice
of fening chemical known as RBGH or the bovine growth hormone to cows to increase their
milk production.
Some BGH is produced by the cow naturally in a found in her body.
The biologically engineered product which is fed to her by the farmer to make her give
more milk is produced by the Monsanto company.
In addition to controversies about the use of BGH, there are also questions about labeling
milk.
In some states, labeling milk as RBGH free is not permitted.
We ask the question then, does feeding RBGH have environmental consequences?
What are they?
Should consumers worry about whether milk from RBGH fed cows is identified on the bottle
or carton?
What do you think?
We have two guests with us.
One is Professor Joe Cummins, who is recently retired Professor of Genetics from the University
of Western Ontario and Canada.
He's published over 100 scientific publications and genetics specifically dealing with the
environmental mutation related to genetic engineering.
He strongly believes that superuses and bacteria is being created as a major side effect of
RBGH.
Also with us is Dr. Wayne Calloway from the dairy coalition in Washington, D.C.
He's a professor of medicine at George Washington University and practices internal medicine
and endocrinology in Washington.
So Professor Cummins, let me start with you.
Are the environmental consequences from the use of RBGH something we need to worry about?
Definitely.
I think we should have more than a little concern.
Principally because RTEH is associated with the high incidence of mass studies, it is
the disease of the utter of the cattle which causes inflammation leading to treatment with
antibiotics.
Then I think we must be concerned in the past to concern is focused on whether or not
the antibiotics get into the milk that can easily be controlled.
However, the side effect that I am mainly concerned about is the production in the farm
and from the cattle and spreading to the farm and his family of antibiotic tolerant or
super bacteria.
And there is a wealth of evidence and clearly demonstrations of exactly how that works.
In this instance, it's been shown that the bacteria that causes the diseases will spread
and because they're antibiotic tolerant, they cannot be treated and they'll be spreading
first to the farm where it's clothing and incidental items to his children and hence
to the classes at school.
And in about six months, in one case in the late 1980s of a similar spread, what was
well documented is six months it spread to over two thirds of the United States.
Okay.
Clearly from your perspective, the consequences are significant.
Dr. Callaway, what is your take on that?
Well, I think the milk from cows that have been treated with injections of bovine somatotropin
or bovine growth hormone is universally acknowledged by the various expert panels who review this,
including myself who reviewed it in great detail, to be safe for human consumption and
doesn't differ in its nutrient content or in any other significant way in milk from cows
making their own bovine somatotropin.
It's just more milk if it's used properly.
As far as the antibiotic question, these are the kind of issues that expert panels will
look at with expertise, including infectious disease experts and all of the panels, including
the Food and Drug Administration, although they raised these questions felt comfortable
that the methods that existed for protecting the public would continue to operate.
And as of last May, 18 months follow-up data was presented to the Food and Drug Administration
here in Washington.
And there was no increased evidence of, or evidence of increased mastitis of anything
that may have been less than the herd's getting BST.
There was no increase in the milk that was condemned because of antibiotic residues and
no increase in use of antibiotics.
So it's one of those things that you think of when you're on a committee, you raise the
question, you look at the data, and then you follow-up as has been done to see if the
experts were wrong and so far the experts seem to have anticipated things pretty well.
And the data don't support the hypothesis that Dr. Cummings was concerned about.
Good.
Well, thank you.
We've got obviously divergent views here.
Let's go to the phones.
I see we have a call from Mike Dascher in Alabama.
Mike, what's your question?
Yes, hi.
I know that other advances in the past have met with the same sort of problems that BGH is
having.
Congress held hearings on banning the gas-powered engine when it was invented.
And the World Society of London attempted to ban electricity when they were trying to
implement that.
Too bad they didn't succeed.
Then you wouldn't have to listen to us on the radio.
My question is, would you say that the hysteria surrounding BGH is more the same?
And what would you suggest we can do to counter it?
Well, Professor Cummings, what do you think?
I think, first of all, that the data actually coming from Monsanto in the official hearings
is public.
It certainly did clearly show that Mastaget's was a problem, particularly in the warmer regions
of the country.
