Health Issues // Contamination

Other Toxic Threats

Pesticides

Although humans do ingest some herbicides and pesticides from plant foods, scientists report that animal products are responsible for roughly 80 to 90 percent of dietary pesticide exposure, with unknown adverse effects to our health.76 Pesticides are sprayed on crops that are eventually fed to farmed animals, and like dioxins, pesticides accumulate in their bodies over time. When we eat the flesh, milk, or eggs of animals, the pesticides that they have eaten during their lives are transferred to us. Pesticides have been linked to a wide range of health problems in humans, including birth defects and cancer.77,78

Cancer

Scientists have also linked the sex hormones used in cows to deadly diseases such as cancer. A major study commissioned by the Pentagon found that Zeranol, a growth-promoting sex hormone used in cattle raised for food, causes “significant” growth of cancerous cells, even when administered at levels far below those currently considered safe by the U.S. government.79 Researchers involved in the study warned that the “consumption of food ... derived from ... animals treated with Zeranol poses a potential health risk to consumers.”80 A report by the European Union’s Scientific Committee on Veterinary Measures warns, “The hormone 17 beta-oestradiol (widely used in U.S. beef production) has to be considered as a complete carcinogen. It exerts both tumor initiating and tumor promoting effects. In plain language this means that even small additional doses of residues of this hormone in meat, arising from its use as a growth promoter in cattle, [have] an inherent risk of causing cancer.”81

It’s not difficult to conclude that eating the flesh and milk of animals treated with hormones can cause cancer because cancer—especially of the sex organs like the breasts and prostate—is often fueled by hormones. Lou Guillette, a biologist at the University of Florida, explains that it’s easy to put two and two together when it comes to hormones, meat, dairy products, and cancer: “We know that Zeranol and some of the synthetic hormones used in cattle production are estrogens, and we know that breast cancer is dependent upon estrogen.”82 Despite the clear tie between hormones used in farmed animals and cancer, farmers continue to pump animals full of hormones to keep the animals and their wallets fat.

Organic and Hormone-Free: Conning Consumers

Some health-conscious consumers have turned to organic milk and flesh because they think it’s hormone-free, but they are mistaken. Despite its label, “organic” animal products are often treated with hormones—when inspectors in the European Union randomly sampled “hormone-free” cow flesh from the U.S., they found that 12 percent of the meat had been treated with powerful hormones that are banned in Europe!83 Because pregnant cows produce hormones naturally and cows used for their milk are kept constantly pregnant, even the milk of “organic” cows is still laced with sex hormones. Learn more about the truth behind “hormone-free” and “organic” animal products.

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76 Knight Ridder, “Study Says Meat/Fish Highest Source of Dietary Toxins,” The Vancouver Province 22 Apr. 2001: A17.
77 Christine Stapleton and John Lantigua, “State Ag Unit Joins Probe of Birth Defects,” Palm Beach Post 10 Apr. 2005.
78 Nick Nuttall, “Pesticide Pollution Is Linked to Cancer,” The [London] Times 17 Dec. 1999.
79 CBS News, “Link Eyed Between Beef and Cancer,” CBS News Online 20 May 2003.
80 CBS News.
81 Robbins, The Food Revolution 143.
82 CBS News.
83 Robbins, The Food Revolution 144.