blackfoot-valley

It behooves us to tread with extreme caution in this entire area until we know a lot more than we do now. By the 1970s, twenty countries, mostly in Europe, had banned DES. European bans on American beef are still in place (as of 2001 when this volume was written) on account of other estro- genic growth hormones now added in feedlots, although the use of DES itself has dwindled. (Even so, as recently as 1999, Switzerland, who tests for DES, rejected thousands of pounds of American beef upon finding that substance.) Regarding hormone disruptors given to livestock, Berkson has con- cluded that artificial growth hormones are the principle, though not the only culprits, involving both beef and dairy cattle, as well as hogs and poultry and the foods they produce; that these administered hormones can greatly affect human reproductive and immune systems. Also, that because these hor- mones, which are mostly estrogenic, affect the immune system, this is the major reason why today’s women have more immune problems than men. Also implicated are the most widely used commercial animal feeds, which are among the most heavily sprayed of all crops and thus contain resi- dues of pesticides, herbicides, and fungicides, which can be carcinogenic and many of which are being investigated as hormone disrupters. For example, “High Meadow summer Grazing” 179