A. Hormones can be used to stimulate growth in cattle. Because farmers are paid based on
the weight of the animals they sell for slaughter, the use of hormones has been seen as a way
to boost profits.
Q. Which hormones are used on feedlots?
A. Diethylstilbestrol (DES) was one of the first hormones used to fatten feedlots. It was
banned in 1979 after forty years of evidence that DES was cancer-causing. In its place, sex
hormones, such as estradiol and progestins (synthetic forms of the naturally occurring
hormone progesterone) have been implanted to virtually all feedlot cattle. The least
hazardous way to administer hormones to animals is through an implant near the animals
ear. Unfortunately, many farmers inject hormones directly into the muscle tissue that will be
later used to make meat products. The only USDA-imposed requirement is that residue
levels in meat must be less than one percent of the daily hormone production of children.
This requirement is unenforceable because there is no USDA testing for hormone residues in
meat. Furthermore, hormonal residues are not practically differentiable from natural
hormones created by the cow's body. As a result, the use of hormones to boost meat
production is completely unregulated.
Samuel S. Epstein, M.D., Chairman, Cancer Prevention Coalition, 2121 W. Taylor Street,
M/C 922Chicago, IL 60612, [email protected]
The negative consequences of feeding meat to children were clearly shown in the early
1980s when thousands of children in Puerto Rico experienced premature sexual growth and
developed painful ovarian cysts; the culprit was meat from cattle who had been treated with
growth-promoting sex hormones. Meat-based diets are also blamed for the early sexual
development of young girls in the United States—nearly half of all black girls and 15
percent of all white girls in America now enter puberty when they are just 8 years old.
L.W. Freni-Titulaer, J.F. Cordero, L. Haddock, G. Lebron, R. Martinez, and J.L. Mills,
―Premature Thelarche in Puerto Rico. A Search for Environmental Factors,‖ American
Journal of Diseases of Children 40 (1986): 1263-1267.^ Becky Gillette,
―Premature Puberty: Is Early Sexual Development the Price of Pollution?‖ E: The
Environmental Magazine Nov. 1997.viii Magnus Hirschfeld Archive for Sexology: Erwin J. Haeberle, Ph.D., Ed.D., The Sex
Atlas, 1983, The Continuum Publishing Company, 575 Lexington Avenue, New
York, N.Y. 10022
ix SaHeeH Bukhari: 29, 304, 1052, 1462, 3241, 5197, 5198, 6449, 6546
SaHeeH Muslim: 80, 885, 907, 2737, 2738
Sunan Al-Tarmithi: 635, 2602, 2603, 2613
Sunan Al-Nasa'i: 1493, 1575
Sunan Ibn Majah: 4003
Musnad AHmad: 2087, 2706, 3364, 3376, 3559, 4009, 4027, 4111, 4140, 5321,
6574, 7891, 8645, 14386, 27562, 27567, 19336, 19351, 19415, 19425, 19480,
19484, 20743, 21729, 26508