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Got Pus?:
Bovine Growth Hormone, Note:
The information on this website is presented for educational purposes
only.
What Can We Do? There is a growing movement to fight the use of rBGH. One way to hammer the final nails into rBGH's coffin is to force New York City public schools, which buy 750,000 half pint containers of milk each day, to buy milk only from companies that do not use rBGH treated cows. 1) Call the NYC Board of Education today: (718) 729 6100. Demand that the Board purchase milk and other dairy products only from companies that sign a contract not to use rBGH milk. (You might add that you want all milk purchases to be “organic” as well.) You can also write to: Mr. Kevin Gill, Office of School Food and Nutrition Services, 44 36 Vernon Blvd., Long Island City, NY 11101. Boycott School Milk and all rBGH derived dairy products. In New York City, the Brooklyn Greens and Manhattan Greens distributed more than 9,000 brochures to parents coming to pick up their kids at public schools, who then flooded the Board of Ed bureaucrats with phone calls and letters. The same can be done anywhere; it is an excellent way of getting out there and mobilizing a huge grassroots constituency. That is an effort easily overlooked by many non profit organizations who are often so intent on being invited to a seat at the with policy makers that they lose sight of building the alternative power base needed to force through changes. People are outraged that their kids are being used as guinea pigs, that there never was any long range testing, that rBGH milk is unlabeled, and that there's no need for rBGH to begin with; they are beginning to raise a ruckus. It's important that boycotts not be passive. Parents cannot just say, “I won't let MY kids drink the milk.” For one, rBGH induced hormones are also at higher levels in ice cream, cheese, and other dairy products. For another, ALL kids are being affected. We have to force a change in policy. One way, which we are now about to implement in New York City, is to encourage high school kids to set up direct action environmental organizations in their schools and then link those schools with each other, take them to candidates' forums, and raise hell. The point is to turn individual concern over what one is putting in their body into _political_ concern for what is being produced and how to stop it -- that is, turning individual concern into a mass movement. 2) Call the Green Party's rBGH toll free hotline for the latest updates and activities: 1 888 NY4 GREENS. Learn the Facts. Become a Green activist. Help distribute brochures in your school, around your neighborhood and in front of local stores. Invite us to speak at your meetings. Spanish language pamphlets and speakers also available. 3) Support legislation banning rBGH dairy products. NY City Council Intro #766 would prohibit city agencies from purchasing from companies that use rBGH in milk. Resolution #1605 calls on the Board of Education to purchase only rBGH free milk. Both have been prevented from coming to a vote by the Democratic Party controlled City Council, under the leadership of Peter Vallone who is now running for Mayor in the Democratic primary after having lost the previous election for governor. Perhaps it is not so unexpected to learn that Vallone's prior campaign accepted money from the Monsanto Corporation -- an “investment” that, for Monsanto, has paid dividends in New York City. Democrats and Republicans are united in blocking similar legislation in the State Assembly and Senate. 4) Support NY State Assembly bill A.2668 requiring mandatory labeling of all dairy products derived from rBGH cows, and certification and inspection of all dairy herds. The label should state: “Contains milk from cows treated with genetically engineered bovine growth hormone.” Demand mandatory labeling of all dairy products derived from rBGH cows. Fight for legislation banning rBGH dairy products and all genetically engineered foods. 5) Throw the bums out of office. But our fight cannot be limited to the electoral arena or we'll lose. We need to leaflet stores and target them for more militant action if they continue to stock dairy products derived from rBGH cows. If they don't respond, organize picket lines at the stores. Make “No rBGH” part of the powerful unionization campaign of immigrant workers now underway at local markets. (Leaflet the WORKERS on the picket lines, too!) 6) Bring up this issue at every opportunity. Circulate petitions against rBGH at PTA and Community School Board meetings. Get your friends to carry them in school and around the neighborhood. Confront candidates as they run for elected office. (The upcoming Senate campaign in New York provides an excellent opportunity for this type of “issue raising”. In New York City, Save Organic Standards has begun a “Healthy Schools” campaign centered around eliminating genetically engineered milk and other foods from schools. <SOSNY@mindspring.com> 