The Mastaget is effective.
They're well documented.
And if newer panels are reporting that otherwise, and I question the verity or the truthfulness
of the newer panels, and I think the whole matter should go into independent investigation,
definitely, I think there is a more than a legitimate curve concerned, not only with
Mastaget and the bacteria, but with the insulin-like growth factor studies, genetic studies,
with animals indicated that the animal is subject to higher levels, both in growth,
and in the past, the hormones were suffering from decreased libido, which means that they
were becoming more passive and less sexually active.
And I think this passivity may be transmitted to the public, and they may have become too
passive to respond to the problem.
Dr. Callaway, are you becoming increasingly passive as you take all of this note again?
I'm 55.
You don't ask a 55-year-old man about passivity or libido, but again, we have this issue.
One, the data that were presented in the post-approval review, and there will be other reviews coming
up, or if anything more extensive than the pre-approval review, and one has to depend upon
one's peers to evaluate it.
I've spent some time in government, and I certainly wouldn't want my opinions to be the
rule of law, and this is why you could put together expert panels, and sometimes they
can be wrong, but it's the best judgment we have in terms of how to sort that out.
As far as things like insulin-like growth factors, I'm an endocrinologist who was on the
staff at Bayo for a long time, and one of the unfortunate things is the few people who
brought this issue up have no background in hormones.
Insulin-like growth factors in essential hormones that we need to grow and to repair wounds,
and so forth, we make very large amounts of it ourselves every day.
The amount that is in milk, whether the cow's been treated with BST or not, is very small,
and it's a protein, so I guess I just suggested, it doesn't get absorbed and it's not biologically
active, and even if it were active, it is such a, you know, it's about one hundred thousand
pounds of the amount that we would make in a day.
So this is the kind, again, the kind of thing that when you put experts together, you get
them to brainstorm, and then you get the ideas out and say, now, does this have any biological
plausibility, or is there any data at all to support it?
And there's clearly no biological plausibility to the concern about trace amounts of a hormone
that's already in the milk to begin with.
So, you know, what do you do?
There will be mistakes made, and there's certainly had been from experts in the past,
but the bad thing is that when you're dealing with a group of people who are immersed in
the field, and they can pit their ideas against each other, then if you take any one of our
ideas by itself, especially when you get outside of your area of expertise.
So, but I think, first of all, that actually point out that there is, of course, a wealth
of reputal information, and I believe in all of these experiences that such opinions
have come from qualified witnesses.
It's a lawyer's approach to suggest the credibility of others' witnesses, and I think we should
really try to focus on it.
I think it's fair.
Okay, I'm going to see if we can move on, and Mike, thanks for your call.
We have an enameled milk question here that I think is relevant.
It comes from Eden, Danaheer, and the question is, why use a genetically engineered hormone
to force cows to produce more milk?
This is wasteful, and the cows would require supplemental food sources to support increased
production.
This will have to be paid for by the farmers who would be earning less.
What is the upside of the use of the hormone?
Gentlemen, what do you say?
Well, I can call away here.
I think it's an economic and animal husbandry decision, and I don't think farmers would
use it if it's not going to be economically to their advantage as a physician and as a
consumer looking at this.
I'm impressed by the fact that if milk production can be greater with fewer animals in the
herd, there are some potential environmental benefits to this.
I obviously disagree with Joe Cummins, and I definitely disagree with this.
From what I've been reading and what I've been hearing, I do think that I think the
question that there is a goddella pain involved for the animals, that they are stressed
to an extreme at this level of production in mass-ditis.
It's just one of those effects, but that's just what I have read and understand, and we
should really have some concerns for the welfare of the animals, particularly as there's
been serious questions as to whether we really do need and use that excess production.
OK, well I want to thank you both.
We have heard from Professor Joe Cummins, who has retired Professor of Genetics for the
University of Western Ontario, and Dr. Wayne Colaway, who is with the Derrick Coalition
in Washington and a Professor of Medicine at George Washington University, and we've heard
from all of you.
For those left on the line, I apologize, but thank you for joining us.
