The Fox is On the Henhouse Transition Team?

by: Jill Richardson

Wed Nov 19, 2008 at 10:33:14 AM PST

The transition named its "team members" looking at energy and natural resources agencies, which includes USDA. The list includes Michael R. Taylor, a man who spent his career bouncing between the employ of GMO-seed giant Monsanto and Bill Clinton's FDA and USDA. Taylor is widely credited with ushering Monsanto's recombinant bovine growth hormone (rBGH) through the FDA regulatory process and into the milk supply.

Could he be the reason behind consideration of rBGH-loving Pennsylvania Secretary of Agriculture Dennis Wolff for a post at USDA? (Wolff not only attempted to ban rBGH-free labels in Pennsylvania, he has also worked to deprive communities the right to ban toxic sewage sludge, factory farms, and GMOs.)

Tom Philpott: Cow Hormones as Fish Food?

by: Jill Richardson

Thu Aug 21, 2008 at 08:00:00 AM PDT

And what do you know? The experiment established a nifty new use for rBGH even as it's being hounded out of the dairy market by concerned consumers. Turns out that feeding genetically modified cow hormones to fish makes them grow really big, really fast: They balloon to "nearly twice the size of control fish in four weeks." The FDA has yet to approve rBGH as a fish feed. But given the way that agency has waved the agri-biotech industry's creations onto the nation's dinner plates with minimal testing, it's hard to imagine this novelty encountering much resistance.

He also wrote about the sale of rBGH to Eli Lilly yesterday. I heart Tom Philpott.