Are Agricultural Drugs Robbing Little Girls Of their Childhood?

By Charles W. Moore

If you think of Health Canada as a friendly government watchdog protecting your family's health, think again. A more apt characterization would be: compliant stooge and mouthpiece for the chemical, drug, and agri-food industries.

A recent Canadian Press story cited allegations made to the Senate agriculture committee by Health Canada scientist Margaret Haydon, who said her superiors ignored her concerns about human-health risks associated with a proprietary hormone used to promote accelerated growth in cattle. Ms. Haydon was called to testify despite being under a Health Department gag order.

Haydon said that the Health Protection Branch approved use of the hormone Revalor-H despite evidence that it induces early puberty and abnormal growth of mammary tissue in young female calves, while male calves receiving the hormone develop "tremendously enlarged" prostate glands. In both sexes there was abnormal growth of the thymus gland which helps regulate the immune system.

Feedlot cattle are treated with natural and synthetic sex hormones to promote faster growth, to bring groups of cows into heat simultaneously for more "efficient" breeding, and to induce abortions. Some scientists and nutrition researchers believe that residues of hormones fed to cattle enter the human food supply. Suspected effects of hormonal imbalances in humans eating meat and/or drinking milk from hormone-treated cattle include obesity, infertility, precocious puberty, hypoglycemia, androgeny in both sexes (including excessive breast development in males), breast and genital tenderness, and cancer.

An American Academy of Pediatrics study of 17,077 U.S. girls by Dr. Marcia Herman-Giddens, et al., found the average age for onset of puberty is now nine, two years earlier than in the 1960s. The researchers found that 27.2% of black girls, and 6.7% of white girls begin developing breasts and growing pubic and underarm hair by age seven. In a few cases girls aged two or three have begun to mature sexually.

Current medical texts say puberty begins at between 11 and 12 years, on average, so a two-year drop in the age of onset in one generation is an alarming phenomenon. "The reason I did this study is that in my clinical practice, I was seeing a lot of young girls coming in with pubic hair and breast development," Dr. Herman-Giddens told the New York Times, "and it seemed like there were too many, too young. But I don't think any of us expected to see such a large proportion of girls developing this early,"

It has been suggested (by those presumably wishing to downplay the significance of widespread precocious puberty) that the change may be attributable to "better nutrition." However, the notion that children these days are better nourished than generations past is highly debatable. Nutrition critics argue that today's standard North American diet of heavily processed food laced with chemical additives and grown in mineral-depleted soils with the aid of artificial fertilizers and pesticides is anything but "better nutrition."

Whatever, a biological shift of this magnitude over such a minute period of time is not credible on the basis of diet alone, regardless of food quality. Increased use of growth hormones in cattle, as well as other sorts of hormone disrupting chemical pollution are more plausible culprits.

The clinical implications of early onset puberty are not trivial. Puberty is normally initiated by naturally-occurring estrogenic hormones in the bloodstream. There is strong evidence that breast cancer is also promoted by the presence of estrogens, to which women who go through early puberty have longer-than-normal exposure, and thus may be in greater danger.

Social and psychological implications of early-onset puberty are likewise pathological. Young children with mature bodies are obliged to cope with feelings, urges and differences from their peers that their psychological development is not equipped to handle.

Margaret Haydon told the Senate Committee that other scientists in her group shared her concern about Revalor-H: "None of us would recommend this drug be approved. We were overruled." Haydon said her bosses criticized her for doing too much research, writing long reports and asking too many questions.

The Canadian Press article reports that Chiv Chopra, former acting head of Health Canada's veterinary drug-approval group, testified that he received complaints about Haydon from Hoechst Canada, manufacturer of Revalor-H, whose representative accused her of "nit-picking" and wanted the hormone assessed by someone else.

Last fall, six Health Canada scientists complained of being pressured to approve drugs whose safety they questioned against their professional judgment. The Council of Canadians claims that drug companies provide 70 percent of the Health Protection Branch's financing, and have too much influence over the drug-approval process.

Last September, a Canadian Medical Association Journal article noted that secrecy at the Health Protection Branch raises suspicion about the influence drug companies exert over drug approvals.

He who pays the piper tends to call the tune, and it's apparent the primary interests Health Canada protects are other than the health of Canadians.

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