You're talking green on the Environment Show.
You're listening to the Environment Show and I'm Peter Burling.
Still ahead.
Two hundred years ago, most forests in the northeastern United States were clear.
Today they've grown back, but in a different way.
And it's sheepsharing time.
We'll visit a sheep farm where shearing is done by hand.
These stories still ahead on the Environment Show.
The earth has changed dramatically in the past two hundred years.
Human populations have exploded and land has been cleared for settlement and agriculture.
In this country, Massachusetts was one of the first states to be cleared for human settlement.
Ancient forests were turned into farms, and sparsely populated valleys became hubs of activity.
In the central part of the state, Harvard University owns a large tract of woods where
they've carefully kept records on the forest for nearly a hundred years.
The story of the Harvard Forest reveals a hearty but heavily altered ecosystem.
As we cut down our remaining virgin forests, it's a story that may have significance to the
world over.
Environment Show producer Thomas Lalley reports.
The Harvard Forest looks like any other woods in central Massachusetts.
It's late autumn and the leaves have fallen.
We're still awaiting our first snowfall, but the ground is hard and the air is cold.
Wood like oak, maple and hickory are interspersed with pines, hemlocks and furs.
The history of these woods tell is not obvious, but if you look closely, the trees, soil,
and rocks tell a tale of violent natural disasters and extensive human activity.
David Foster is the director of the Harvard Forest.
He points to a stand of woods which were once fields and pasture for farm long since gone.
One of the things that we've come to realize by studying these forests for a long time is
that so many of the modern characteristics of the forest, both in terms of the trees,
but also just in terms of the way the soils operate, the animals and smaller plants that
you find, are determined by what happened two or three hundred years ago.
At one point, New England boasted enormous old growth forests, which were cleared for agriculture
when settlers arrived in the 1700s.
By the late 1800s, many farms were abandoned as the Industrial Revolution drew people to
cities.
The old farms grew back as pine forests, which were logged extensively till about the turn
of the century.
The new woods are mostly hardwoods.
David Foster says this pattern of disturbance and regrowth is repeated throughout the world
as nature and humans bring about change.
What happened here may offer a clue to how deforested lands elsewhere in the world will grow
back.
Well, the story of this change in landscape transformation is a phenomenal one, and it's
a very positive one in the sense that forests are incredibly resilient and have come back
in a fantastic way across this landscape.
On the other hand, it's very clear from all the evidence that we've been able to amass
that the forests today are completely unlike any of the forest that have grown on these
sites in the past.
And there's absolutely no evidence that the forest is growing back towards those original
conditions.
Foster says it takes about four to five hundred years for a forest to recover from a major
natural disturbance.
So it's not surprising that the forests in Massachusetts, which have only been growing
for a little over a hundred years, looks so different from the way they did in pre-selement
days.
John O'Keefe is the head of the Fisher Museum at the Harvard Forest.
He says the new forest is different, but still quite functional.
For much of the historical period, much of what happened was not done particularly responsibly.
The forest, despite our fairly intensive abuse has come back and responded not to be the
same forest, but to be a very beautiful, healthy forest.
And so I think it has an ability to provide both useful products and aesthetic and spiritual
benefits as well.
In these forests, it's common to come across stone walls from old farms.
You can also see trees still affected from past hurricanes.
Disturbances are a natural part of the forest.
Fifteen thousand years ago during the ice age, this part of the world was buried in more
than a half mile of ice.
David Foster says nature is resilient if given the chance.
We now have forest across 90 percent of this portion of central Massachusetts, and yet
150 years ago, most of the landscape was cleared agricultural land.
So we have a very new set of conditions that's changing very rapidly and is reverting
back to a remarkably wild state.
And yet it's not an original state.
Bill McKibben points out in his book Hope, Human and Wild, that a satellite photo of the
northeast in the 19th century would have shown a bald spot where forests once existed.
Today, the forests are back, albeit vastly different from the ones that used to be here.
McKibben calls it nature's grace.
Somehow, after decimating the forest, another one has taken its place.