7) Every college has some connection to pharmaceutical corporations and biotechnological research and development. Organize campaigns on your campus against them, as well as against such facilities as the former Audubon Ballroom, across from Columbia Presbyterian Hospital -- New York's newest and one of its most dangerous centers for genetic experimentation -- and the genetically based National Violence Initiative Project, which is headquartered at the hospital and University. Demand an end to patents on life: Eliminating patents takes the profits out of genetic engineering. We'll then see which scientists will continue to do their “research” on behalf of the public good and not suck at the udders of Washington cash cows injected with genetically engineered hormones. Pharmaceutical corporations and biotechnological research and development facilities provide sitting targets, just as ROTC buildings and Department of Defense research and recruitment once did. Every college now has some connection to them. We need to begin a similar campaign against the privatization of our universities and colleges, and especially against their collaboration with pharmaceutical and biotech corporations. 8) Hold contests for the best parody of the “Got Milk?” advertisements. Put up posters and “improve” existing ones. Organize your building, school, workplace and neighborhood. 9) We are now launching this campaign throughout New York City. The Greens are in need of funds, so please send what you can. For more information, additional copies of this brochure, in depth fact sheets, lists of companies pledging (or refusing to pledge) to be rBGH free, and public speakers, write to NY State Greens/Green Party: c/o Afrime Derti, 755 Washington Ave. #503, Brooklyn NY 11238; or to Andy Zimmerman, at turtle@westnet.com. Remember: In every danger there also resides opportunity, if only we learn to look for it and develop it correctly. The issue of rBGH in milk is so straightforward that it is an ideal place from which to launch a much greater campaign against the genetic engineering of foods, vaccines and medicines, privatization of knowledge through “intellectual property rights,” patenting of synthesized genetic sequences for private profit, the consolidation and concentration of farmland, who controls our food?, mistreatment of animals, the growing domination by corporations and, in general, the system of exploitation that rules our lives. For More Information about rBGH: ActionGreens: c/o Mitchel Cohen, 2652 Cropsey Avenue, #7H, Brooklyn, NY 11214, mitchelcohen@mindspring.com. North East Resistance Against Genetic Engineering (NERAGE): nerage@sover.net. Campaign for Safe Food: c/o Ronnie Cummins, 860 Highway 61, Little Morais, MN 55614. (218) 226 4155; alliance@mr.net; http://www.purefood.org. Save Organic Standards (SOS): 638 E. 6th St., NYC 10009. (212) 529 9720; sos ny@mindspring.com. Mothers & Others for a Livable Planet: 40 West 20th St., 9th floor, NYC 10011, (212) 242 0010. Consumer Policy Institute, Consumers Union: Att: Michael Hansen, PO Box 2015, Yonkers, NY 10703, (914) 378 2000; hansmi@consumer.org. Food & Water: RR 1, Box 68D, Walden, VT 05873, 1 800 EAT SAFE; foodandwater@igc.apc.org; Fax: (802) 563 3310. foodandwater@igc.apc.org. Just Food, & Green Guerrillas: 625 Broadway, #9C, NYC 10012. (212) 674 8124. Council for Responsible Genetics: 5 Upland Rd., Suite 3, Cambridge, MA 02140. (617) 868 0870; crg@esential.org; http://www.essential.org/crg. The Edmonds Institute: c/o Beth Burrows, 20319 92nd Ave. West, Edmonds, WA 98020, (425) 775 5383; fax: (425) 670 8410; (206) 670 8410; beb@igc.apc.org. Greens/Green Party USA: PO Box 1134, Lawrence, MA 01842 [there will be a new Chicago national office for GPUSA beginning in September 2001], (978) 682 4353; gpusa@igc.apc.org, www.greens.org. RAFI: Rural Advancement Foundation International: 110 Osborne St., Suite 202, Winnipeg, Manitoba R3L 1Y5 Canada. (204) 453 5259; rafi@rafi.org Rachel's Environment & Health Weekly: c/o Environmental Research Foundation, PO Box 5036, Annapolis, MD 21403, erf@rachel.clark.net. The Humane Farming Association: PO Box 3577, San Rafael, CA 94912. Greenpeace/Toxic Trade Update: 1436 U St. NW, Washington, DC 20009. Student Environmental Action Coalition: PO Box 1168, Chapel Hill, NC 27514 1168. The Ram's Horn: PO Box 3028, Mission, British Columbia V2V 4J3 Canada. (604) 820 4270; kneen@web.net. Women's Environmental Network, 87 Worship St., London EC2A 2BE, England. (44) 171 247 3327; WENUK@gn.apc.org. See also “Genetically Engineering the New World Order,” by Mitchel Cohen, an indepth analysis of genetic engineering, the World Bank/IMF and the new colonialism; and articles by Robert Lederman on Eugenics, posted to the archives of sprayno@yahoogroups.com. And, pick up a copy of “Redesigning Life: The Worldwide Challenge to Genetic Engineering”, edited by Brian Tokar and published by Zec Press, distributed in the US by St. Martin's, where all of these arguments are developed in full detail. |
