§ Lord Hyltonasked Her Majesty's Government:
Why, given the EC ban on hormone implantation and feed supplements for beef cattle, they are permitting experiments on dairy cows with bovine somatotrophin at 15 farms; why the milk produced is allowed to be sold to the general public; and what safety and health tests are being made on the milk, cows and farmworkers.
§ The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Baroness Trumpington)The EC ban applies to hormone growth promoters which are chemically and biologically very different from bovine somatotrophin (BST), and it is not based on considerations of safety. The safety of the BST products involved in the current field trials has already been established by the Veterinary Products Committee. The committee concluded that milk produced in the tests is safe, so there is therefore no reason to require it to be withheld from sale.