McKibben sees woods like the Harvard Forest as a second chance.
For the Environment Show, I'm Thomas Lally.
And now the Earth Calendar.
We continue our series on the American Harvest, in which we celebrate the productivity of
our good land and the bounty of our environment.
It's shearing time for Lila Burley's sheep.
With 400 animals who will double their numbers come whamming time in the spring, the flock
is the largest in western Massachusetts.
Lila stands at the sorting table in the corner of a large old New England barn.
Pins of 20 to 30 sheep fill the rest of the enclosure.
A bumper hay crop is in the mouth above.
A white 9-pound fleece is spread out in front of her.
It's all in one piece and looks a lot like a sheepskin rug.
The freshly-shorned you, released by the shearer who works nearby, scampers away.
Lila separates the belly wool, picks over the fleece and comments on this year's wool harvest.
This year, all of these vans with shawnt over 200 this year already.
And they are having better fleeces than they had last year.
And if you remember last year, it was very dry.
And so the grass they were on was not as good.
And they did not grow as long fleeces this year and we have a really bumper crop of fleeces.
Shearing the sheep is Kevin Ford, who says he is the only full-time professional hand shearer
in the United States.
Unlike his counterparts who use electric clippers, the hand shearer leaves about an inch of wool
on the animal like a heavy sweater.
This means that shearing can take place at this time of year even though cold weather is
setting in.
Kevin describes the advantage of shearing now as he holds his sheep on its back between
his legs and clips him.
Well, this several advantages one is that they will be in shot with the lamb, which is
nice for the farmer and nice for the sheep.
Shears everything clean and dry and the lamb can get at the nipples without danger of sucking
some manure tags, dirty wool.
And it provides a clean of fleece because now on the sheep will be on hay and pay attention
to get into the wall and contaminate it with vegetable matter which doesn't wash out.
Shearing a sheep with hand shears is a special skill.
The six inch blades are honed with a soft Arkansas stone after each animal.
Kevin Ford learned in Ireland and honed his skills in New Zealand.
On a good day he could shear between 50 and 75 sheep at about five minutes of piece.
He takes us through the process.
Now we start with the belly, put the sheep between our legs and the brisket down to the
crotch and then the crotch area, starting with the inside of the right leg.
Let me go to the outside of the right leg, outside of the left leg and clear up to the hip
bone and then around to the dock and over the dock which is the tail and then up to the
neck blow which goes from the brisket up to the chin and then the off face which is the
face away from me left side of the head.
And then that breaks open the wool, separates the wool.
That is Kevin Ford, the nation's only full-time professional sheep shearer that uses hand
shears rather than an electric clipper.
One increasing concern about whether agriculture is sustainable.
I asked Lila Burley whether her granddaughters would be able to harvest wool and lamb on the
land as she does.
This land really is suitable for sheep.
It is not suitable for much else and the sheep, if you keep moving and raising them gently
and only enhance it, they add minerals and their waste products.
We even put our wool clips back on the land and you know the things that are not suitable
for textiles.
So it is really exciting to think that you can make almost a golf course out of a waste
land and this is what happens when you manage sheep properly on land that otherwise would
not be productive.
Lila Burley is a shepherdist and farmer in Berkshire County, Massachusetts.
Her husband is host to the environment show.
As the winter progresses you may be one of those people who puts on a synthetic fiber garment
made out of recycled plastic soda bottles.
Some people think that is good for the environment but we haven't found a soda bottle yet that
either enhances the soil or adds to the scenery when scattered around the landscape.
Thanks for being with us on this week's Environment Show.
I'm Peter Burley.
For cassette copy of the program call 1-800-323-9262 and ask for show number 361.
The Environment Show is a presentation of national productions which is solely responsible
for its content.
Dr. Alan Shartock is the executive producer, Thomas Lally is producer and Stephanie Goysman
is the associate producer.
The Environment Show is made possible by the W.A.O.P. Jones Foundation and Heming's
Moderners, the monthly Bible of the Old Car Hobby, 1-800-CAR-HRE.
So long and join us next week for the Environment Show.
